Survivor tells of last moments with slain mom as synagogue attack trial nears verdict

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) — A survivor of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre said Wednesday that she saw her right arm “get blown open in two places” by a gunman and cried “Mommy” after realizing her 97-year-old mother had been shot and killed by her side in the nation’s deadliest attack on Jewish people.

Andrea Wedner was the government’s last witness as prosecutors wrapped up their case against Robert Bowers, who burst into the Tree of Life synagogue building with a military-style rifle and other weaponry and opened fire, shooting anyone he could find.

Bowers killed 11 worshippers and injured seven other people, including five police officers, in the 2018 attack. The 50-year-old truck driver is charged with 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and the obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death.

Bowers’ attorneys did not put on a defense after the prosecution rested, setting the stage for closing arguments and jury deliberations on Thursday.

Judge Robert Colville dismissed the jury on Wednesday and told jurors to return on Thursday to hear closing arguments, after which the jury will deliberate and deliver its verdict.

Assuming the jury returns a conviction, the trial would enter what’s expected to be a lengthy penalty phase, with the same jurors deciding Bowers’ sentence: life in prison or the death penalty. Bowers’ attorneys, who have acknowledged he was the gunman, have focused their efforts on trying to save his life.

File: First responders surround the Tree of Life Synagogue, rear center, in Pittsburgh, where a shooter opened fire and 11 people were killed in America’s deadliest antisemitic attack, Octoer 27, 2018. (AP/Gene J. Puskar)

Federal prosecutors ended their case against Bowers on Wednesday with some of the most harrowing and heartbreaking testimony of the trial so far.

Wedner told jurors that Shabbat services had started five or 10 minutes earlier when she heard a crashing sound in the building’s lobby, followed by gunfire. She said her mother, Rose Mallinger, asked her, “What do we do?”

Wedner said she had a “clear memory” of the gunman and his rifle.

“We were filled with terror — it was indescribable. We thought we were going to die,” she said.

In this courtroom sketch, shooting survivor Andrea Wedner testifies, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, in Pittsburgh, in the federal trial of Robert Bowers. (David Klug via AP)

Wedner called 911 and was on the line when she and her mother were shot. She testified that she checked her mother’s pulse and realized, “I knew she wouldn’t survive.” As SWAT officers entered the chapel, Wedner said, she kissed her fingers and touched them to her dead mother, cried “Mommy,” and stepped over another victim on her way out. She said she was the sole survivor in that section of the synagogue.

Her account capped a prosecution case in which other survivors also testified about the terror they felt that day, police officers recounted how they exchanged gunfire with the defendant and finally neutralized him, and jurors heard about Bowers’ toxic online presence in which he praised Hitler, espoused white supremacy and ranted incessantly against Jews.

A makeshift memorial stands outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the aftermath of a deadly shooting in Pittsburgh, October 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The defense has suggested the shooter acted not out of religious hatred but rather a delusional belief that Jews were enabling genocide by helping immigrants settle in the United States.

Acting US Attorney Troy Rivetti asked Wedner if the gunman had kept her from worshipping — the same question the prosecution has posed to other survivors who took the stand.

That question is key to half of the 22 capital charges — two for each victim — the gunman faces: Federal law allows the death penalty in cases “of obstruction in free exercise of religious belief resulting in death.” The other 11 capital charges are for hate crimes resulting in death.

In this combo image made from photos provided by the US District Court Western District of Pennsylvania are the victims of the Oct. 27, 2018, assault on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. On the top row, from left: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, and David Rosenthal; bottom row, from left, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Dan Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger. (United States District Court Western District of Pennsylvania via AP)

“Did you go there to worship and pray?” Rivetti asked Wedner. “Did the defendant prevent you from praying? Did the defendant come into the chapel and shoot you? Your mother, Rose Mallinger, who prayed the prayer for peace each week, was shot right next to you?”

Wedner answered “Yes” each time, with increasing emotion.

She asked not to be on the stand when the prosecution played back her 911 call from the day of the shooting in court. She told Rivetti she did not want to hear herself being shot and her mother’s last moments on the recording.

In the recording, Wedner’s whispered pleadings to a 911 operator are followed by silence, and then two gun blasts and screams. Rivetti stopped the replay about halfway through the 9-minute recording.

Also testifying Wednesday was Pittsburgh SWAT Officer Timothy Matson, who was critically wounded while responding to the rampage.

In this courtroom sketch, Pittsburgh SWAT Officer Timothy Matson, who was critically wounded while responding to the rampage, testifies, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, in Pittsburgh, in the federal trial of Robert Bowers. (David Klug via AP)

He told jurors that he and another officer broke down the door to the darkened room where Bowers had holed up and was immediately knocked off his feet by blasts from Bowers’ gun.

Matson, who stands 6 foot 4 and weighed 310 pounds at the time of the shooting, said he made his way to the stairs and was placed on a stretcher, and remembers thinking, “I must be in bad shape.”

Matson was shot seven times, including in the head, knee, shin and elbow, and has endured 25 surgeries to repair the damage, but he testified he would go through the door again.