Jurors in the trial against the Pulse gunman’s widow have the day off Friday, but they have a lot to think about after seeing a timeline of what happened inside the Orlando nightclub.
The case hinges on whether Noor Salman, 31, knowingly helped her husband, Omar Mateen, plan the attack. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of aiding the support of a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death and obstruction of justice. She faces life in prison if convicted.
The jury, made up of 12 women and six men, saw the graphic police body camera video and the nightclub's surveillance video Thursday of the attack inside the club on June 12, 2016, where 49 people died and 53 others were injured.
A redacted version was released to the public Friday. WFTV Eyewitness News will not show the video in its entirety.
The surveillance video shows Mateen walking into the club at 1:41 a.m., paying admission and standing by the bar while people dance and mingle.
Just before 2 a.m., Mateen leaves the club to move his rental van closer to Pulse. He walks back into the club with an automatic weapon, a Glock and knife, and almost immediately begins firing in the main dance area.
Mateen walks into other parts of the club to shoot more victims, returns back to the dance area to shoot people struggling.
At 2:07 a.m., law enforcement officers enter Pulse to help the injured and track down Mateen, who was hiding in the bathroom with hostages.
Helicopter video released shows the moments police busted through the bathroom walls and shot Mateen just before 5:15 a.m.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Read: Jurors watch graphic footage recorded in Pulse nightclub
Salman turned her head and wept as the jury watched the video of her husband shooting people inside the club.
Salman's family also watched the video in the courtroom.
“I feel so bad for the families. I don't really don’t give a darn how he died. I feel like he is the devil in a human being’s body,” Salman’s cousin Susan Adeih said. "I wish Omar would burn in hell."
Legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said that showing the graphic images so early in the trial could turn into a small advantage for the defense, since it will give the jury weeks to recover from the emotion of what they have seen.
Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Monday. Follow Shannon Butler, Ken Tyndall and Elyna Niles-Carnes on Twitter for moments inside the courtroom.
Highlights from Thursday:
- Jurors on Thursday watched a video timeline of the massacre, which included graphic footage recorded by Orlando police officers' body-worn cameras and the nightclub's surveillance cameras.
- The videos show Mateen shooting people in the nightclub's main area. Some victims ran and others fell. He was seen walking from room to room, shooting more people before returning to the main area and firing more shots.
- Prosecutors showed jurors photographs of the nightclub's restroom, which flooded after police damaged water pipes while breaching a wall. Evidence was submerged in several inches of bloody water.
- Salman at first wouldn't allow investigators to search her apartment and her car, but she changed her mind while they were trying to obtain a search warrant.
- FBI Special Agent Chris Mayo, who began interviewing Salman in a police car, testified that he took her to an FBI field office and sat her in a large conference room so she and her son would be more comfortable.
- Mayo said Salman never asked what happened to her husband.
WATCH LIVE: Analysis of testimony in Noor Salman trialWATCH: WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer, Greg Warmoth WFTV, Shannon Butler WFTV and counselor Dwight Bain give a full recap and analysis of today's testimony in the Noor Salman trial. at.wftv.com/2FJWuDK
Posted by WFTV Channel 9 on Thursday, March 15, 2018
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