A Boulder jury needed less than a day to return a guilty verdict for the perpetrator of a mass shooting in a supermarket that left 10 people dead three years ago.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 25, was found guilty of 55 felony counts for carrying out the mass shooting at the King Soopers store on March 22, 2021.
Those convictions include the first-degree murder of 10 people, including a Boulder police officer who stormed the store when called to the scene. It also includes the attempted murder of 38 people who were trying to escape the store.
Alissa will spend the rest of his life in prison, as Colorado has no death penalty.
After roughly six hours of deliberation over two days, jurors rejected his defense attorneys’ claims that he was insane at the time of the shooting and voices in his head told him to kill people at King Soopers store in 2021.
In a packed Boulder courtroom on Monday as Judge Ingrid Bakke read the verdict over more than 15 minutes, families of those who were killed in the shooting cried silent tears, clasping tissues and each other while trying to obey the judge’s orders that people remain quiet and respectful in the courtroom.
One juror, an older woman, wept as the judge read the verdict. Other jurors looked somber, their eyes staring at the carpet.
Alissa kept his eyes on a yellow tablet and wrote things down, as he had done throughout the trial, sitting next to an aide. He seemingly showed no real emotion or interest in what was happening just a few feet ahead of him while the judge read his fate into a microphone. He spoke to an advocate and his attorneys.
He didn’t look back at his family sitting directly behind him, his family stared ahead, expressionless. They did not attend the subsequent sentencing hearing, leaving him alone to hear more than an hour of grueling victim’s statements and tears and venting. He sat next to one of his public defenders, Sam Dunn.
Between the verdict being read and the sentencing hearing, Alissa changed from court clothes, dress pants and a dress shirt, to striped jail garb. He went from being unrestrained to being handcuffed and ankle-cuffed.
As he sat, still seemingly writing things down or drawing, victims stood up to address the judge and Alissa.
“I think it’s important to talk about who Nevan was, he’s not just another statistic of people who have lost their lives in a mass shooting,” said Nicolina Stanisic, the sister of Nevan Stanisic, who was the first person killed after Alissa got out of his car. Stanisic was shot in his car. “He was a person, he had people who he loved. … He never got to do anything he planned to do. Nevan was such a caring, kind and selfless person.”
Erika Mahoney, addressing the judge, spoke about her father Kevin Mahoney, who was also gunned down in the parking lot. She said she was at work as a journalist in California when her mom began calling her repeatedly.
She knew something was wrong, she said. When they spoke, she heard the words “active shooter,” “King Soopers” and “your dad went grocery shopping,” she tearfully said.
“I wish the young man behind the gun had received more love in his life and perhaps this would have never seen it happened,” she said, facing the judge.
This sparked Alissa to blink and look up from his notebook. He looked at Mahoney and looked at the media, blinking quickly.
“There are words, so many words to choose from. How about I’m sorry? Where is my apology? An iota of remorse from the defendant and his family would have gone a long way,” she said, noting that if Alissa would have gotten out of his car with his gun and shouted, “I need help,” her dad would have been the first one there. “He would have showed you love.”
Over the course of Alissa’s three-week trial, no one disputed the man had severe schizophrenia and was increasingly unwell in the months before the shooting. His family said he grew more isolated and acted strangely – especially after he contracted COVID-19 in November 2020.
After the verdict was read, Alissa’s mother, Khadija Alhidid, speaking through one of her sons, said outside the courthouse that Alissa was sick all along.
“Before the incident, he was sick; after the incident, he was sick. And now in court, you are saying during the incident he was OK and not insane? We just don't know what kind of sickness is this. We're just from a different culture, from a different world,” she said.
Though his attorneys claimed he was hearing voices that rendered him insane on the day of the shootings, not a single medical expert testified that he was insane on the day Alissa allegedly gunned down 10 people.
Prosecutors worked to prove that from January through March he was intentional in planning an attack. He researched other mass shootings. He purchased weapons and bomb-making materials over Amazon. He went to the shooting range with his brothers to practice with his assault rifle.
On the day of the shooting, he sat with his family over breakfast. He drove his brother to work and then he purposefully drove past several closer King Soopers stores where his family shopped to drive to Boulder’s Table Mesa store at 2:30 p.m.
“His intent was to cause his death,” said Ken Kupfner, an assistant district attorney, during closing arguments. “Eight lives ended in 68 seconds. ... These lives were taken after deliberation and with intent.”
For a defendant to be found proven to be not guilty by reason of insanity in Colorado, defense attorneys must prove that he is mentally defective enough to not know the difference between right and wrong. Schizophrenia is not implicitly insanity, according to the law.
After the shooting, Alissa told doctors: “I didn't commit the attack in January. Didn't commit the attack in February … because I was still practicing, and wasn't ready. By March I had enough practice.”
Alissa’s family testified that in the weeks and months before the shooting, Alissa’s personal hygiene suffered and he was increasingly paranoid, breaking a car’s keyfob and blocking out his cellphone because he thought the FBI was following him.
They never sought help for him. His dad testified they thought he was possessed by demons and his brothers thought he was acting strangely – but, prosecutors pointed out, that it was never apparently strange or dangerous enough to be reported to police, mental health professionals or for them to take away his weapons they all knew he kept in his bedroom.
“He was not normal,” his father, Moustafa Alissa, testified. “But we did not expect him to do what he did. We knew he was not normal, but what he did, we did not expect it.”
On March 22, 2021, Alissa dropped his brother off at work in Arvada and drove to the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder. He killed three people in the parking lot who were trying to get away from him before entering the store and killing seven more people, including Eric Talley, one of three officers who first responded to the scene.
Those killed in the shooting were Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Teri Leiker, 51; Talley, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.
Allisa was born in the United States and was one of 10 children in a family that moved between Syria and the U.S. Alissa’s father said that there is a strong stigma within their culture to not seek help for mental health treatment.
In a recorded interview defense attorneys played in court Alissa claimed he was trying to quiet the voices in his head.
“I thought that is what the voices wanted, a mass shooting,” he said.
His attorneys also emphasized he’s been at the Colorado state mental hospital for three years since the shooting, and that one psychologist who evaluated him said he may not have known the difference between right and wrong.
Prosecutors countered by painting a portrait of a young man living in a large multigenerational house, working as a cook in the family restaurant. And the shooting was long planned, rather than some fit of psychotic rage.
Over three months he bought guns and bomb-making chemicals, researched the deadliest ammunition types, and searched for public places as targets.
During the shooting, he seemingly targeted people who were trying to hide and run. Two men in the store didn’t understand, or hear, what was happening in real time and didn’t hide.
Alissa ran right past them and left them alone.
Eric Talley’s mother Judy Talley told the judge on Monday that her son, even up until his 51st year, the age he was when he was shot and killed, called her “mommy.”
“Alissa was free to do whatever he wanted to do, but there are consequences for his actions,” she said. “It’s been 3½ years of pure brutal hell. … I didn’t think anything could make my pain worse, but thanks to Ahmad Alissa and the videos I watched, I saw my son take his last breath. I want him to know that maybe he thought he put out Eric’s light. He didn’t.”
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