ORLANDO, Fla. _ Shahla Mateen last saw her son, Omar Mateen, on June 11, 2016, when he stopped by her Port St. Lucie home to say hello after he finished work.
Everything seemed normal, she said.
"I wish I knew," Shahla Mateen told jurors in her daughter-in-law's trial Wednesday. "I wish I knew."
Less than 11 hours later, Omar Mateen opened fire in the Pulse nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring dozens. His wife, Noor Salman, is accused of aiding and abetting him and of lying to investigators.
Shahla Mateen was emotional when she entered the courtroom Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Sweeny put her arm around her to guide her to the witness box. When Sweeny asked her to identify Noor Salman in the courtroom, her eyes scanned the jury box in front of her, unable to find the familiar face, before the judge directed her to the defense table to her right.
"Yes," Shahla Mateen said, her voice breaking. "Pink jacket."
Shahla Mateen's emotional testimony came as prosecutors are wrapping up their case against Salman. The government expects to rest its case Thursday, after which the defense plans to call eight to 10 witnesses next week. Then, the jury will have the case _ making a verdict next week possible.
Shahla Mateen said she called her son the afternoon of June 11, after he left her home, to invite him to a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner at their mosque. She couldn't reach him, so she called Salman, who said her son would be asleep by then and she wanted to stay home with him.
Omar Mateen, Salman said, would be eating dinner at his friend Nemo's house.
He later told his mother the same thing.
That evening, Shahla Mateen saw Nemo's mother at the mosque. She told her their sons were together, and was surprised when Nemo's mother said he was out of state doing a medical rotation.
"I feel sad, embarrassed. I said, 'He lied,'" Shahla Mateen said.
She called her son when she left the mosque that night and left a message saying she wanted to speak with him right away � it was an emergency, she said. Shahla Mateen said she wanted to know why her son had lied, but waited a few hours to call because she did not want to pry too much.
"He was a grown man, he has his own life, I don't want to interfere with their life, I don't want to be too nosy," she said.
She waited a while and then fell asleep, waking up to law enforcement officers at the door about 4 a.m.
Shahla Mateen described her relationship with Salman as a "natural" family relationship. She said her daughter-in-law loved spending time with the children in the family, and agreed with defense attorney Fritz Scheller when he asked if she was "naive" and "immature."
"Noor, you need to grow up," Shahla Mateen said she once texted Salman.
Mateen's sister, Sabrina Abasin, described her sister-in-law as a good mother who often looked after Abasin's children as well. She remembered seeing Salman the night of June 12, after she was questioned by the FBI.
"She looked tired, more like drained," Abasin said. "She had dark bags under her eyes and her eyes were irritated, red."
At 4:27 a.m. June 12 _ during a standoff with police more than two hours after he first opened fire inside the nightclub _ Salman texted Mateen, twice asking, "where are you?" The exchange happened about the time Fort Pierce police woke her up with a phone call, asking her to exit their apartment.
"Everything ok?" Mateen replied.
Salman responded, reminding her husband that he had work the next day. His mother was "worried and so am I," she wrote. Mateen responded: "You heard what happened."
"????" Salman replied. "What happened?!" As Salman texted, Mateen's mother called him twice. He didn't answer. "Omar call me ... I am so worried," she said in a voicemail. "Please call me."
By the time he and Salman were trading texts, as jurors saw earlier in the trial, Mateen had already gunned down club-goers throughout Pulse with an AR-15-style rifle, tracing a methodical and bloody path as wounded patrons fled, hid and called for help.
"I love you babe," Mateen wrote in his last text message at 4:29 a.m.
"Habibi what happened?!" Salman said, using an Arabic term of endearment. "Your mom said that she said to come over and you never did."
Earlier Wednesday, Salman's jury saw records of Mateen's expansive online research prior to the massacre at Pulse, including searches for the Islamic State group, violence in the Middle East, other acts of terrorism _ and places to get guns.
Kim Rosecrans, an information technology specialist with the FBI, testified about dozens of searches on Mateen's smartphone in May and June, underscoring Mateen's obsession with Islamic State.
He looked up jihadists fighting in Syria; Islamic State-claimed suicide bombings in Iraq; messages from the group urging attacks during Ramadan, a monthlong fast observed Muslims; the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas; and U.S.-led bombings, including the one that killed Abu Waheeb.
In conversations with an Orlando police hostage negotiator, Mateen would later claim his June 12, 2016, attack at Pulse nightclub was "triggered" by the May 6 death of Waheeb, an Islamic State leader in Iraq.
Mateen also researched ways to acquire guns, Rosecrans' testimony showed. He looked up different types of firearms, the process for making a purchase at a gun show, Florida's laws concerning assault rifles and places to buy, including Walmart and Bass Pro Shops.
He also showed an interest in being watched by the government _ with results like "My family's Google searching got us a visit from counterterrorism police" and "The NSA might be reading your searches, but your local police probably aren't" _ and various law-enforcement agencies.
However, under questioning by Salman's defense, Rosecrans said Mateen's internet visits also included dating sites and a link about masturbation. Those entries, defense attorney Charles Swift said, "don't suggest Mateen was sharing his phone much with his wife."
That could be an important point: Salman's defense argues her husband kept secrets from her _ ranging from infidelity, to his intentions to carry out mass murder.
On Tuesday, jurors in the trial heard from FBI agents who questioned Salman in the hours after the attack and also people who interacted with Salman and Mateen in the weeks prior.
Her behavior before the massacre and her reaction to the news of her husband's death are important to the case against her because prosecutors say Salman knew in advance about her husband's plot. Mateen died in a shootout with police after the massacre.
Salman is accused of aiding and abetting her husband's material support of a foreign terror organization. She is also charged with obstruction of justice. If convicted as charged, she faces the possibility of life in federal prison.
