Apr 06, 2015 04:38 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A judge hearing the triple homicide case against Craig Hicks, 46, has allowed the death penalty as a possible punishment.

According to Reuters, prosecutors in the Durham County District Attorney's Office detailed their arguments at a hearing Monday. Hicks was indicted on three counts of murder in the shooting and killing of three young Muslim college students at an apartment complex in Chapel Hill, N.C. on Feb. 10.

"First-degree murder is the highest crime you can be convicted of and that is our focus," District Attorney Roger Echols said at the hearing.

In coordination with the FBI, local law enforcement is still investigating Hicks' motive, trying to determine if he knowingly committed a hate crime. Hicks' defense is likely to argue the incident was over a parking spot dispute, compounded by poor mental health.

WRAL reported obtaining a search warrant from the Chapel Hill Police that Deah Barakat, a 23-year-old dentistry student at the University of North Carolina (UNC), was shot in the head near the entrance to the apartment. His wife and an incoming UNC student, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan, a 19-year-old student at North Carolina State University, were found shot to death in the kitchen.

The police found eight shell casings at the scene. A neighbor to the young Muslim students, Hicks turned himself in to the police the night of the shooting. Multiple publications have reported Hicks has being over-intense about self-enforcing the apartment complex's parking rules.

However, his Facebook page suggested he was a strongly opinionated atheist and contained several posts openly mocking organized religions such as Christianity and Islam. Other neighbors also told multiple news outlets Hicks often carries around his pistol in its holster.

The Raleigh News and Observer noted Hicks is currently being held in isolation at Raleigh's Central Prison.

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