INDIANAPOLIS -- Desmond Turner will be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole after he was convicted Thursday in the murders of seven family members in a home on Indianapolis' east side in 2006, the largest mass murder in the city's history, a judge said.

Judge Robert Altice said that will be the outcome, but the official sentence won't be rendered until Nov. 20, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

More: Uncut Court Reaction, Trial Highlights
Video: Families React

Altice said the brutality of the shootings of the three children at 560 N. Hamilton Ave. on June 1, 2006, were three of six aggravators he used to determine Turner's fate.

"If the judge thought there was residual doubt, he wouldn't have found him guilty of all 23 counts," said Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi. "So now, this monster will spend the rest of his life behind bars, which is where he belongs."

In a surprise move, the defense declined to call witnesses in the penalty phase of the trial.

"The case is about our client being innocent. That's what this case is about," said Brent Westerfield, one of Turner's attorneys. "The people who committed this crime are not in that courtroom."

The victims' family felt some sense of solace, but said they will never be the same.

"It's not going to make it better for me to go to sleep at night," said Marion Albarran. "My family was everything, and they're still not here. It's not going to bring them back."

Altice deliberated for about an hour Thursday afternoon at the close of the nearly two-week-long trial and found Turner, 31, guilty on all charges. While the prosecution lacked DNA evidence directly linking Turner to the killings of seven members of the Covarrubias and Valdez families, several neighbors and acquaintances testified that Turner had talked repeatedly about robbing the family.

Turner shot four adults and three children while looking for a safe full of money and drugs, but there was no such safe.

"There was no DNA evidence. However, what we put together was a very compelling circumstantial case, and that's what we said the entire time," Brizzi said.

Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty for Turner until last month, when they announced a deal to drop it in exchange for Turner waiving his right to a jury trial.

James Stewart is scheduled to go to trial in the same slayings on Dec. 7.