 Calley was charged on September 5, 1969, with six specifications of premeditated murder for the deaths of 109 South Vietnamese civilians near the village of Sơn Mỹ, at a hamlet called My Lai, called simply "My Lai" in the U.S. press.As many as 500 villagers — mostly women, children, infants, and the elderly — had been systematically killed by U.S. soldiers during a bloody rampage on March 16, 1968.Upon conviction, Calley could have faced the death penalty.