this is Facing South Florida with Jim DeFede.
>>Welcome to Facing South Florida, I'm Jim DeFede
and we begin with the jury's decision
to spare the life of Nicholas Cruz
for the murders of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School in 2018.
Nine jurors voted for the death penalty
but three believed there were mitigating factors
such as mental illness and fetal alcohol syndrome
that warranted life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
And if it's not unanimous, then it becomes life.
It was an emotional and unexpected decision.
The day after the verdict, I spoke with Fred Guttenberg,
whose daughter Jamie was killed in the school.
>>I decided yesterday morning before going
into the courtroom that whatever the decision would be,
I would be at peace with it.
Now, I fully expected, based upon the evidence presented
that it was going to be the death penalty.
When I heard count after count after count after count
coming up, no, I got angrier and angrier and angrier.
Listen, I sat through that trial every day almost.
And if I wasn't there on a given day,
I watched every word of the testimony on television.
I know what was proven and the jury failed.
And I just couldn't contain my anger, I am upset.
This is, what happened in Parkland.
And Jim, you've covered this.
Everything about what happened before February 14th, 2018
was a series of failures,
but since then, it's been a series of failures
and let downs as well.
And yesterday was just the latest, the only good news is,
it's a chapter closed.
So I did understand it right away and partly
because like I said, I sat through all the testimony
which included discussing the jury instructions.
And so I knew that last question was confusing to some.
And I saw a couple of family members turn around
and think did he or didn't he?
But the first person they discussed was Luke Hoyer.
And Tom and Gena Hoyer were sitting right in front of me
and they sat through every day of that trial as well.
They understood it and they had an immediate reaction to it.
Devastation, we were all just devastated.
What was also interesting
wasn't just the looks on the families,
the looks on the jurors.
There were so many jurors who were horrified by this outcome
that literally one juror can hold up the will of all
and some of the jurors wouldn't even look up.
They bury their hands in their heads.
They shook their heads
because they did listen to all the evidence.
They did understand.
>>Let's, I wanna take a step back for a second
and maybe I'm not remembering correctly
but it seemed that over the course of our conversations
over the years since this happened,
there was a point where you would've been fine
if right away, he had been,
he had pled guilty and been sentenced to life in prison
and that was it, you know,
but to go through all of this, you know,
was it a mistake to seek the death penalty?
>>I'll say this, from the very first day,
my ask of the state was not to pursue the death penalty
not because I don't want him dead, trust me.
And I apologize for how harsh that may sound.
I do want him gone.
I thought the fastest way to do that
would actually have been just taking the plea
and putting him in with a general population
and no longer protecting him from the other prisoners
which by the way, he's now been protected for years.
He has sat around with a tablet, he gets visitors.
I didn't want him to have that existence anymore.
And the fastest way to remove him from that existence
would've been to put him in a horrible prison
in northern Florida where the other prisoners
would've done their thing.
But the state chose for reasons that I fully understand
and comprehend to pursue the death penalty
because if not for this case,
how would you ever even be able to justify
having the existence of a death penalty?
And the facts of this case,
as time went on and I learned more about his planning
and I learned more about his evil
and I learned more about what he did to kill
but that he was actually hoping to kill even more,
I became a full supporter in the path chosen by the state.
However, we are here, this is the decision
that was rendered.
I woke up this morning at peace with the notion
that he will now be living in hell on earth
and with the hope that his own defense attorney
suggested during closing arguments
that the other prisoners will eventually take care of it
as a justification for saving his life.
It was a really strange moment.
I hope she's right.
>>Did you, after the verdict, after court,
did you go and visit Jamie?
>>Unfortunately it was pouring.
We stayed around at court all day yesterday
until mid late afternoon.
Just all of our families, just together,
and actually with the state attorneys
and by the time we left it was pouring, I'm going today.
>>What are you gonna tell her?
>>What I always do, the truth.
I'm gonna tell her what happened.
I'm gonna tell her about the job that the attorneys did
on her behalf and I'm gonna tell her
that while it isn't the death penalty,
that the person who did this to her is still gonna pay
a horrific price and I'm gonna tell her I love her
and I'm gonna tell her I hate that this happened to her.
