Pittsburgh sentencing begins
Their mother recorded a message saying, "A big part of me died on October 27, 2018. I woke up with two loving boys and went to bed with only memories."
(PITTSBURGH JEWISH CHRONICLE) – On Monday, the first day of the sentencing phase of the synagogue shooter’s trial, the jury heard about four of those who were murdered during Shabbat services in the Tree of Life building.
Richard Gottfried and his sister Carol Black enjoyed going to the University of Pittsburgh football games together. Margaret “Peg” Durachko spoke of Gottfried’s love of wine, his dental patients who travelled across state lines to see him, and his life’s motto: “We’re going to do this while we can.”
Diane Rosenthal told of her brothers, Cecil and David, and their love of the family. Their mother recorded a message saying, “A big part of me died on October 27, 2018. I woke up with two loving boys and went to bed with only memories.”
Jodi Kart found a card her father, Mel Wax, bought for her birthday when she went to clean out his apartment after his murder. It was signed, “I love you very much.”
In testimony that was at times dramatic, witnesses described the lives of their loved ones murdered in the Tree of Life building. In turns mundane, humorous and sad, the jury learned in vignettes and photos of the void left by the deaths of the victims and the struggles endured since the shooting.
US District Judge Robert Colville spent the first 45 minutes of the day instructing the jury on what they would hear during this phase of the trial and how they should determine whether the shooter should be sentenced to death.
A federal life sentence, he explained, offered no opportunity for parole. He said it was up to each juror to decide individually if the convicted murderer deserved the death penalty.
In her opening statement, Assistant United States Attorney Nicole Vasquez Schmitt noted that the defendant had decided to kill “again and again and again”, 11 times in total.
“He wanted to kill Jews,” she said. “He hated Jews. He wanted to kill as many as he could.”
She said that the jury had found him guilty, found him eligible for the death penalty, and now, it was time to hold him accountable for his crimes.
Defence attorney Elisa Long said the jurors had a moral decision to make – if “a fellow human being, a citizen, should live or die”.
Long told the jurors the defence would “ask each of you to look deep in your heart and conclude enough is enough. There has already been enough death, and another won’t make things right”.
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