le 14/12/2018 04:15
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By Peter Mertz
DENVER [url=http://www.cheapmlbmarlinsjerseys.com/Andre-Dawson/]Cheap Andre Dawson Jersey[/url] , the United States, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Six gut wrenching testimonies from family members of the deceased launched the final sentencing phase Tuesday, bringing it closer toward a Death Penalty verdict for Colorado Batman movie shooter James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured 70 in July 2012.
Tom Sullivan still goes to the Century 16 movie theater and sits in the row where his 27-year-old son died, buying an extra ticket to leave "Alex's seat empty" so "I can talk to him."
Sandy Phillips, 65, mother of 24-year-old victim Jessica Ghawi, is sickened by the smell of popcorn and will never enter a movie theater again.
"I am not the same person I used to be," she told the jury of 12 that will likely vote on life or death for Holmes by the end of this week.
Amanda Medek remembered her "knees buckling and slamming onto the concrete floor" when being told her "little sister" Micayla, 23, had died.
Chantel Blunk said she started "fogging out" when hearing her husband "Johnny" Blunk, a doting father of two, was dead, before screaming and "punching holes in my closet door."
With the courtroom air filled with pain and grief, for the first time on Tuesday since the trial began in April, a jury member told the judge "she needed a break."
The break followed testimony from Mary Hoover, A.J. Boik's mother, who, with teared-up eyes, telling the court how her multi- talented son "was always happy and made me laugh" and how much she missed his "whaddup mamma" salutations.
The final "victim impact" phase that began Tuesday will likely end by Friday, as all sides, even the defense team, seem to want the three-year ordeal to end.
On July 20, 2012, Holmes, suffering from severe schizophrenia, slipped into the exit door of a nearby movie theater showing a midnight Batman movie premiere and ripped hundreds of bullets into the crowd, killing 12 and injuring 70.
Only one jurist is needed to end the trial and the Death Penalty with a vote of "sympathy" or "compassion," which may also occur by week's end.
But with aggressive District Attorney George Brauchler bombarding the jury with devastating family impact testimonies, a Holmes death sentence is almost certain.
Holmes, heavily sedated on anti-psychotic medication, sat unemotionally during the testimony at the defense table wearing a dark brown collared shirt and khakis, his feet tethered to the floor with chains.
Defense team captain Tamara Brady told judge Carlos Samour, Jr. Tuesday she does not anticipate more witnesses that will expedite the Death Penalty decision.
Prosecutors pressed parents of the deceased to remember the thousands who attended their children's funerals and to tell intimate details of their shattered lives.
Three mothers, a father, sister and husband testified Tuesday with poignant stories often evoking courtroom laughter, but then leaving onlookers aghast and teary-eyed when telling frantic, desperate accounts of searching for their loved ones in the hours after the shooting.
Sullivan, who still leaves an empty seat at the family dinner table for his son, told the courtroom about yelling at reporters hours after the shooting to "find my son Alex!"
Medek testified that she went from hospital to hospital "saying and spelling the name" of her "missing" little sister Micayla, as grandmother Marlene Knobbe, 80, sobbed in the courtroom audience.
With family members of the deceased not officially notified until 18 hours after the shooting, the hours spent in the interim were pure torture, family members testified.
Responders to the nightmarish scene at the theater have testified they heard cell phones left by fleeing patrons and unanswered by the deceased, ringing for hours after the shooting.
One of the callers was Kathleen Larimer who testified she was desperately calling her son John, the youngest of five children, a brilliant cryptologic technician at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo.
"John had a smile that could light up a room," Kathleen Larimer paused with emotion, telling how John was "fourth-generation U.S. Navy" who wanted to run for the U.S presidency in 2020 "when he was 35 years old."
"I'm sure his name would have been there," she said of her ambitious, multi-talented son, who once advised her not to eat at Chick O fill restaurants because "the owner is using the business to promote bias and prejudice."
Chantel Blunk told the jury what an amazing father her Navy seal aspiring ex-husband had been to their children Hailey, then
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