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Dec 22, 2023

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial: Week 1 featured emotional testimony and chilling 911 recordings

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The first week of the trial in the mass shooting at a Squirrel Hill synagogue included opening statements, testimony from 21 witnesses and very little cross- examination.

They testified in the trial of Robert Bowers, 50, of Baldwin, who is accused of committing the Oct. 27, 2018, mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue building in Squirrel Hill. Bowers, who has been in custody since the day of the attack, faces 63 federal counts, including 11 counts each of obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death and hate crimes resulting in death.

He could face the death penalty if convicted in the federal case.

The government began its prosecution with emotional evidence, including 911 calls from inside the Tree of Life building and testimony from survivors who escaped the massacre.

Those killed were members of three congregations: Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light.

They included: Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan, 86, were among those killed at the synagogue, along with brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Irving Younger, 69; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87; Richard Gottfried, 65; and Rose Mallinger, 97.

Below is a summary of the witnesses, their role in the case, how long they were on the stand and the evidence they presented.

Day 1

1. Shannon Basa-Sabol (59 minutes)

Basa-Sabol, a 911 call-taker for Allegheny County, testified that she received the first 911 call from the synagogue the morning of the attack. It was from Bernice Simon, who was in the Pervin Chapel attending services with her Tree of Life congregation.

Simon reported that her husband of more than 60 years, Sylvan Simon, had been shot and was bleeding. Although Bernice's call got disconnected, Basa-Sabol called her back and instructed her to keep pressure on Sylvan's wound.

She tried to keep Bernice calm, telling her to be quiet so that she didn't give her position away.

"Don't talk, Bernice. Don't talk."

Bernice responded, according to the 911 recording, "I just got …"

"Are you still with me?" Basa-Sabol asked.

There was no response, Basa-Sabol said, other than Bernice struggling to breathe.

2. Carol Janssen (14 minutes)

Janssen, an Allegheny County 911 center professional development coordinator, oversaw the collection of the 911 recordings and radio dispatch traffic. Her testimony was brief, and she primarily identified 911 call recording exhibits.

3. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers (2 hours, 40 minutes)

Myers, the rabbi for the Tree of Life congregation, was reciting the Mourner's Prayer in the early part of his service when it was disrupted by gunfire.

Myers told the congregants with him in the Pervin Chapel to drop to the floor or lay flat in the pews and be quiet.

He fled upstairs behind the bima, or altar, to a bathroom in the choir loft, dialing 911.

The door, which opened outward, did not lock. Myers kept his hand on it for more than 40 minutes as he waited to be rescued.

"I thought, if I could sense someone turning the knob, I might have an element of surprise to pop open the door and fight," he told the jury.

When he was rescued, Myers had to pass the bodies of the Simons and Rose Mallinger.

"I asked God to forgive me because I couldn't save them," he said.

Day 2

4. Wendy Kobee (8 minutes)

Kobee served as the vice president of youth education for congregation Dor Hadash in 2018. She testified that students from kindergarten through 7th or 8th grade attended their religious school and paid tuition. That year, she said, the school collected $18,900 in tuition from its students.

5. Carol Black (1 hour, 30 minutes)

Black, a member of New Light congregation, arrived for Shabbat services that morning just after the 9:45 a.m. start. She told the jury that as she was heading toward the sanctuary, she heard her brother, Richard Gottfried, in the kitchen with another member, Dan Stein. They were discussing preparations for a breakfast.

As she removed her yarmulke and prayer shawl from her bag, Black said, she heard a loud sound. When she heard it again, she realized it was gunfire.

She and two other congregants, Barry Werber and Melvin Wax, followed Rabbi Jonathan Perlman through a hallway into a dark storage area to hide. She saw Bowers shoot Wax but tried to remain calm.

Several minutes later, Black testified, she and Werber were rescued by SWAT officers.

"I had to step over Mel to get out of the space," she said. "I just quietly to myself said goodbye to him."

She never saw her brother again.

