Parkland sentencing: Judge formally sentences shooter to life in prison

Ellen Mayor read a statement in court on behalf of her daughter, Samantha Mayor, who was shot through the knee and survived.

Samantha Mayor in her statement called the shooting the “most fearful day of my life, when I was laying on the floor unable to move and terrified to speak. I remember accepting my death at that moment and reminding myself that my friends and family know that I love them."

She said she’s afraid of tight spaces, always searches for exits and is startled by noises. Samantha Mayor also said she’s fearful of when she’ll eventually send her own children to school.

“I’ve learned that the beginning of every year brings a lot of heartache for me … for the anniversary of when I saw death before my eyes. Carmen, I think about you every day and it never hurts less,” she said, referring to Carmen Schentrup, 16, who was killed.

She said she’s “devastated” by the life sentence.

“Now we all have to breathe the same air of someone who wanted us to never take another breath,” she said.

Anne Ramsay, mother of 17-year-old victim Helena Ramsay, called Nikolas Cruz “pure evil.”

She said the last text from Helena was a smiley face because she added a cookie into her daughter’s lunch that Valentine’s Day.

Ramsay also slammed the school district and sheriff’s office, who she alleged treated her family differently due to race.

She recalled when a reporter asked her if Cruz would have been shot if he was Black.

If Cruz was Black, Ramsay said, she thinks he would have been stopped before even entering the gate to the school.

“This is how we are treated,” she said.

2:15

Mom of Parkland victim calls Nikolas Cruz ‘pure evil’

Anne Ramsay’s 17-year-old daughter Helena died in the mass shooting at South Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

ABCNews.com

Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex, was killed, noted on Tuesday that, when families gave statements earlier during the penalty phase trial, they were prohibited from talking about Nikolas Cruz, the crime “and the punishment that he deserves.”

Schachter accused Cruz’s defense attorneys of “making the mental health crisis in America worse by misrepresenting what actually happened to the Parkland murderer.”

“The defense, in their closing argument, said if he had just had the proper diagnosis, things would be different,” Schacter said. “Nothing would’ve changed. … He was on medicine after medicine … and he still wants to kill.”

Cruz grew up “in a loving home” with a mother who tried to help him, Schachter said.

“He had well over 200 individual sessions with mental health professionals. … They tried everything, they couldn’t have given him more services,” Schachter continued.

“But you can’t fix evil,” he said.

“He hunted down innocent children and staff, terrified then tortured them, blew their heads apart like a water balloon and enjoyed it,” Schachter said.

He said Cruz “does not deserve to live amongst us.”

Schachter said, in prison, Cruz “gets to receive phone calls, boxes of fan mail. He gets to fall in love and get married. He gets a tablet to email and text people. He gets to receive visitors. He gets to watch TV … and even get a college degree.”

Schachter noted that today marks his birthday. He said his birthday wish each year will be for Cruz to “suffer a painful, painful violent death.”

After Schachter spoke, Cruz’s attorney said families are sending a bad message by attacking defense lawyers, jurors and the judicial system.

Meghan Petty, sister of 14-year-old victim Alaina Petty, said she feels “betrayed by our justice system” with the jury rejecting the death penalty, and feels vulnerable sharing her pain with the public.

Alaina was shot multiple times, including through the heart, she said. Alaina died scared on a classroom floor, trying to hide behind a desk, she said.

“This entire ordeal has pushed me to my emotional, physical and mental limits. It will continue to do so for the rest of my life, even more so now that he has escaped being punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Petty said.

She called Nikolas Cruz a “remorseless monster who deserves no mercy.”

“This incredible darkness that he has within him -- which has been labeled here as mental illness -- is something that should be considered unacceptable and intolerable,” Petty said. But she said his life sentence sends the message to future shooters that “if one stretches the truth, they can get away with not only murder, but mass murder.”

“What we’ve been told here is 17 lives are worth nothing if you can make enough excuses for your actions,” she said.

Petty noted that she and Cruz are the same age.

“I could sit here and complain, as he has, that I’ve had a hard life. I was bullied in school. I’ve lost 15 family members and loved ones since I turned 9 to sickness, suicide, accident and now murder. Not once have I turned to ever hurting others … because I’m not a coward and I’m not weak,” she said.

"I will never get to say goodbye to her," she said of her sister. "She's never going to go to college, get a job, get married ... or even breathe again. But he'll be able to draw breath."