‘You Will Never Be Forgiven’: Tree of Life Shooting Victims’ Families Share Anguish as Gunman Is Sentenced to Death

Friends and family of 11 Jewish worshipers, who were killed in a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh Jewish community center in 2018, spoke of their pain and loss before a federal judge who delivered a formal death sentence to the gunman on Thursday.

A unanimous jury sentenced Robert Bowers, 50, to execution on Wednesday as the penalty phase of a trial that's spanned nearly 40 days neared its end.

“My parents died alone, without any living soul to comfort them or to hold their hand in their last moments ... no one deserves that cold and evil fate,” said Mark Simon, whose parents Bernice and Sylvan were murdered in Bowers' hate-fueled attack on Oct. 27, 2019, Tribune Live reported.

“You will never be forgiven, never.”

Though Simon was not alone in expressing that sentiment, Jared Younger, the son of victim Irving Younger, told the gunman the opposite.

"All of the pain, the anxiety, the nightmares and the trauma ... for all of it, I want to say to you Robert Bowers: I completely forgive you," he said, according to Tribune Live.

Younger, a Christian, invoked Jesus and his faith's school of thought towards "sinners" in his statement during the hearing.

"I love everybody in this courtroom ... and that man, Robert Bowers, is no exception," he said. "As long as Bowers has breath in his lungs, he has time to make right with God ... I say to you, love your enemies."

Many members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community have been reluctant to forgive a shooter who has still not expressed remorse.

"My grandparents fled antisemitism to come to the United States," survivor Martin Gaynor said. 

"It is terrible that I experienced the kind of hate-filled antisemitic attack my grandparents came here to avoid," he said, adding that Bowers' trial sends a "signal that antisemitism has no place in our hearts, no place in our communities."

Many survivors said they still fear going to places of worship, and some carry firearms when they do. For others, the “scars” from the attack linger in other ways spilling onto their careers, relationships and physical wellbeing. 

Deane Root took a one year sabbatical then retired as professor in 2020 after the attack. "I lost my career, which was my core mission for over 50 years,” she said.

Peg Durachko, whose husband Richard Gottfried was killed, addressed Bowers directly. 

“Your callous disregard for the person he was repulses me. Your hateful act took my soulmate from me, left me alone,” she said, according to WTAE. “I suggest you prepare now, because you have work to do. Repent and turn back to God."

Another survivor of the mass shooting, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, said his house of worship was the 12th victim of the massacre.

“The Tree of Life building died that day,” he said.

Though there is a plan to rebuild, Myers doesn't believe the congregation will ever have enough people present for a morning service because membership is down, the outlet reported.

Andrea Wedner, who was shot and whose mother was killed by Bowers, recalled those final moments with 97-year-old Rose Mallinger.

“I saw my arm blown open and my life blown apart,” she said. "The death penalty gives certainty that the person who murdered our loved ones will never walk on this Earth again."

The impact statements come under the Crimes Victims' Right Act, prosecutors said, which is intended to give victims the opportunity to actively participate in the sentencing proceedings by orally informing the court how their lives have been impacted by criminal acts. 

Bowers was convicted by the same jury of 63 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and the obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death for the attack on the Jewish center that prosecutors describe as blatantly anti-Semitic. Twenty-two of those charges were capital offenses.

Bowers' defense team tried to save his life by portraying him as a product of multi-generational trauma and mental illness that began with Bowers' grandmother in the 1930s and funneled down to him.

Attorneys characterized his childhood as traumatic and unstable calling witness after witness to hammer down the narrative.

But prosecutors reminded jurors of the planning and intentionality of Bower’s anti semitic massacre saying that he was “proud he carried out the worst mass shooting against Jews in U.S. history.”