This week, loved ones of the Parkland school shooting victims took the stand.
The families gave impact statements about the unimaginable toll the death of their loved ones has taken. The emotional testimonies came as the jury is tasked with deciding on whether or not shooter Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people in total in the shooting, will receive the death penalty.
During the hearing, as the families of some of the 14 students killed spoke, two of Cruz's defense attorneys could be seen wiping away tears. Assistant public defender Tamara Curtis and attorney Nawal Najet Bashiman each removed their face masks to pat their faces dry.
Cruz himself had no visible reaction to their deeply moving words.
During the hearing, the father of Alyssa Alhadeff told the jury about his daughter. She would be in her second year of college if she hadn't been killed by Cruz, he said. "Soon she'd go on to be a professional soccer player. She'd get her law degree, and maybe become one of the most successful business negotiation lawyers the world would see," Ilan Alhadeff told the court.
"She was supposed to get married, and I was going to have my father-daughter dance," he said through tears. "She would have had a beautiful family, four kids, live in a gorgeous house — a beach house on the side." As the heartbroken father spoke of his dreams for his daughter, he was visibly distraught. "All those plans came to an end with Alyssa's murder," he said.
Tom Hoyer, whose son Luke, 15, was killed in the mass shooting, also spoke. "We were a family unit of five always trying to fit into a world set up for even numbers," he said. "Two-, four-, six-seat tables in a restaurant. Two-, four-, six-ticket packages to events. Things like that." But now, he says, being a family of four simply doesn't fit and that "never again will the world feel right." He continued, "When Luke died something went missing in me."
His mother, Gena Hoyer, spoke through tears, as well. “It’s excruciating agony," she said. "I am heartbroken. A piece of my heart is missing. My life and my family will never be the same."
Annika Dworet spoke of her son Nicholas Dworet, the captain of the swim team who had just received a scholarship to the University of Indianapolis at the time of the shooting. She said her son had bigger goals "than most of us dare to dream of." She also shared a note that he had taped next to his bed to remind himself of those goals. "I want to become a Swedish Olympian and go to Tokyo 2020 to compete for my country," it read. "I will give all I have in my body and my mind to achieve the goals I have set."
"Now we will never know if he would have reached his goal to go to the Olympics," the grieving mother told the court.
Jennifer Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime perished in the shooting, told the court that it's "excruciatingly difficult" to watch her daughter's friends get to grow up. She opened up about how painful family gatherings are without her daughter. "There is togetherness, but there is no celebrating," she explained. "There is a deafening silence amongst everyone, as they don't want to bring up Jaime's name to cause pain, but don't want to forget her, either."
Ultimately, the decision is up to the judge. But in order for the jury to recommend the death penalty, the decision must be unanimous. Then the judge will decide whether to follow the recommendation or sentence Cruz to life in prison.