John T. Earnest

On December 5, the court announced a trial date of June 2, 2020. This date may change pending a decision by the San Diego County District Attorney's office on whether to seek the death penalty. Prosecutors have scheduled a press conference to discuss trial details on March 5. It was later announced that San Diego County District Attorney's office is currently seeking the death penalty for John Earnest.

The Poway synagogue shooting occurred on April 27, 2019, when a gunman armed with an AR-15 style rifle fired shots inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, a city approximately 20 miles (32 km) north of San Diego. The attack took place on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday, which fell on a Shabbat. One woman was killed and three other people were injured, including the synagogue's rabbi. After fleeing the scene, the alleged gunman phoned 9-1-1 and reported the shooting. He was apprehended in his car approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the synagogue by a San Diego police officer.

Earnest was a member of the Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is affiliated with the theologically traditionalist Orthodox Presbyterian Church. According to The Washington Post, the shooter's manifesto, which expressed Christian motivations for killing Jews, led to a social media debate among Christian pastors. Rev. Duke Kwon of the Presbyterian Church in America said that the manifesto contains "a frighteningly clear articulation of Christian theology" on certain issues such as salvation, and warned that "There’s a deep and ugly history of anti-Semitism that’s crept into the Christian church, that needs to be continuously addressed, condemned and corrected." Other ministers strongly denied that Christian theology and scripture offer any support for antisemitism. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church issued a statement that "[a]nti-Semitism and racist hatred which apparently motivated the shooter . . . have no place within our system of doctrine." In the alleged shooter's manifesto, he denied that he had learned antisemitic beliefs from his family.

On April 30, 2019, Earnest was charged in San Diego County Superior Court with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. All four charges included "hate-crime and gun allegations" that can incur heavier penalties upon conviction. The murder charge includes a "special circumstance" that Earnest intentionally killed his victim (Gilbert-Kaye) because of her religion, which could incur the death penalty under California law. Earnest pleaded not guilty to all the charges. A criminal complaint was also filed charging Earnest with arson of a house of worship, a reference to the March arson attempt against a mosque in Escondido. Earnest was ordered held without bail. A trial readiness hearing was scheduled for May 30 and a preliminary hearing for July 8.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department identified the suspect as John Timothy Earnest (born June 8, 1999), a 19-year-old male from the San Diego suburb of Rancho Peñasquitos. He was a 2017 graduate of Mt. Carmel High School and a nursing school student at California State University San Marcos. Officials said he had no previous criminal record or contacts with police, and no known connection to any white supremacist group. The shooter apparently attempted to livestream the shooting on Facebook, but failed.

In an antisemitic and racist open letter posted on 8chan shortly before the shooting and signed with Earnest's name, the author blamed Jews for the "meticulously planned genocide of the European race", a white genocide conspiracy theory. He cited shooters Brenton Harrison Tarrant and Robert Bowers for their involvement in respectively the Christchurch mosque shootings and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, as well as Jesus, Paul the Apostle, Martin Luther, Adolf Hitler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Moon Man and Pink Guy for being the figures who inspired him to commit the Poway shooting as well as a joking mention of PewDiePie and referencing "The Day of the Rope" an event from William Luther Pierce's neo-Nazi novel The Turner Diaries (1978) in which Jews, non-whites and liberals are executed including racial slurs targeting African Americans and Hispanics and urged more violent attacks while avoiding arrest. He condemned President Donald Trump as a pro-Zionist traitor. He also justified his actions by including Bible quotes in his manifesto. The author also claimed responsibility for the March 2019 Escondido mosque fire, about 15 miles (24 km) from Poway. That arson attempt was extinguished with only minor damage to the building and no injuries; graffiti left in the parking lot made reference to the earlier Christchurch shooting.