FORT LAUDERDALE — Tuesday marks the 10th day of the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.
For two weeks, jurors have heard testimony from teachers and students who survived the shooting; from medical examiners who performed the victims’ autopsies; and from others, like an Uber driver and a gun-shop owner, who spoke of their interactions with the gunman.
The 12-person jury will recommend whether Cruz, then 19 and now 23, is put to death or sentenced to life in prison without parole. If it recommends death, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will make the final ruling, likely sometime this will fall.
Follow along for live coverage of Tuesday’s hearing.
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Regrets haunt family of 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg
Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, told jurors that he ushered his children out of the front door on Feb. 14, 2018. “You’ve got to go. You’re going to be late,” I have told Jaime. It was the last thing he said to her.
Jaime’s father shared something with jurors he said he hasn’t spoken about publicly before.
“My son wishes it was him,” he said of Jaime’s brother, Jessie. “He struggles with the reality that he could n’t save his sister from him, and he wishes it was him.”
Jessie called his father as Cruz began shooting on the third floor of the freshman building, Guttenberg has said in previous interviews. The two spoke to one another over the phone as the gunshots rang out above him, where Jaime died.
“I was the one who convinced him to run, to not turn around, to not go into the building,” he continued.
His are used to be Guttenberg’s “mini me,” but their relationship is different now.
“He’s angry at what happened,” his father said. “He’s angry at me for convincing him to run.”
Jaime’s mother spoke next and said the pain of losing her daughter is “unbearable.” There are days that the sadness is so overwhelming that it wracks her with physical pain.
It hurts to watch her daughter’s friends achieve milestones Jaime never will, she said. She leaves an empty seat out for her daughter de ella at all their family gatherings, and its effect on the family is immediate: guilt, and a deafening silence.
“I lost my daughter. My flesh and blood,” Jennifer Guttenberg said. “In an instant, she was gone.”
She won’t allow herself to eat her daughter’s favorite food or watch Florida Gator football games on TV. It isn’t fair that she can if Jaime can’t, she said.
The mother of Meadow Pollack told jurors that to articulate the pain she feels “would be for me to rip my heart out and present it to you, shattered into a million pieces.”
Thoughts of her daughter’s murder consume her every day.
“It is an unspeakable punishment,” she said.
Family shares memories of Luke Hoyer before his murder
Gena Hoyer, the mother of 15-year-old Luke Hoyer (“Lukey Bear” to his family), showed jurors a photo of her son, who Cruz killed in the first-floor hall of the freshman building. In it, he’s got a curly mop of dark hair and a smile.
“I was so lucky to be his mom,” she said.
As a 5-year-old boy, Luke would wipe his mother’s kiss from his cheek when she tucked him in at night, then call her back into his room and ask that she kiss him again, Gena Hoyer said. Ella she’d return, sometimes five times a night, to give him that kiss.
Luke was thoughtful, she added. If there was enough ice cream left in the freezer for only one person, he’d ask if she wanted it first. He’d turn the channel to ESPN in the morning before school, but only after he checked that no one else minded.
His sister, Abby Hoyer, spoke next.
“Coming home to a shrine of my dead brother is not normal,” she said. Neither is setting out an empty chair at the dinner table for him, or finding his ashes in her mother’s closet de ella. “None of this is normal.”
People tell the Hoyers to cherish their memories of Luke, Abby said, but those memories are painful. Each is accompanied by the realization that she’ll never share another moment with her brother de ella.
Luke’s father told jurors that he became numb after his son’s murder, but now he just feels resigned. He’ll never again get to argue with Luke about mowing the lawn, or take him to a sports bar to eat chicken wings and watch the game. He’ll never get over his death from him, either.
“The nevers just keep piling up,” he said.
Teen victims’ parents address jurors
Alyssa Alhadeff’s mother, Lori, spoke directly to jurors. Grief doesn’t adequately describe what she’s felt since her 14-year-old daughter was killed, she said. It’s more like their hearts have been “ripped out and stabbed,” added her husband, Ilan Marc Alhadeff.
Picture frames, scrapbooks and photo albums meant to capture Alyssa’s young adulthood remain empty in the Alhadeff home – a reminder of what’s been taken from them. Lori Alhadeff would have taken her daughter’s place from her if she could.
Alyssa should be in her sophomore year of college now, her father said. Instead, her mother decorates her grave. She sleeps with Alyssa’s blankets and sprays her daughter’s perfume.
“This is not normal,” Ilan Marc Alhadeff said. “Inside, I burn like a damn hell.”
Alyssa’s grandmother said she remembers the teen girl bounding down the stairs: “What’s there to eat?” she’d ask. “I’m hungry.”
The 14-year-old was a bright star and an unflinching player on the soccer field, her grandmother said. The effect of her death from her is “unimaginable.”
The mother and father of 17-year-old Nicholas Dworet took the stand after. A prosecutor held up a photo of their sons and showed jurors. “That’s our baby,” his father said.
Nicholas was the captain of the Stoneman Douglas swim team and a voracious eater, his mother said. His parents of him found an empty stash of Oreo packages in his closet of him following his death of him.
On the wall next to his bed, he taped a note: “I want to become a Swedish Olympian and go to Tokyo 2020 to compete for my country,” it said. “I will give all I have in my mind and my body to achieve the goals I have set.”
“Even on the hardest days, I swear to give it my all, and I will let nothing stand in my way,” the 17-year-old wrote. “Train harder.”
Cruz killed him in his Holocaust history class. He’d committed to attend the University of Indianapolis earlier that month.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her from her at [email protected].
www.palmbeachpost.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism