Survivors and family members reflect on synagogue shooting trial, its outcome and healing
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — It's been two weeks since the jury's verdict and the judge sentencing the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting gunman to death.
After some reflection, eight survivors and family members agreed to sit down with KDKA-TV lead investigator Andy Sheehan to discuss the trial, its outcome and the healing it has brought them.
For four and half years, they waited to tell their truth, to describe in detail the horror they've survived.
"I will never forget that moment when I looked at him and he shot us," survivor Andrea Wedner said.
Wedner was shot by the gunman and unable to protect her defenseless 97-year-old mother, Rose Malinger, whom he mercilessly shot in the head. They waited to hear the jury say the word guilty and for the judge to impose the death penalty.
"It was justice for my mother," Wedner said. "It was justice for the other victims. It was a relief, a great relief."
It was a long time coming for others like Audrey Glickman, who hid under a pile of clothes in a storage room while the gunman murdered her friends. She said she wanted this trial and the opportunity to testify.
"A lot of people spoke, presuming to speak for us, about we shouldn't have the trial," Glickman said. "We shouldn't put them through reliving, something that we can't unlive anyway."
"Lot of people got it wrong," said Leigh Stein, the daughter of victim Dan Stein. "Now, it feels great to finally be able to speak and tell the truth and tell the facts, tell how we feel, talk about what we've been through."
For some it was important to confront the gunman directly. Margaret Durachko, now a widow after the gunman shot and killed her beloved husband, Richard Gottfried, dramatically addressed the gunman about his expressed belief he was doing God's will.
"Your hateful act took my soulmate away from me and left me all alone," she said in court. "You riddled his body with bullets so you could feel powerful. You think God's power is in bullets, but God's power is in humility, goodness and love."
"I wanted him to know that God is not about killing. God is about life, the evil one is about death," she told KDKA-TV.
Throughout the victim testimony, the gunman never looked up, pretending to be busy looking through papers. But Deane Root knows their message got through.
"His ears were open the whole time," Root said. "They didn't give him earplugs. He heard everything."
In the end, the jury did not buy the defense claims that he was schizophrenic and driven by delusions and voted to impose the ultimate penalty of death, though the congregations had been divided on the issue.
"As a rabbi, I stand for life," Rabbi Doris Dyen of Dor Hadash said.
But even Dyen said testimony about the gunman's lack of remorse gives her peace about the verdict.
"When someone has shown such a heinous, terrible way that they don't respect life, in a sense they lose their privilege to live," Dyen said.
Richard Gottfried's sister, Carol Black, who hid in a closet while the gunman murdered her brother, said the ultimate penalty is just.
"He has shown not one ounce of remorse," Black said. "His only regret is that he didn't kill more people, and he didn't have enough ammunition."
But through enduring great pain and loss, the family members and survivors say they have found new unity and strength.
"I don't think anyone who went through this, as a family member or a survivor, is ever going to be the same as we were before," Root said. "No jury can ever say here's your life back, here's your loved one back. So, it's up to us."
But now the survivors and their families say life can begin anew.
"I didn't realize how much stress and pressure I felt until I heard the sentence," Stein said. "It's a new beginning. I'm ready to live my life now."
But through horror and trauma, one good thing has come. Before the attack, they were separate parts of three congregations who might know each other to say hello. But over the past five years, they've supported one another, developing a closeness and a bond they've never experienced before.
"We've become like family, and it's just been one of the beautiful things to come out of this," Black said.
"We're forever connected," Durachko said.
Another blessing is their connectedness to the region and Pittsburgh, which they say has projected to the world a message of unity and tolerance.
"The whole community was wonderful, and the world should look at Pittsburgh and say what a great place that is," Glickman said.
In their loss, they have found great wealth. They are wounded and scarred but have emerged stronger for their pain, ready to carry on the legacies of those who died.
"We can now engage with the world while we still carry the loss," Root said.
"Plan bigger, be open to friends, family, new experiences and new ways armed with the love and the knowledge we have," Root added
Black has lived with the memory of the gunfire that killed her brother. But she says telling the jury of her trauma and hearing their verdict has given her her life back.
"I can put that chapter behind me and lead the joyous life I plan to lead," Black said.