Parkland gunman jurors to visit scene of massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

MIAMI – The jury within the sentencing trial of Parkland college shooter Nikolas Cruz will view the crime scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College.

The jury shall be taken to the college Thursday morning and be allowed to stroll via the 1200 constructing the place the bloodbath occurred in 2018.

They are going to be allowed to view the hallway and lecture rooms the place the shooter used an AR-15 assault rifle to hold out the bloodbath. Accompanying them shall be Circuit Choose Elizabeth Scherer, prosecutors and Cruz’s attorneys. The protection filed a waiver so Cruz is not going to be returning to the crime scene.

“You’ll be guided in a basic method on a selected path inside and outside the college constructing. You’ll be free to discover and observe the three flooring of the 1200 constructing the place the crime occurred, together with the varied rooms and lecture rooms all through every ground through which the doorways are open,” Scherer instructed the jury on Wednesday. 

The three-story classroom constructing has been sealed for the reason that Valentine’s Day 2018 taking pictures. The flooring stay bloodstained and bullet holes stay within the partitions.

The jury is not going to be allowed to speak, contact something, or make any recording of what they see.

The jury is deciding whether or not the shooter will spend life in jail or be sentenced to dying.

Nikolas Cruz pleaded responsible to 17 counts of homicide and 17 counts of tried homicide final fall. Prosecutors are looking for the dying penalty. Cruz’s protection attorneys are asking the jury for a sentence of life in jail with out the opportunity of parole.

To advocate a dying sentence, jurors should be unanimous.

On Wednesday, the jury additionally heard extra affect statements from households who misplaced family members within the bloodbath.

Amongst them, are Tony and Jennifer Montalto whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed.

They described the devastating results on their household.

“Gina was type, sensible, and beloved to learn,” her father Tony mentioned as he recalled Gina saving a 2-year-old from drowning when Gina was simply 10 years previous.

Max Schacter mentioned his household is damaged too.

His 14-year-old son Alex died within the mass taking pictures.

“A part of me will at all times be unhappy,” mentioned Schacter.

As soon as a widower, Schacter spoke of the lasting results his son’s sudden violent dying has had on his new blended household.

His fiancé and her daughters

His son Brian learn a poem that Alex had written and thrown within the trash earlier than the day of the killings.

The poem was entitled “Life is sort of a curler coaster” and relates how the ups and downs of life resemble a fast-moving curler coaster.

Max Schacter has recited the poem on a number of events to honor his son’s reminiscence and illustrate the lack of a promising author.