Roses introduced to honor love on that Valentine’s Day in 2018 lay withered, their dried and cracked petals scattered throughout classroom flooring nonetheless smeared with the blood of victims gunned down by a former pupil greater than 4 years in the past.
Bullet holes pocked partitions, and shards of glass from home windows shattered by gunfire crunched underfoot at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the place shooter Nikolas Cruz killed 14 college students and three workers members. Nothing had been modified, apart from the elimination of the victims’ our bodies and some private gadgets.
Twelve jurors and 10 alternates who will resolve whether or not Cruz will get the loss of life penalty or life in jail made a uncommon visit to the massacre scene Thursday, retracing Cruz’s steps by means of the three-story freshman constructing, referred to as “Building 12.” After they left, a bunch of journalists — together with CBS Miami’s Joan Murray — was allowed in for a a lot faster first public view.
“It was really frozen in time,” Murray mentioned.
Amy Beth Bennett / AP
The sight was deeply unsettling: Large swimming pools of dried blood nonetheless stained classroom flooring. A lock of darkish hair rested on the ground the place one of the victims’ our bodies as soon as lay. A single black rubber shoe was in a hallway. Browned rose petals had been strewn throughout a hallway the place six folks died.
In classroom after classroom, open notebooks displayed uncompleted classes. A blood-coated guide known as, “Tell Them We Remember” sat atop a bullet-riddled desk in the classroom the place instructor Ivy Schamis taught college students in regards to the Holocaust. An indication hooked up to a bulletin board learn: “We will never forget.” Two college students died there.
In the classroom of English instructor Dara Hass, the place probably the most college students had been gunned down, there have been essays about Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for going to college, and who has since change into a worldwide advocate for academic entry for girls and ladies.
“A bullet went straight to her head but not her brain,” one pupil wrote. “We go to school every day of the week and we take it all for granted,” wrote one other. “We cry and complain without knowing how lucky we are to be able to learn.”
The door of Room 1255, instructor Stacey Lippel’s classroom, was pushed open – like others to signify that Cruz shot into it. Hanging on a wall inside was an indication studying, “No Bully Zone.” The artistic writing project for the day was on the whiteboard: “How to write the perfect love letter.”
And nonetheless hanging on the wall of a second-floor hallway was a quote from James Dean: “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”
In slain instructor Scott Beigel’s geography classroom, a laptop computer was nonetheless open on his desk. Student assignments evaluating the tenets of Christianity and Islam remained, some graded, some not. On his whiteboard, Beigel, the varsity’s cross-country coach, had been writing the gold, silver and bronze medalists in every occasion on the Winter Olympics, which had begun 5 days earlier.
Prosecutors, who rested their case following the jury’s tour, hope the visit will assist show that Cruz’s actions had been chilly, calculated, heinous and merciless; created a fantastic threat of loss of life to many individuals and “interfered with a government function” – all aggravating elements underneath Florida’s capital punishment legislation.
Under Florida court docket guidelines, neither the decide nor the attorneys had been allowed to converse to the jurors – and the jurors weren’t allowed to converse with one another – once they retraced the trail Cruz took on Feb. 14, 2018, as he moved from flooring to flooring, firing down hallways and into lecture rooms. Prior to the tour, the jurors had already seen surveillance video of the capturing and images of its aftermath.
The constructing has been sealed and was surrounded by a 15-foot (4.6-meter) chain-link fence wrapped in a privateness mesh display screen mounted with zip ties. It looms ominously over the varsity and its lecturers, workers and 3,300 college students, and might be seen simply by anybody close by. The Broward County college district plans to demolish it every time prosecutors approve. For now, it’s a court docket exhibit.
“When you are driving past, it’s there. When you are going to class, it’s there. It is just a colossal structure that you can’t miss,” mentioned Kai Koerber, who was a Stoneman Douglas junior on the time of the capturing. He is now on the University of California, Berkeley, and the developer of a psychological well being telephone app. “It is just a constant reminder … that is tremendously trying and horrible.”
Cruz, 23, pleaded responsible in October to 17 counts of first-degree homicide; the trial is just to decide if he’s sentenced to loss of life or life with out parole.
Miami protection legal professional David S. Weinstein mentioned prosecutors hope the visit will probably be “the final piece in erasing any doubt that any juror might have had that the death penalty is the only recommendation that can be made.”
Such crime website visits are uncommon. Weinstein, a former prosecutor, mentioned in greater than 150 jury trials courting again to the late Nineteen Eighties, he has solely had one.
In most trials, a criminal offense scene visit would not even be thought of as a result of years later it is not the identical place as when the crime occurred and can provide a false sense of what occurred. But in this case, the constructing was sealed off so it could possibly be completed.
Cruz’s attorneys have argued that prosecutors have used what they assert is provocative proof, together with Thursday’s visit, not simply to show their case, however to inflame jurors’ passions.
After jurors returned to the courtroom Thursday, the moms of two victims testified that the massacre completely forged a pall over not solely each Valentine’s Day however different essential household celebrations.
Helena Ramsay, 17, died on her father’s birthday. “That day will never be a celebration and can never be the same for him,” her mom, Anne Ramsay, mentioned.
Hui Wang, whose 15-year-old son Peter was killed, mentioned the capturing occurred the day earlier than Chinese New Year. A deliberate celebration was canceled that 12 months and yearly since then.
“This day of unity became a day that hurts the most,” she mentioned.
The spouse of athletic director, Chris Hixon, and their 26-year-old son, who has particular wants, additionally spoke on the fourth and ultimate day jurors heard from victims’ households. Hixon, a 49-year-old Navy veteran, died charging into the constructing making an attempt to cease Cruz and shield the scholars.
Corey Hixon described a weekly ritual of getting donuts together with his dad.
“I miss him,” he mentioned, merely.
Before the jury visited the scene of the massacre, Judge Elizabeth Scherer questioned Cruz about his choice not to go, CBS Miami reported.
“Do you understand that you have a right under Florida law and the Constitution to be present at the view today,” she requested.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied.
“And do you understand we’re all going to be going and the jury’s going to be viewing the crime scene today,” she requested. “Is it your decision that you do not want to attend?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Do you have any uncertainty about your decision,” she requested.
“No ma’am.”
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