Which I tell her every time I go.
Anyone who ever drives by while I'm sitting at the cemetery
probably thinks I'm kind of crazy
'cause I have full on conversations with my daughter.
I use my hands and everything.
I just like as if she's there
and I will do that when I go visit her later.
>>You've talked about this strange question
that folks like me and others in the media will ask,
does this bring closure, well, do you have closure?
Closure, I'm not a hundred percent clear
as to what that term means anymore
but you've had a good response to that
in terms of saying there is no such thing as closure, right?
>>You know, not for not for my family,
not for the other families.
As as long as we have the loss,
we take it with us every single second of every day.
As long as I have to visit my daughter in a cemetery,
there is no such thing as closure.
This is a chapter that we turn the page on.
That's what this is.
I will never, ever, with the exception of the day
of the sentencing think about him again
with the exception that I will always look forward
to the day where I read about his inevitable death
in prison.
>>Talk to me about the community,
the family that the, that all of your families
have now created amongst yourselves.
It's gotta be very powerful.
I'm sure that even as parents before this,
you may have known each other, but the level
of solidarity that you seem to have now,
that's different, right?
>>The only other family that I actually knew before this
was Max Shacker and his family.
Another connection that we never realized until
after this is Jamie used to volunteer her time
for a group called The Friendship Journey
and with the workout program they had for kids
with you know, special needs and different abilities
and turns out Gina Montalto did that with her as well.
And one of the last pictures taken of Jamie
was at one of their Saturday volunteering sessions
and it's with Gina.
So we never knew that, you know,
until after this all happened.
But we all did spend the day together yesterday,
it was a strange combination of emotion and anger,
disappointment but with people who
weren't looking to be connected but we are because of this,
we all come from different places,
we may have different points of view,
we may have different desires for our children
and our futures, but we will always share this.
And yesterday was about this and it was a very hard day
and I hope all the other families
like me last night had a chance to just finally
close their eyes and get a night of sleep.
'Cause I haven't in a while.
>>Why do you think you were able to sleep better last night
than in the last few weeks?
>>The angst over what the jury might do was no longer there.
Every day I'd get up and wonder what was gonna be presented.
Was it gonna cause me to be emotional?
Was it gonna cause me to be angry?
Will the jury understand?
And you know, as you know, for the past four months
my life has really revolved around this trial.
Everything else is on the periphery
and the trial ended yesterday,
not the result that I wanted, but it ended.
>>But it also took a toll on you physically,
like not just emotionally.
Talk about that a little bit.
>>Yeah, when you sit in these trials,
there's a certain behavior that has to be carried out.
Or once I could say, you know, somebody in, you know
a family member spoke out, it affected the jury,
we're asking for a mistrial
>>So you had to bottle everything up,
you had to keep everything inside.
>>We had to bottle everything up.
I heard a lot of people say over the past few months,
we can't, it's unbelievable how stoic the families are.
It's 'cause we had to be.
We would sit there and you would hold it all in.
You wanted to scream, you wanted to cry out loud.
But because of the determination to achieve
a death penalty result, we all bottled it in
and we held it in 'cause we didn't wanna be the ones
to have any influence on the jury
that could be used in a negative way.
But the week of the medical examiner exhibits,
that was, it became almost too hard for me.
And I started having heart palpitations.
I was having some shortness of breath.
And again, it's not something you see on the video
because while it was happening sitting in the courtroom,
I wasn't going to get up and cause a scene, I just wasn't.
But I ended up at a cardiologist and my heart is fine.
My heart is actually perfectly well, but the stress,
the emotion of holding everything in,
it had an impact on me.
And you know, now that this trial is over,
it is taking care of myself,
getting myself maybe a little more physically fit
is something that I'm determined to do.
Maybe my wife and I finding some moments
to do things in life that aren't all wrapped around
this trial, like I said,
for years we've been preparing ourselves for it,
I think will be good for us.
But sitting through that and bottling it all up,
it took a toll on all of us.
>>When we come back, we examine Governor Ron DeSantis'
efforts to undermine the voting power
of African Americans in two key congressional districts.
>>Until our investigation, next to nothing had emerged
about what happened behind the scenes.
>>Stay with us.