After 3 weeks and a guilty verdict on all counts, Pittsburgh synagogue attack trial moves to penalty phase

On Friday, after hearing three weeks of testimony and deliberating for less than five hours, the jury in the federal case of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting found the defendant guilty of all 63 counts.

Attorneys for Robert Bowers, 50, of Baldwin admitted that he entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill on Oct. 27, 2018, and killed 11 people with an AR-15 rifle, wounded two other congregants and shot three responding officers and injured two others.

The penalty phase of the case, scheduled to begin June 26, is expected to feature evidence from the defense about Bowers’ upbringing and mental health issues. His attorneys have said in court filings that Bowers has been diagnosed with epilepsy and schizophrenia.

The defense team, which called no witnesses during the guilt phase of trial and conducted little cross-examination of witnesses called by prosecutors, hinted during closing arguments Thursday that it might present additional evidence related to Bowers’ use of the far-right social media site Gab.com and whether he was indoctrinated there.

Defense attorneys claimed Bowers was not motivated to attack the synagogue by hatred of Jews. Instead, they said he sought out the synagogue because one of its congregations, Dor Hadash, worked with the refugee resettlement group HIAS.

Government prosecutors said Bowers entered the synagogue that morning with the intent to kill every Jew he could find.

Killed in the attack were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69. They were members of the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations.

“The defendant stopped not because he had a change of heart, not because he felt remorse, but because he ran out of ammunition,” prosecutor Mary Hahn said.

Below is a summary of the witnesses called during the past week, their role in the case, how long they were on the stand and evidence they presented.

Day 9

47. Anthony Farah (12 minutes)

The president of White Hat Holsters testified that his Texas-based company made the holster Bowers had on his waistband the day of the attack.

48. Alan E. Bogdan (5 minutes)

The owner of Remora Holsters testified that his Florida-based company made the ankle holster Bowers was wearing the day of the attack.

49. Kevin Kauffman (53 minutes)

The retired special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified as an expert in interstate commerce. As part of their case, prosecutors set out to show that the firearms and holsters Bowers used were made in other states and countries and shipped into Pennsylvania. Kauffman testified that the AR-15 Bowers used was made in Connecticut and the three handguns he had that day were made in Austria.

50. Brett Mills (1 hour, 57 minutes)

The supervisory forensics examiner in the firearms and toolmarks section at the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., examined more than 850 items of ballistics evidence from the synagogue case, including 67 cartridge casings found at the synagogue that were fired from Bowers’ AR-15. Mills said the ammunition Bowers used, with a head that looks like a Phillips head screwdriver, was designed to “penetrate deeper” into human tissue for “maximum cavitation.”

51. Mark Hetfield (42 minutes)

The president and CEO of the refugee resettlement group HIAS said his organization works in partnership with the U.S. government with two dozen communities across the United States and hundreds of Jewish congregations to help resettle refugees. HIAS was founded in 1903 to help Jews fleeing Europe because of antisemitism there. Hetfield said more than 400 Jewish congregations across the country participated in the HIAS Welcome Campaign and Refugee Shabbat in 2018. Congregation Dor Hadash, which had been based in the Tree of Life synagogue, was one of them.

52. Andrew Torba (53 minutes)

The CEO of far-right social media site Gab.com, on which Bowers was an active user, said the site allows antisemitic speech as long as it doesn’t violate the First Amendment. Bowers posted extensively on Gab in the months leading up to the synagogue shooting, under the username @onedingo. On the day of the synagogue attack, Torba contacted law enforcement about Bowers’ posts and also removed access to his account.

53. Timothy Dzierzek (5 minutes)

The vice president of information security for the web-hosting platform Pantheon said Bowers’ computer and IP address visited the HIAS website.

54. Evan Browne (55 minutes)

The FBI tactical specialist reviewed spreadsheets and images detailing Bowers’ activity on Gab.com. He read dozens of hate-filled antisemitic posts made by the defendant in 2018 and described dozens of images. At the time of the synagogue attack, Bowers had 380 followers on the social media site. In his bio, he wrote that “Jews are the children of Satan.” Bowers posted photos of 109 books in a Nazi-themed reading list, pictures of a politician walking on a city street holding a sign reading “Jews rape kids” and multiple pictures of cats with Adolf Hitler-style mustaches giving a Nazi salute.

Day 10

54. Evan Browne continued (2 hours, 36 minutes)

Browne, resuming his testimony, told the jury he analyzed 19,000 rows of spreadsheet data on Bowers’ posts on Gab. He said Bowers posted a slur for Jewish people 87 times and said “Jew” 152 times in 2018. He also testified that in the three weeks leading up to the shooting, Bowers visited the HIAS website Oct. 6, 10, 21, 25 and 27 — repeatedly on some of those days, including 90 minutes before the attack.

