ORLANDO, Fla. _ When she turned on the news June 12, 2016, to find there had been a mass shooting in Orlando, Susan Adieh's thoughts turned to a loved one who might be among the dead.
But for Adieh, that fear was prompted by a face on the screen: the shooter, Omar Mateen.
Adieh knew Mateen. He was the mysterious, ill-tempered husband of her cousin, Noor Salman.
"We thought he killed her at the house before he went (to Orlando)," Adieh, who lives in Mississippi, said after a recent jail visit to Salman.
Salman, 31, is on trial, accused of aiding and abetting her husband's support of a foreign terrorist organization when he killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in the name of Islamic State. Salman is also charged with obstruction of justice. She faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Salman's defense lawyers will present their case this week, hoping to persuade a 12-member jury to see their client as her family does: an abused wife who was manipulated by a "monster" she met and fell in love with online _ and who lived in fear and isolation until his death.
Salman told Jacquelyn Campbell, a nurse who met with her in jail last year, that Mateen choked, raped and beat her during their four years of marriage. Campbell may testify as an expert in domestic violence and post-traumatic stress.
The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Salman was born in Central Western California and grew up in a neighborhood where many of her aunts and uncles also lived, family said.
Though the family spoke Arabic at home, English was Salman's first language.
Salman's mother wanted Salman to subscribe to their Muslim faith, said her uncle, Bassam Salman. Salman was grounded if she skipped services at the mosque or went to her friend's Sunday school at the Christian church, the uncle said. But Islam wasn't strictly enforced in the home as Salman and her two sisters grew older.
As an adult, Salman was married in the Palestinian territories. It was an arranged marriage that didn't last. Her first husband was also abusive, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Salman wrote in court records.
Living in California again, Salman met Mateen online in 2011. After a few months, Mateen and his father flew from their home in Fort Pierce to ask Salman's parents for her hand in marriage. They agreed and the couple went to the courthouse to apply for a marriage license.
That's when the family learned that Mateen had been married before. But acknowledging that Salman, too, was previously married, the family made peace.
Mateen and Salman were married in her parents' backyard in 2011.
Mateen took his bride to Florida and, her family says, rarely allowed her to visit loved ones. They had a son in September 2012 and Salman became the child's caretaker. She also frequently cared for other children in her in-laws' family, Mateen's sister and mother said in court last week.
Adieh saw flashes of Mateen's anger when he and Salman attended her son's wedding in Mississippi in 2015, she said. Mateen drove up to the house and around a circular pavement as family members directed him to keep traffic moving. He turned too much and the back tire jumped over the pavement.
Mateen pushed open his door and checked for damage, while screaming at Salman in the passenger's seat and calling her names.
"Something's wrong with this guy," Adieh recalled thinking.
They never had the opportunity to speak with Salman about her husband's outburst, Adieh said.
"He did not leave her with us by herself," Adieh said.
Salman's cousin and uncle said they would have intervened, had they known more. She was too embarrassed and fearful, they said, to confide in them.
Only after Adieh brought Salman to her Mississippi home the week after the Pulse attack did Salman begin confiding in her family, they said. Salman told them she stayed with Mateen so she wouldn't lose her son, Salman's uncle Al Salman told media in January, after her indictment.
Prosecutors have presented a very different picture of Salman.
Jurors last Monday heard from FBI Special Agent Ricardo Enriquez, who said Salman tearfully confessed to knowing what her husband had been planning. In a series of statements, she eventually told the agent she was with Mateen as he scouted Pulse and talked about attacking the club, he said.
Special Agent T.J. Sypniewski, who testified Tuesday, said he asked Salman if Mateen was physically violent toward her. Salman said she hadn't been abused, the agent testified.
Defense lawyers have argued that Salman's statements to the FBI were made under pressure and indicated that they plan to call an expert on false confessions to testify.
