Closing arguments are expected to get underway on Thursday.
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The defense team suffered another setback at the start of Tuesday’s hearing when Gergel denied a motion to present evidence about Roof’s mental state during the current phase of trial where jurors are weighing his guilt, not his sentence. Roof, who is white, was motivated by white nationalist ideas.
If found guilty, the Roof faces life in prison or death. Bruck then will be relegated to an advisory role.
ELLIOTT: Well, obviously the most powerful testimony coming from two of the survivors who gave their eyewitness accounts of the massacre – Polly Sheppard today, and then last week we heard from Felicia Sanders.
Before Sheppard, Richardson says a medical examiner will testify about the victims’ injuries.
Experts said USB drives found in Roof’s vehicle had graphic images and racist content. Investigators also recovered lists of churches in the Charleston area as well as the Midlands.
She said: “I was praying out loud”.
Sheppard grabbed two tissues before she testified Wednesday morning in federal court.
Data taken from the Global Positioning System device in Roof’s auto shows that he had been taking regular trips in SC that seem to have strengthened his racist ideologies.
They had all closed their eyes for prayer during their Bible study, and that’s when Roof began firing, she said. Shell casings clattered to the floor and gunshot blasts echoed over the fellowship hall as some 77 hollow-point bullets were fired. She died soon after, her body riddled with at least eight gunshots, some piercing her lungs, her heart, her liver.
When Roof reached her, he pointed his.45-caliber Glock at her feet. He told me to shut up. What did she say?
“I went to that church in Charleston and I did it”, Roof said, then laughed, the video showed.
“I am so sorry”, he said.
Sheppard cried after leaving the witness stand as she was hugged by the victims’ families. The call didn’t go through. Kristen Polis also testified she photographed a white pillowcase cut into a triangle because “to me, it represents what could be a Ku Klux Klan hood”.
This time, an operator answered. This was the first time the call had been played publicly. “Send someone down here please”.
Jurors also heard Ms Sheppard’s frantic 911 call to emergency services, made using the bloody mobile phone of her dying friend, Ethel Lance. He shot all the members in the church. “Please come right away”. Surely the old wiring in the building, Sheppard thought. Emanuel AME church itself was associated with a rebellion by Denmark Vesey, a freed slave, who was hung by whites along with some 30 slaves for allegedly plotting a rebellion, Hamski testified. “Oh my God”, she told the dispatcher.
“He’s coming. He’s coming”.
Police arrived shortly after asking, “Where is he?”
WYFF News 4 has posted the recording for those who want to hear the call in order to develop a clearer picture of the prosecution’s case and what happened in the church.
Roof also expressed his racist beliefs to investigators in an Federal Bureau of Investigation video of his confession, shown in court Friday. ‘I’m going to leave you here to tell the story’. Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015.
Charleston church shooting survivors Felicia Sanders (left) and Polly Sheppard (right).
Presnell said the number of gunshot wounds totaled 60 with numerous wounds hitting vital organs like the lungs, heart and aorta.
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Her testimony, showing X-rays of wounded arms and chests, was factual and clinical, though a few times she stood to better explain the path of a bullet. Each victim suffered multiple gunshots, some so convoluted and grouped together that it was hard to tell the paths of bullets.
