The jury recommended the sentence for Nikolas Cruz in the murder of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Family members of the victims of the Parkland school shooter expressed their disappointment over the jury's decision Thursday to give him life behind bars instead of a death sentence.
The relatives reacted shortly after the jury decided Nikolas Cruz should be given a life sentence in the Feb. 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Lori and Ilan Alhadeff lost their 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, in the shooting.
"I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times," Lori Alhadeff said. "We are beyond disappointed with the outcome today, this should have been the death penalty, 100%."
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
"I'm disgusted with our legal system, I'm disgusted with those jurors," Ilan Alhadeff said. "What do we have the death penalty for? What is the purpose of it? You set a precedent today, you set a precedent for the next mass killing."
He didn't name the gunman but spoke of him.
U.S. & World
"I pray that that animal suffers every day of his life in jail, and he should have a short life," he said.
Tony Montalto, who lost his 14-year-old daughter Gina, called the jury's decision a "gut-punch."
“Pretty unreal that nobody paid attention to the facts of this case," Montalto said. "He pulled the trigger 139 times. That’s cruel and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Montalto also didn't use the gunman's name.
"What do we want as a society, do we want people who commit atrocious acts against the future of our country to be punished to the fullest extent of the law? Or do we want to excuse them because they had a tough time growing up?" Montalto said.
"This shooter doesn’t deserve compassion,” he added. “Did he show compassion to Gina?"
"I'm stunned, I'm devastated. There are 17 victims that did not receive justice today," said Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter, Jaime. "This jury failed our families today."
Guttenberg said the first thing he'll do is visit his daughter at the cemetery.
"The monster's gonna go to prison, and in prison I hope and pray he receives the kind of mercy from prisoners that he showed to my daughter and the 16 others," Guttenberg said. "He is gonna go to prison and he will die prison and I will be waiting to read the news on that."
Debbi Hixon, whose husband, Chris, was a coach and athletic director at the school, said it was hard to put into words how disappointed she was.
"I'm just completely devastated and shocked by this verdict," she said. "What it says to me, what it says to my family, what it says to the other families, is that his life meant more than the 17 that were murdered and the 17 that were shot and the thousands of people in that school and that community that are terrorized and traumatized every day."
Linda Beigel Schulman lost her son, Scott Beigel, who was a cross country coach and geography teacher at Stoneman Douglas.
"If this was not the most perfect death penalty case, then why do we have the death penalty at all?" she asked. "We are all disappointed."
Schulman said she was hoping for prison yard justice for the gunman now.
"He is probably going to be taken out sooner than later, even if he had gotten the death penalty," she said. "The fact that he’s going into some sort of general population, he’s going to have to look over his shoulder every minute for the rest of his life."
“I never thought I could be so ugly inside, but I can’t wait to get the call that says that animal has been killed in prison,” she added.
Chen Wang lost her 15-year-old cousin, Peter, in the shooting.
"This monster killed 17 people. How can this monster live another day?" Chen said. "All the mothers I saw in that courtroom have suffered and now they suffer more."
She called the jury's decision "insane" and others could now be motivated to do what the gunman did.
“He was happy to see people die,” she said. “He had a smirk on his face.”
Anne Ramsay lost her 17-year-old daughter, Helena, in the shooting.
“We have been let down. Today we find out there’s no justice for us," she said. “We had to listen to how he came back and finished off our loved ones."
The mother of 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver reiterated that justice wasn't served for the families.
"The defendant accomplished his goal, the defendant made us feel bad, took our loved ones away, the defendant saw the families suffer," Patricia Oliver said. "We're not going to let that defendant take more from us."
Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina was killed, said he was told just one juror led to a life sentence instead of death. That information hasn't been confirmed.
"One juror either didn't understand the facts in this case or was dishonest with themselves when they signed up to become a juror and would never have voted for the death penalty," Petty said. "You cannot look at the facts of this case, look at the cruel and inhumane way the 17 victims were treated."
Max Schachter, who lost his 14-year-old son Alex, also expressed shock and disappointment.
"I think the defense used tricks at the end to make people feel guilty and try to get them to not focus on the facts,” he said. "But it was the jury’s responsibility to make a decision based on the facts."
"To not punish the worst high school shooter in U.S. history after what he did to Alex and all the 16 others is just a travesty of justice and it’s just heartbreaking," he added.
