Parkland sentencing: Judge formally sentences shooter to life in prison

The mother of Alyssa Alhadeff remembered her daughter's "beautiful smile and contagious laugh."

But she also remembered seeing her 14-year-old daughter in the medical examiner's office after she was killed in the Parkland shooting.

"All I wanted to do was to bring Alyssa back to life. But I couldn't protect her, and I couldn't save her," Lori Alhadeff said during her statement in court.

She addressed Cruz, speaking angrily.

"My hope for you is that you are miserable for the rest of your pathetic life," she said. "My hope for you is that the pain of what you did to my family burns and traumatizes you every day."

Alyssa's father, Ilan Marc Alhadeff, said the verdict brings no accountability or closure.

"What I see is that the system values this animal's life over the 17 now dead," he said. "Worse, we sent the message to the next killer out there that the death penalty would not be applied to mass killers. This is wrong and needs to be fixed immediately."

Alyssa's uncle also addressed the court via Zoom at the start of the hearing, remembering her as being full of empathy and care.

He finished his statement with strong words for Cruz: "Rot in hell."

2:43

Mother lashes out at Parkland shooter

Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter died in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, gave her victim impact statement in front of convicted killer Nikolas Cruz.

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Annika Dworet, whose son Nicholas Dworet was killed, expressed disappointment at the jury's decision not to recommend the death penalty.

"We sat in this courtroom every day during this trial. We listened to every witness. We saw every piece of evidence," she said. "It is heartbreaking how any person who heard and saw all this did not give this killer the worst punishment possible."

"How much worse would the crime have to be to warrant death penalty?" she asked.

She said she also was offended by the behavior of the defense team during the trial, including "holding, touching and giggling with this cold-blooded murder."

Anthony Montalto, whose older sister, 14-year-old Gina, was killed, recalled his parents coming home the night of Feb. 14, 2018, with tears in their eyes, telling him his only sibling was dead.

He said he wishes he said goodbye to her that morning.

“I will never be able to watch TV with her, talk about books with her. Every day I walk by her room and see that it’s empty. … Every day I wake up and I remember that she will not be there,” Montalto said.

He called Nikolas Cruz a “murdering bastard” and said Cruz should’ve been sentenced to death.

“He shouldn’t live while my sister rots in a grave,” Montalto said.

Montalto said he hopes the jurors who voted for a life sentence regret their decision after hearing his testimony.

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Brother of Parkland victim strikes out at 'murdering bastard' Cruz

Anthony Montalto criticized the jury for deciding against sentencing gunman Nikolas Cruz to death for murdering 17 people on February 14, 2018.

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Gina Montalto’s father, Tony Montalto, added in court, “If the jury took in the evidence presented, there is only logical and fact-based outcome. Sadly, the jury ignored the facts and went with emotion. They worried how they’d feel ... [if Cruz] was put to death.”

“Did they consider what kind of message their verdict sent to our nation’s students and teachers?” he continued. “Did they consider how they would explain their verdict to the siblings of the victims, as my wife and I struggled to do?”

"I don't believe the case was fair to the victims. The court allowed the defense to show every aspect" of Cruz's life before the massacre, he said, yet victims' families could not bring photos of their loved ones to court or wear pins to honor them.

"The court did everything it could to dehumanize our beautiful Gina, her classmates and her teachers," he said. "My family and the others had to sit like church mice in the courtroom for fear of influencing the jury."

"This injustice must be fixed. The victims' rights must be recognized," he stressed.

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was killed, chose not to deliver a new statement in court on Tuesday.

He tweeted, “My life is no longer dependent on the outcome of this trial and delivering another impact statement will not make me feel better.”

Guttenberg said the statement he gave earlier during the trial “had to meet legal requirements" and couldn't refer to the crime or "refer to the murderer as a murderer or a killer."

“During the sentencing today, we will be given a chance to make another statement and to say anything that we want. But will it make me feel better? We can say whatever we want to the murderer who committed the crime,” he continued. “I could talk about sitting with the State Attorney last week and finally watching the actual video of Jaime getting shot and how I felt with the way … she made it to within one second of safety, only for him to kill her with a single AR 15 shot.”

"We can say whatever we want to the jurors who made the wrong decision” and “whatever we want to the defense team that gave up its humanity to defend the monster,” Guttenberg wrote.

But with Nikolas Cruz’s fate already decided, “I have no need to think about him or to address him,” Guttenberg said.

“I will think about him only two more times. The first time will be when I sit and watch the formal sentencing. The second time will be when I read news reporting of the prison justice that he will eventually receive,” he said. “Going forward, I plan to focus more on those I love.”