Bullet holes ripped through walls and shards of glass from windows shattered by gunshots shattered eerily underfoot at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where gunman Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three staff members. Nothing had changed, except for the removal of the bodies of the victims and some personal items. The 12 jurors and 10 alternates who will decide whether Cruz will be sentenced to death or life in prison made a rare visit to the scene of the massacre Thursday, retracing Cruz’s steps through the three-story freshman building known as “Building 12.” . After they left, a group of journalists was allowed in for a much quicker first public screening. The sight was deeply disturbing: Large pools of dried blood were still painted on the classroom floors. A lock of dark hair rested on the floor where the body of one of the victims once lay. A single black rubber shoe was in a hallway. Brown rose petals were strewn in a hallway where six people died. In classroom after classroom, open notebooks displayed unfinished lesson plans: A blood-stained book titled “Tell Them We Remember” sat atop a desk in the classroom where teacher Ivy Schamis taught students about the Holocaust. Attached to a bulletin board in the room was a sign that read: “We will never forget.” Two students died there. In English teacher Dara Hass’s classroom, where most of the students were murdered, there were essays on Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for going to school, who has since become a global advocate for educational access for women and girls. . One of the students wrote: “A bullet went straight to her head, but not her brain.” Another wrote: “We go to school every day of the week and take it all for granted. We cry and complain without knowing how lucky we are to be able to learn.” The door to Room 1255, teacher Stacey Lippel’s classroom, opened – as did others to indicate that Cruz fired into it. Hanging on a wall inside was a sign that read, “No Bully Zone.” The creative writing assignment for the day was on the board: “How to write the perfect love letter.” And still hanging on the wall of a second-floor hallway was a quote by James Dean: “Dream as if you were to live forever, live as if you were to die today.” In slain teacher Scott Beigel’s geography class, his laptop was still open on his desk. Student papers comparing the principles of Christianity and Islam remained, some graded, some not. On his board, Beigel, the school’s coach, wrote the gold, silver and bronze medalists in each event at the Winter Olympics, which had begun five days earlier. Prosecutors, who began their case after the grand jury toured, hope the visit will help prove Cruz’s actions were cold, calculated, despicable and cruel. created a great risk of death to many people and “interfered with a governmental function” — all aggravating factors under Florida’s death penalty law. Under Florida court rules, neither the judge nor attorneys were allowed to speak to the jurors — and jurors were not allowed to talk to each other — as they retraced the route Cruz took on Feb. 14, 2018, as he moved from floor to floor, shooting through corridors and classrooms. Before the tour, jurors had already seen surveillance video of the shooting and photos of the aftermath. The building has been sealed off and was surrounded by a 15-foot chain-link fence wrapped in zip-fastened privacy mesh. It looms ominously over the school and its teachers, staff and 3,300 students and can easily be seen by anyone nearby. The Broward County school district plans to demolish it whenever prosecutors approve. For now, it is a court exhibit. “When you drive by, it’s there. When you go to class, it’s there. It’s just a colossal structure that you can’t miss,” said Kai Koerber, who was a Stoneman Douglas junior at the time of the shooting. He is now at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the creator of a mental health phone app. “It’s just a constant reminder … that it’s terribly difficult and horrible.” Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder. the trial is only to determine whether he is sentenced to death or life without parole. Miami defense attorney David S. Weinstein said prosecutors hope the visit will be “the final piece to erase any doubt that any jurors may have had that the death penalty is the only recommendation.” Such visits to the crime scene are rare. Weinstein, a former prosecutor, said that in more than 150 jury trials dating back to the late 1980s, he had only one. In most trials, a visit to the crime scene would not even be considered because years later it is not the same place as when the crime occurred and can give a false sense of what happened. But in this case, the building was sealed so it could be done. Cruz’s lawyers have argued that prosecutors used what they consider inflammatory evidence, including Thursday’s visit, not only to make their case, but to inflame jurors. After jurors returned to the courtroom Thursday, the mothers of two victims testified that the massacre cast a permanent burden not only on Valentine’s Day but on other important family holidays. Helena Ramsay, 17, died on her father’s birthday. “This day will never be a celebration and it will never be the same for him,” said her mother, Anne Ramsay. Hui Wang, whose 15-year-old son Peter was killed, said the shooting happened the day before Chinese New Year. A planned celebration was canceled that year and every year since. “This day of unity has become a day that hurts more,” he said. The athletic director’s wife, Chris Hixon, and their son, who has special needs, also spoke on the fourth and final day of jurors from the victims’ families. Hixon, a 49-year-old Navy veteran, died entering the building trying to stop Cruz and protect the students. Corey Hixon described a weekly ritual of getting donuts with his father. “I miss him,” he said simply.