55. William Braniff (2 hours, 17 minutes)

The director of the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security testified as an expert in white supremacist ideologies and antisemitism. He told the jury that Bowers’ Gab posts and activity in 2018 dealt with the same hateful tropes, symbols and conspiracies used online by white supremacists in the United States. Braniff explained what many of the words, symbols, memes and images in Bowers’ posts meant.

56. Erich Smith (1 hour, 23 minutes)

The Quantico, Va.-based FBI physical scientist/forensic examiner in firearms and toolmarks testified about his work at the synagogue in the nine days after the attack. He did a shooting incident reconstruction, tracking bullet holes and impacts from projectiles and looking at their trajectory. The impact of one bullet was so hard that it blew a blue prayer book out of its wooden holder and across two other pews.

Day 11

57. Peter Hammer (50 minutes)

The FBI systems administrator testified that he went to Bowers’ McAnulty Road home the day of the shooting and found his computer setup. Bowers set the homemade, Linux-based computer’s six hard drives to “sleep” for 200 minutes at 8:57 a.m. on the day of the shooting and then commanded the computer to “shred,” or erase, the first 8GB of each hard drive’s data. The “shred” command rendered nearly all information on the computer “unobtainable,” he said.

58. Brian Collins (30 minutes)

The FBI special agent was one of the lead case agents in the Bowers investigation. He testified about the timeline of the attack and recovered evidence from Bowers’ Hyundai Sonata parked outside the synagogue. In a bag found just outside the car, Collins said, police found 21 magazines — all loaded — for an AR-15.

59. Timothy Matson (30 minutes)

The Pittsburgh police SWAT officer was one of the most highly anticipated witnesses during the trial. Previous testimony had painted, in harrowing detail, the rescue of Matson after he was shot multiple times by Bowers in an upstairs classroom of the synagogue. Matson, who was in the courtroom nearly every day of the trial dressed casually in a polo shirt, took the witness stand dressed in a black dress shirt and dark tie. Matson told the jury he served as a “breacher” on the morning of the attack.

“I open doors,” he said with a smile.

Matson was the first officer to enter a dark classroom where Bowers had hidden. Almost immediately after entering the classroom, Matson was knocked off his feet after being shot in the leg.

Matson said his memories of his colleagues dragging him out of the classroom are foggy. He remembered a tactical medic telling him, “Man the (expletive) up and breathe.” He also recounted the pain he felt as medics tried to cross his legs to carry him and when they put a tourniquet on his leg.

Matson, who was 6-foot-4 and 315 pounds on the day of the attack (365 pounds in tactical gear), said officers and medics were “definitely struggling” as they carried him out of the building.

During testimony, Matson showed the jury his olive-colored tactical vest — held together with zip ties to fit his large frame — with bullet holes in the side and the back. He also described his ballistic helmet and the hole in it where a round fired by Bowers went through and into the right side of his head. His injuries included a fractured skull and right jaw, a shattered right kneecap, shattered left tibia and elbow, a cut tendon in his hand and a broken knuckle in his ring finger. He was shot three times in his left buttock, and bullets were recovered from there and his knuckle.

Matson said he has undergone 25 surgical procedures, including one last year, and was unable to return to work for two years.

60. Andrea Wedner (36 minutes)

Wedner was the final witness called by the government in the guilt phase of the trial. The registered dental hygienist was working part-time in 2018. Every Saturday for the previous six years, she said, she picked up her mom, Rose Mallinger, and drove her to the synagogue for services. At 97, Mallinger used a cane to walk but was in good health and still lived on her own. Mallinger’s job during services was to read the Prayer for Peace. A few minutes into the Oct. 27, 2018, service, Wedner and her mother heard a loud crash and then the sound of gunfire.

Mallinger asked her daughter, “What do we do?”

“We have to get down,” Wedner told her mom.

Wedner grabbed her purse and helped her mother to the floor. As she called 911, Wedner tried to calm her mother. They lay head to head under their pew, hiding.

Wedner saw the man later identified as Bowers standing in the doorway at the back of the chapel, holding a long gun.

“We were filled with terror,” Wedner said. “It’s indescribable. We thought we were going to die.”

Audio of a 911 call Wedner made was replayed in court. Wedner could be heard telling her crying mother to be quiet, and then both could be heard screaming after being shot.

“I saw my right arm get blown open in two places and my right hand,” said Wedner, who also suffered shrapnel cuts to her face, chest and forehead.

Wedner said she knew her mother would not survive her wounds, but she didn’t leave her.

When Wedner saw men enter the chapel wearing fatigues, she said, “I knew they were the good guys.”

As the men worked their way through the chapel, Wedner said she moved her leg so they’d know she was alive. When they told her it was safe to get up, Wedner described her last moments with her mom.

“I kissed my fingers, and I touched my fingers to her skin. I cried out, ‘Mommy.’ ”