An Urbana man accused of causing a crash that killed three Chinese graduate students near Springfield was convicted Tuesday of three counts of vehicular homicide.

After 12 days of testimony, a Clark County Common Pleas Court jury deliberated for just longer than two hours before finding Jason Skaggs, 36, guilty. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated vehicular assault. He faces up to 34 years in prison.

The Urbana University students were killed March 8th, 2007, when Skaggs' sport utility vehicle hit another SUV, went airborne and caused a nine-vehicle accident at a traffic light, according to the State Highway Patrol. The students had been returning to Urbana's campus from a shopping trip.

Killed were 27-year-old driver Jin Bian and 24-year-olds Bing Xue and Yan Sun, who were in the back seat. All three students were pursuing master's degrees in business administration.

Two others were seriously injured in the pileup.

Clark County Prosecutor Stephen Schumaker said he was pleased with the verdict, which followed more than three hours of closing arguments.

Schumaker said family members of all three students attended the trial from China and watched proceedings from a conference room with an interpreter present. Jurors met with the five family members after the verdict was delivered.

Despite having confidence in the verdict, many jurors were left with a feeling of emptiness for the victims' families, juror Cory Guittar said.

"No matter what we did, it doesn't make anything right," he said.

Another juror, Shirley Settles, said jurors wanted to meet the relatives to give them a better picture of Americans.

During the trial, Schumaker said Skaggs was traveling nearly 100 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone when the accident occurred.

He was under stress from personal and financial difficulties, in a fit of rage over another driver using a cell phone, and dissatisfied over sandwiches he had bought at a fast-food restaurant because they weren't prepared as he had ordered them, Schumaker said.

Defense attorney James Marshall said Skaggs is an epileptic who blacked out from a seizure before the crash and didn't regain his cognitive abilities until afterward.

Schumaker said Skaggs had been maneuvering his car in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed prior to the crash. Marshall denied that Skaggs was driving erratically.