6. Dan Leger (1 hour, 3 minutes)

Leger, a retired nurse, is a member of Dor Hadash and was preparing for services that morning with Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz and Martin Gaynor when the shooting started.

He and Rabinowitz ran toward the gunfire.

"Something dreadful was happening," Leger testified. "Both of us trained to be helpers. We wanted to help."

Leger was shot in the abdomen.

"I felt that I was dying."

He lay still on the stairwell where he collapsed, praying and reflecting on his life.

"I thought about the wonder of my life, the beauty of it. All the happiness I had in my life," Leger, 75, testified. "The joy of having two wonderful sons, a wonderful wife, and also a wife before that.

"I prayed for forgiveness for those I have wronged in my life. I was ready to go."

But then Leger saw a person in camouflage pants walking by him. He reached up toward the figure.

"This one's alive," the medic shouted.

7. Barry Werber (1 hour)

Werber, 81, was participating in services with New Light congregation when he heard a loud sound he thought was glassware breaking.

He went out to see what it was and saw a body on the steps.

Perlman pushed Werber and the others toward the store room to hide.

"My mind was clouded with panic."

As he hid, Werber said he heard Wax get shot and fall back into the room.

"I saw a figure of a person step over the body and step back out of the room," he said. "The guy with the gun walked in, didn't see me and walked out," he told 911.

8. Martin Gaynor (43 minutes)

Gaynor, 68, is also a member of Dor Hadash. He was with Leger and Rabinowitz when the shooting began.

Remembering active shooter training he’d previously had, "run, hide, fight," that's what he did.

Gaynor ran out the synagogue's main doors facing Wilkins Avenue and found a woman at a neighboring home and called 911.

9. August Siriano (27 minutes)

Siriano served as the custodian at Tree of Life synagogue since 1993 and considered two of the shooting victims, brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, to be his good friends. The brothers, who had an intellectual disability, would often have tea and bagels with Siriano in the lobby prior to Saturday services, and he would help them get ready.

"I tied their shoes, and I fixed their ties," he said.

Siriano was in the bathroom in the sanctuary when the shooting started and ran toward Pervin Chapel. He saw Cecil Rosenthal lying on the floor face down and ran back toward the sanctuary and outside and called 911.

Day 3

10. Rabbi Jonathan Perlman (43 minutes)

Rabbi Perlman, of New Light congregation, testified that when the shooting began, he crawled out of their sanctuary toward a storage room he had discovered only a week earlier.

When he got the congregants in there safely, he said, he pleaded with Wax, who was nearly deaf, to stay hidden.

"I said to him, ‘please, go find a place to hide,’ and he wouldn't listen to me."

Perlman said he then was trying to find his own hiding place when he saw an outline of a door that led outside.

He went out and was able to climb a fence that led to a neighboring yard for safety.

11. Stephen Weiss (1 hour, 33 minutes)

Weiss, a retired middle school teacher and leader of Tree of Life's junior congregation, said he was in Pervin Chapel when the shooting began.

He ran down a side aisle to check on the New Light members and tell them to hide and raced back upstairs.

He escaped through the building's main sanctuary to the outside and directed responding officers where to go.

12. Audrey Glickman (1 hour, 21 minutes)

Glickman, 66, is a member of Tree of Life congregation and had just finished her role in the opening part of the service with David Rosenthal when she heard the shooting.

She immediately looked for her companion, Joseph Charny, and grabbed David Rosenthal to help him escape up the stairs behind them.

David Rosenthal was upset, though, saying he wanted to go home.

"We had him up a couple steps, and he ran back into the chapel," she said.

Glickman said she and Charny couldn't follow him.

"We could only hope what was going on was not happening in the chapel, and he could get out," she said.

Glickman and Charny ran upstairs and hid inside a room next to the choir loft, covering themselves with their prayer shawls to disguise themselves among bags of clothing on the floor that were to be donated.

13. Lou Fineberg (12 minutes)

Fineberg, a member of Dor Hadash, testified that he arrived at the synagogue building a little late that morning, and after he parked, saw Rabbi Doris Dyen and her husband, Deane Root, frantically waving at him.

