CNN –
[Breaking news update, published at 4:40 p.m. ET]
The gunman who carried out the Parkland school shooting was formally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday, after a jury last month recommended life in prison instead of the term of death, angering many of the families of the 17 people he killed. .
[Original story, published at 3:07 p.m. ET]
The gunman who killed 17 people at a South Florida high school in 2018 is expected to be sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, bringing to a close an agonizing months-long trial in which a jury refused to recommend a death penalty.
Nikolas Cruz, 24, faces more of his victims in court for the first time before Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer formally imposed the recommended sentence last month, an outcome that disappointed and angered many relatives of those he killed, a sentiment many expressed in their victim impact testimony. this week.
“It’s heartbreaking how anyone who heard and saw all of this didn’t give this killer the worst possible punishment,” Annika Dworet, the mother of 17-year-old victim Nicholas Dworet, said Wednesday. “As we all know, the worst punishment in the state of Florida is the death penalty. How bad would the crime have to be to warrant the death penalty?”
Wednesday marked the second day of victim impact testimony, following an earlier round Tuesday, when many of the victims’ relatives and some of the shooting survivors confronted Cruz, who pleaded guilty last year past of 17 charges of murder and 17 of attempted murder for the massacre. at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Despite America’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence, it remains the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in the United States.
LIVE UPDATES: Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to be formally sentenced
Others who testified Wednesday spoke of their anguish over the shooting, including Lori Alhadeff, who said she went to the medical examiner’s office to see the body of her 14-year-old daughter Alyssa and touching the places where the gunman had shot him. hoping to bring her back to life.
“You robbed Alyssa of a lifetime of memories,” he told the gunman. “Alyssa will never graduate high school. Alyssa will never go to college, and Alyssa will never play soccer. She will never get married and never have a baby.”
“My hope for you is that you are miserable for the rest of your pathetic life,” added Lori Alhadeff. “My hope for you is that the pain of what you did to my family burns and traumatizes you every day.”
The state sought the death penalty, and so Cruz’s trial moved to the sentencing phase, in which a jury was tasked with hearing prosecutors and defense attorneys argue why they believed he should be killed or not.
The prosecution argued, in part, that the shooting was particularly heinous, atrocious or cruel and was premeditated and calculated. The defense, which asked for a life sentence, pointed to the shooter’s mental or intellectual deficits, which they say stemmed from prenatal exposure to alcohol.
Three jurors were persuaded to vote for life, sparing Cruz a death sentence, which in Florida a jury must unanimously recommend. Scherer must follow the jury’s recommendation of life without parole, according to state law.
Throughout testimony this week, the gunman remained emotionless, wearing a red prison jumpsuit and glasses. He was also wearing a medical mask, although he took it off Wednesday after Jennifer Guttenberg, the mother of 14-year-old victim Jaime, told him it was disrespectful.
“You shouldn’t be sitting there with a mask on your face. It’s disrespectful to hide your expressions under your mask when we, the families, are sitting here talking to you,” she said during her testimony. “Down in your seat. Crouching down trying to make you look innocent, when you’re not, because you admitted what you did. And everybody knows what you did.”
The gunman then took off his mask, but his facial expression did not change.
Of those killed, 14 were students and three were staff members who died running toward danger or trying to help students to safety.
The students killed were: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14 years old; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Jaime Guttenberg, 14 years; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17 years old; Alaina Petty, 14; Abadejo del Prat, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 15 years old.
Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35; wrestling coach Chris Hixon, 49; and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 37, were also killed.
The life sentence fell short of what many of Cruz’s injured and the families of those he killed wanted. Some said in testimony this week that the jury gave more weight to his life than the lives of the 17 dead.
“It’s very, very sad. I miss my boy,” Max Schachter, Alex Schachter’s father, told CNN Wednesday before the sentencing. “It’s not right that the worst high school shooter in the history of the United States basically gets what he wants,” he said, referring to Cruz’s life sentence.
Samantha Fuentes, one of the shooting survivors, confronted Cruz on Wednesday and admitted she was “angry” about his conviction. But unlike him, she said: “I will never take out my anger, my pain and my suffering on others because I am stronger than you. This whole community behind me is stronger than you.”
Fuentes reminded Cruz that they walked the same halls and were even in JROTC together.
“We were still kids then,” he said. “I was still a kid when I saw you standing at the window, looking into my Holocaust studies class, holding your AR-15 that had swastikas, ironically, scratched on it. I was still a kid after I saw you kill two of my friends. I was still a child when you shot me with your gun.”
Another student, Victoria Gonzalez, Joaquín Oliver’s girlfriend, similarly reminded the gunman that they too had shared a class together, recalling how the teacher would go around the classroom every day asking students for an answer to their homework to make sure that each student had done. Every day, he said, he hoped Cruz would have his, for his sake.
“I was quietly supporting you at my desk. You had no idea who I was and I was supporting you,” Gonzalez said. “Because I felt that you needed someone or that you needed something. And I could feel that.”
But Joaquín’s killing has made it difficult for Gonzalez to make friends, get close to others, he said, and allow others to love him the way he did.
“I’d like you to meet Joaquin,” he said. “Because I would have been your friend. I would have reached out to you.”
It is still unclear what Cruz’s future will look like. He is likely to be in Broward County custody before being turned over to the Florida Department of Corrections and taken to one of several shelters around the state.
There, Cruz will spend weeks undergoing physical and mental exams, Florida criminal defense attorney Janet Johnson told CNN. “They’re going to look at his record, they’re going to look at the level of offense he’s convicted of, which is obviously the highest, and they’re going to recommend a facility somewhere in the state,” he said.
Which facility is determined by factors including the seriousness of the crime, the length of the sentence and the inmate’s prior criminal record, according to the Florida State Department of Corrections website. Typically, those convicted of the most serious crimes or with the longest sentences are placed in the most secure facilities, the website says.
Because Cruz is a high-risk offender, he will likely be placed in a prison with other high-profile or “very dangerous” criminals, Johnson said.
“But he wouldn’t be in isolation, which of course is a real threat to him because there may be people who want to do ‘justice in prison’, who didn’t feel the sentence he got in court was enough.” , Johnson. added
The corrections department did not respond to CNN’s question about what kind of mental health treatment Cruz may receive while in prison. During the trial, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office released more than 30 pages of Cruz’s writings and drawings that revealed disturbing thoughts he had while in custody that focused on guns, blood and death.
On one page, Cruz wrote that he wanted to go to death row, while on another he told his family that he was sad and expected to die of a heart attack by taking painkillers and eating extremely.
For the victims and their families, the end of the gunman’s trial simply marks the end of a chapter in a lifelong journey of grief.
“I want to put this behind me,” Max Schachter told CNN on Wednesday. “I will go to court today. He will be sentenced to life in prison and I will never think about this killer again.”