A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted Keron Pierre, 29, of Mattapan of murdering three people outside a house party on March 29, 2009.

The verdicts mean a mandatory sentence of life without possibility of parole.

The jury agreed with prosecutors that Pierre gunned down Shacora Gaines, Chantal Palmer, and Anthony Peoples as they sat in a car outside 41 Mt. Ida Rd. as they waited for a friend to leave a house party there.

After the murders, Pierre fled to Trinidad, where he was arrested on marijuana-possession charges. A judge there dismissed his fight against extradition back to Boston.

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, "Pierre, who was with a group of his own friends, approached the car in a bid to speak to the young women inside. They were not interested."

Instead of walking away, Pierre reached to his waist, pulled a .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun, and began firing into the car. Gaines, 20, and Peoples, 19, were killed immediately; Palmer, 20, died of her injuries at Boston Medical Center. The fourth victim, 23 at the time, was miraculously unhurt though a bullet passed through her coat, mere inches from her body."

Nigel Nichols, faces his own trial on a charge of being an accessory after the fact to the murders for allegedly driving Pierre away from the scene.