ORLANDO, Fla. _ A jury is now deliberating in the case against Noor Salman, the widow of Pulse gunman Omar Mateen, after prosecutors and defense attorneys made their closing arguments this morning.
The 12-member jury started its deliberations at 1:42 p.m. EDT.
Jurors can deliberate as long as needed to decide whether Salman, 31, is guilty of obstruction of justice and of aiding and abetting Mateen in providing of material support to a foreign terror organization, the Islamic State.
Wednesday morning, Salman's attorneys argued Mateen had no reason to involve his wife in his plan to carry out mass murder on June 12, 2016.
"Why would he tell her?" defense attorney Charles Swift said, during closing arguments. "I cannot think of an earthly reason for it. I cannot think of one. What could she help him with?"
Swift and fellow defense attorney Linda Moreno repeated the same advice for the 12 men and woman who will decide Salman's fate: "Use your common sense."
"Why would Omar Mateen confide in Noor, a woman he clearly had no respect for?" Moreno asked. "She was not his peer, she was not his partner, and she was not his confidant."
Earlier Wednesday, prosecutors told Salman's jury that the government doesn't have to prove that Salman was an extremist like her husband, or knew where of how specifically he planned to strike, just that her actions helped him to carry out the attack, which supported the Islamic State terrorist group.
The trial, prosecutor Sara Sweeney said, comes down to "what the defendant knew and what she did."
"She does not have to be his equal in the attack, and in fact she is not," Sweeney said.
Indeed, Sweeney argued Pulse _ where he shot dead 49 people and wounded dozens more in a bloody rampage June 12, 2016 _ was not Mateen's intended target.
Initially, he hoped to strike at Disney Springs, the prosecution said.
"The target of that terrorist attack was not the Pulse nightclub. ... The target of his attack was Disney," Sweeney told the jury, as closing arguments in Salman's trial began.
Sweeney's argument echoed cellphone evidence that was revealed publicly by her defense on the eve of Salman's trial, which placed Mateen at Disney Springs, near Epcot, and at EVE Orlando, another downtown-area club, in the hours leading up to his attack at Pulse.
But Sweeney added a new detail: She showed the jury photos of a baby stroller and doll that were found in a search of the vehicle Mateen drove to Pulse after the attack. Mateen initially planned to his conceal his long gun in the stroller in order to get it into Disney Springs, Sweeney argued.
The stroller, she noted, was not the right size for Mateen's then-3-year-old son.
Salman's defense seized on the admission that Mateen didn't know until soon before the attack where he would strike: "That doesn't make it less tragic. Not in any way, shape, or form. It's a horrible, random, senseless killing by a monster. But it wasn't pre-planned," Swift said.
"And if he didn't know, she couldn't know," the defense lawyer argued.
After testimony concluded Wednesday, Salman defense lawyer Fritz Scheller spoke confidently to reporters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Orlando: "I believe in our jury," he said. "It's been a long road, but it's been a very good road."
Six alternate jurors who also sat throughout the trial were sent home as deliberations began Wednesday afternoon. They were told not to watch the news, in case a juror has an emergency before a verdict is reached.
Dozens of witnesses testified over eight days. Salman chose to not testify in her own defense.
Salman waved to her family in the gallery when she walked into the courtroom Wednesday. Her uncle Al Salman made eye contact and waived back.
To prove Salman aided and abetted Mateen, prosecutors had to show jurors that Salman knew of her husband's plan and helped him prepare. They point to Salman's statements to FBI agents in the hours after the attack, in which agents say she confessed.
She described a chilling scene: sitting alongside her husband as he drove around Pulse for 20 minutes during a family trip on June 8, 2016, and talked about attacking the club. But according to experts for both sides, the trip didn't occur as Salman described it.
FBI Special Agent Richard Fennern testified that most of the couple's time that day was accounted for with receipts and cellphone records. They visited the Florida Mall, at a falafel restaurant and at a Kissimmee mosque, Fennern said, but Salman's phone "had never been near the Pulse nightclub."
Salman's lawyers have argued the confession is false and criticized agents for not recording the interviews. On Wednesday, Sweeney argued that other elements of Salman's FBI statements were corroborated, such as a trip to City Place in Palm Beach, a trip to Disney Springs and his extravagant spending.
"The fact that these things are ultimately corroborated shows you that the defendant did not give a false confession," Sweeney said.
During the trial, jurors saw video of Salman standing with her husband as he bought ammunition and jewelry in the weeks before the attack, racking up substantial credit card debt. They learned he sought to make her a beneficiary on his accounts _ evidence, they say, that the couple was preparing for his death.
The government also points to text messages Salman sent Mateen about 6 p.m. June 11, eight hours before the massacre, referencing a friend of Mateen's referred to in court documents only as "Nemo." "If ur mom calls say nimo invited you out and noor wants to stay home," she wrote, using a different spelling for the friend's name. "She asked where you were xoxo. Love you."
Prosecutors say the texts show Salman helped her husband concoct a cover story to tell his parents. Defense lawyers say the texts show Mateen lied to his wife about where he was going that night.
As Sweeney acknowledged Wednesday morning, evidence suggests Mateen wavered on his target over the several hours before he walked inside Pulse and began firing.
Records showed Mateen arrived at Disney Springs about 10 p.m. June 11, 2016. At 10:27 p.m., he searched for "disney springs" while his phone placed him there. Forty minutes later, he searched for "disney world." Cell towers placed him near Epcot at 12:22 a.m. on June 12.
From there, Mateen searched for "downtown orlando nightclubs." His Google results showed Pulse and EVE Orlando, a nightclub and lounge on South Orange Avenue, near Pine Street.
He got directions to EVE and drove toward Interstate 4, records show. Mateen was near EVE at 12:55 a.m. but drove away six minutes later. At 1:01 a.m., Mateen searched again for "downtown orlando nightclubs" and got directions to Pulse. He drove south, passing the Orange Avenue club between 1:12 and 1:16 a.m.
He drove around the area south of downtown until 1:33 a.m. and was "in the immediate vicinity of Pulse" when he searched for directions back to EVE. He started driving toward downtown again, then turned around. By 1:37 a.m., he was back at Pulse.
Twenty-five minutes later, he started shooting.