"‘We saw glass, and we heard gunshots,’" they told him.

Fineberg then stopped a couple other congregants who were arriving from entering the building, and then, when he heard gunshots himself, fled.

14. Rabbi Doris Dyen (42 minutes)

Dyen, a member of Dor Hadash since 1987, testified that when she and Roote were driving past the synagogue that morning to park, they heard what could have sounded like a volley of gunshots. Then, as they walked up the sidewalk to enter, they saw one of the windows had a giant hole through it, with glass on the ground.

She then heard shots coming from inside.

Dyen said she froze like a deer in headlights.

"My husband, Deane, said ‘active shooter, we’ve got to go,’" grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to the car.

The two of them remained in the area to warn other congregants not to go inside.

15. Daniel Mead (27 minutes)

Mead, a Pittsburgh police officer now on disability, and his partner, Michael Smidga, were the first to respond to the synagogue.

When they arrived at the building just before 10 a.m., he said, they didn't hear any shooting but were directed to the front.

Mead inched his way along the synagogue wall toward glass doors when he saw a man inside with a rifle.

"He started shooting," Mead said. "I remember the first bullet came through the glass at me. I felt my hand go up in the air. It was like a rag doll."

Mead retreated, angrily shouting the same expletive over and over. He called on the radio that he’d been shot and needed a medic.

16. Deane Root (32 minutes)

Root, 75, testified that when he went through the parking lot that morning, he noted a car he hadn't seen before straddling two handicapped spaces.

Then, as he and his wife approached the building, he heard the gunfire.

After he pulled Dyen to safety, Root said, he called 911 and warned people to stay away.

Day 4

17. Michael Smidga (41 minutes)

Smidga said when Mead was shot, his ear and face were punctured by glass and shrapnel. He moved against the building to find cover and tried to control his breathing.

Then, Smidga said, he made his way to a window and peered inside.

As he pressed his face against the glass, he saw the barrel of a rifle, then a strap, and then the gunman.

Smidga fired three rounds through the window but wasn't sure if he’d hit Bowers.

Still, he "knew he was pissed."

18. Stephen Mescan (2 hours, 14 minutes)

Mescan, the Pittsburgh police SWAT team tactical commander, led his operators into the synagogue that morning, trying to find the shooter and rescue the people inside.

The team worked their way methodically through the building, noting on the radio when they found victims who had been killed and live victims who needed to be evacuated.

At 10:53 a.m., as the team made its way to the synagogue's upper floors, Mescan shouted on his police radio, "Shots fired. Shots fired."

One of his officers, Tim Matson, had been shot in the head and torso.

A short time later, there was a second gunfight, and Bowers, who’d been wounded, said he was giving up.

19. Clint Thimons (1 hour, 16 minutes)

Thimons was one of the SWAT team members who fired on Bowers and then negotiated his surrender.

He testified that as he tried to see into the classroom where Bowers had holed up, the room was dark and filled with smoke.

But then he saw a person's silhouette move, followed by muzzle flashes.

Thimons returned fire — 10 to 15 shots.

Bowers called out that he’d been hit and was giving up.

"Crawl out or you’ll die," Thimons responded.

After 10 minutes, Bowers emerged, still with Glock handguns in his waist and in an ankle holster. He left his AR-15 rifle in the room he’d been in.

Bowers told Thimons his name and date of birth and said he’d attacked the synagogue because "all Jews need to die."

20. Brian Collins (5 minutes)

Collins, an FBI special agent, testified briefly about Bowers’ email address, [email protected], and that he’d saved passwords to use on the alt-right social media site, gab.com.

21. Pamela Browning (35 minutes)

Browning, an intelligence analyst with the Pennsylvania State Police, compiled what is called a bio sheet on Bowers less than an hour after his capture, collecting personal information, including criminal history — he had none — his residences and social media presence.

She testified that she found posts from him on gab.com, including one from that morning, where he wrote: "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in."

Paula Reed Ward is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paula by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .

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