FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — With his fate sealed and his life spared, the gunman who took 17 lives stepped into a Broward courtroom Tuesday morning to face return fire.
Armed only with their grief expressed through words, family members of those murdered and wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sought to inflict on Nikolas Cruz just a fraction of the pain they suffered because of what he did more than 4 1/2 years ago.
They told him he got away with murder. They told him he will suffer in prison for the rest of his life. They told him he was lucky to escape the death penalty. They told him he was a waste of breath. And they told him he would die forgotten — “a name on a tombstone that no one ever visits,” said Thomas Hixon, whose father, Christopher, was one of the 17 killed.
