WASECA — On her way into the Waseca McDonald’s for lunch Friday, Beth Peterson paused at a newspaper vending rack.

A couple of hours earlier a Rochester jury had sentenced Michael Zabawa to life in prison for the 2007 farmhouse shooting deaths of two Wasecans.

Peterson, who had already heard the news, gazed at the newspaper’s previous-day trial headline linking Zabawa to the murder scene through blood evidence.

Like most Wasecans, she figured the guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion.

Also like most Wasecans, her thoughts have been with the surviving victim, wife and mother Hilary Kruger who was severely wounded, and her youngest son, Zak, who was staying overnight at a friend’s house the night his father, Tracy, and 13-year-old brother, Alec, were slain.

“That poor woman,” Peterson said. “But she’s got people who care about her, so good luck to her.”

With the end of the two-week trial, the prevailing sentiment in town seems to be that it was unfortunate it had to come to that at all, and that it had to take so long to arrive.

“I’m sure that for the family and close friends it’s been agonizing,” Waseca Junior High School Principal Bill Bunkers said. “But they (the court system) did a pretty nice job of keeping the trial on task and on track.”

Wasecan Glen Grams, whose son drove snowmobiles with Tracy Kruger, said he wasn’t surprised by the jury’s rapid verdict.

“It didn’t take them long, and I didn’t think it would, especially when (Zabawa) kept changing his story.”

Dora Oney said she felt relieved.

“I thought they’d have a hung jury, just because of the way these things usually go. It shouldn’t have gone to trial, but it’s best that it did.”

Waseca school social worker April Moen Johnson said there is a palpable feeling of relief in the community that justice has finally been served.

“It kind of feels like we can exhale how,” said Johnson, who has helped students and friends of Alec Kruger deal with the tragedy.

“Kids are amazingly resilient. They deal with a friend’s death in a non-orderly fashion. With adults, there’s shock, then sadness, then anger. But kids’ grief is not tidy like that.”

As the trial progressed, Johnson said she observed two distinct psychological protocols among townspeople:

“Either people wanted to know about it, or they didn’t want to know about it all.”

A photo of Alec still hangs on his junior high locker, and Bunkers said it will remain there until his class graduates from high school.

The locker also will remain empty unless Alec’s brother Zak, who will enter junior high next fall, chooses to use it.

But even though the trial has ended and guilt has been assessed, one question still nags, said a man in the Waseca public library.

“Everybody wants closure on the deal. Everyone knew he was guilty,” he said.

“But it just doesn’t add up. What was his motivation? Why?”