Feds slam Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s push for new trial
Federal prosecutors say the man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue five years ago should not get a new trial and doesn’t even deserve a hearing on his request. In a 124-page response to a motion seeking a new trial filed by Robert Bowers in November, the...
Demolition of Tree of Life building begins, making way for memorial design
As contractors braved the bitter cold Wednesday and started demolishing parts of the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha building, Carole Zawatsky grew nostalgic. The head of a nonprofit working to rebuild the Squirrel Hill synagogue where 11 Jewish congregants were killed during a Shabbat service Oct. 27, 2018, Zawatsky said her...
White supremacist from W.Va. sentenced for threatening jury and witnesses at synagogue shooter’s trial
WHEELING, W.Va. — A self-proclaimed white supremacist was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison Wednesday for making online threats toward the jury and witnesses at the trial of a man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Hardy Carroll Lloyd, 45, of Follansbee, West Virginia, was...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter appeals death penalty conviction, seeks new trial
The man sentenced to death for the mass shooting at a Squirrel Hill synagogue that killed 11 people is seeking a new trial. Robert Bowers, 51, who was convicted over the summer of 63 counts for the Oct. 27, 2018, attack at the Tree of Life synagogue at Wilkins and...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter arrives at federal death row in Indiana
The man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue has been moved to federal death row at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. Robert Bowers, 50, was sentenced to the death penalty on Aug. 3 after a jury heard from 51 witnesses over nine days of testimony...
Man accused of threatening witnesses, jurors during Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial to remain in custody
The self-proclaimed white supremacist accused of threatening Jews and targeting witnesses, jurors and police during the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial will remain in custody. A federal magistrate judge said Wednesday at a detention hearing in Wheeling, W.Va., that Hardy Carroll Lloyd, 47, of Follansbee, W.Va., poses a flight risk and...
Judge in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial permanently seals juror list
The federal judge who presided over the trial of the man who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue has permanently sealed the names of the jurors who convicted him. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville initially sealed the names and addresses of the jurors and prospective jurors during jury...
Groups combating rising antisemitism in Pittsburgh, nationally
Antisemitic fliers passed out in a park and placed on car windshields. Swastikas painted on the sides of buildings and etched into playground equipment. Bomb threats to synagogues. Slurs shouted at Jewish worshippers. The Anti-Defamation League documented all of those incidents in Pittsburgh during the last few months of last...
Attorney Judy Clarke, defender of villains, cannot keep synagogue shooter from death row
Even a partial resume of Judy Clarke’s cases reads like a rogue’s gallery of evil. The Unabomber. The so-called 20th hijacker on 9/11. The Atlanta Olympics bomber. A Boston Marathon bomber. And now, Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. Over a long, illustrious career, Clarke, a publicity-shy defense lawyer who...
Judge formally sentences Pittsburgh synagogue shooter to death in emotional hearing
The emotions swung like a pendulum — from forgiveness, to kindness, to hate, to love, to regret, to gratitude. For each of the people who spoke Thursday at the formal sentencing hearing for the man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue nearly five years ago, they recounted...
How we covered it: Trib’s front pages from Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, trial
The gunman who killed 11 worshippers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, was given the death penalty on Wednesday. A jury in the federal case against Robert Bowers, 50, of Baldwin rejected the defense’s assertion that he was mentally ill. The jurors were unanimous in their decision...
‘A very long chapter’: Loved ones of synagogue shooting victims react to jury’s death penalty voteVideo
Nearly five years ago they gathered in a room at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill, the bloodshed and horror still fresh, to await information about their loved ones — who lived, who died, who was wounded. The Tree of Life synagogue shooting had just happened, and family members...
Multimedia gallery: Pittsburgh synagogue shooter trial Day 37Video
After hearing weeks of grueling, graphic and often heartbreaking testimony, a jury unanimously decided Wednesday that Robert Bowers should be put to death for killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly five years ago. The panel of seven women and five men deliberated about 10 hours over two days....
Decision on Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s fate draws reaction from victims’ families, Jewish community, others
Almost immediately after a jury recommended the death penalty for Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, statements began to pour in from family members of victims and survivors, Jewish leaders, politicians and others. “Although we will never attain closure from the loss of our beloved Rose Mallinger, we now feel a...
Remembering the lives lost in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
Joyce Fienberg, 75, traveled the world during her lifetime, but she couldn’t dream of living anywhere other than her beloved Pittsburgh. Her family recalled her as a dedicated attendee at Tree of Life who always put others’ needs ahead of her own. Read more about Fienberg. Richard Gottfried, 65, was...
Timeline: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting case
Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers enters the Tree of Life synagogue at the corner of Wilkins and Shady avenues in Squirrel Hill and opens fire, killing 11 congregants and wounding two others. Five responding police officers are also injured, including four by gunfire. It is the deadliest antisemitic attack in...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter should be put to death, jury decidesVideo
As they have been for the past two months, and for more than four years before that, people who survived the 2018 mass shooting at the Squirrel Hill synagogue and those who lost family members there were resolute. Filling three rows of seats behind the prosecutors who had advocated for...
Jury reaches decision in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting case
The jury considering the fate of the man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue nearly five years ago has reached a decision on whether the man will be sentenced to death or life in prison. The clerk’s office in U.S. District Court said around 11:15 a.m. Wednesday...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s fate remains undecided, deliberations to resume Wednesday
The jury considering the fate of the man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue nearly five years ago will continue their deliberations on Wednesday. The panel of seven women and five men began discussing the penalty-phase verdict for Robert Bowers at 9 a.m. Tuesday and broke for...
Jurors deliberating whether Pittsburgh synagogue shooter is sentenced to death or life in prison
Eleven times, the prosecutor repeated the same sentence, changing only the subject. “Her loss, alone, is sufficient to justify a sentence of death.” “His loss, alone, is sufficient to justify a sentence of death.” Eleven times, one for each person killed in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly...
Week 7 recap: Defense offers two dozen witnesses in effort to save synagogue shooters’ life
Over the past two months, 130 people have testified as part of the trial for the man convicted of killing 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue. They have described the terror inside the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018. They have spoken lovingly of those killed. They...
Squirrel Hill holds complicated feelings about death penalty for synagogue shooter
Many in Squirrel Hill hate Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers. But their feelings about how to punish him as his federal trial nears a conclusion are as unique as the individuals themselves. Lori Kline grew up in this tree-shaded East End neighborhood, where roughly half the residents are Jewish and...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter’s relatives describe a joyless, withdrawn child
Patricia Fine wishes she could have understood what it meant. She recognized that her 4-year-old nephew was quiet and withdrawn. That he was sad. “He didn’t get excited and giggly. He didn’t get mad,” she testified Friday. “He was always the same. He didn’t have joy.” But Fine, who is...
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter ‘actively attempted to present himself as less ill,’ psychiatrist says
The man who killed 11 people at a Squirrel Hill synagogue nearly five years ago doesn’t want people to think he’s mentally ill. So much so, a psychiatrist testified Thursday, that when experts questioning Robert Bowers about his alleged delusions have implied that his thoughts are bizarre, he retracts them....
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter could earn more privileges in supermax prison, expert says
A federal prison expert who testified Wednesday about harsh conditions Robert Bowers could expect at the Bureau of Prisons’ only super-maximum security facility if he receives a life sentence said Thursday during cross-examination that he also could earn privileges for good behavior. That could mean more phone calls, recreation and...
