SANTA FE, Texas – Opening statements revealed new details about the 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High School. Family members of the victims are suing the parents of the charged gunman; claiming they did not do enough to prevent their son from killing eight students and two educators, along with wounding more than dozen people. Antonios Pagourtzis and Rose Maria Kosmetatos have denied any wrong-doing.
During his opening statement, plaintiff’s attorney Clint McGuire walked the jury through how the shooting was researched and planned. McGuire explained Dimitrios Pagourtzis spent months researching school shootings, Kamikaze techniques, suicide and had a particular fascination with the Columbine shooters. McGuire said Pagourtzis spent hundreds of dollars on ammunition and other items, such as knives, even though he had no income. McGuire explained all of the items were sent to the family’s home in Alvin, yet his parents didn’t know about the purchases.
The jury also saw photos of bomb making materials McGuire explained were also kept in the home, including some materials kept in Antonios Pagourtzis’ gun safe. McGuire said writings found on Dimitrios Pagourtzis computer showed a depressed and angry teen who complained about a lack of friends, never having a girlfriend, and wanting revenge against a world he felt treated him as “subhuman.”
The jury heard how Pagourtzis put together a school shooter “uniform” by asking his mother for a black duster the Christmas prior to the shooting. McGuire said Pagourtzis also had black boots and a “Born to Kill” T-Shirt. McGuire said fellow students even told him he was dressing like the Columbine high school shooter.
Jurors were told Pagourtzis actually lived in Alvin but was able to go to Santa Fe High School because of a vacant trailer the family owned and used as a home address. McGuire told jurors Pagourtzis spent hours alone in this trailer and even left notes for police to find after the shooting, along with a flask that read “Hell: Admit One.”
McGuire told the jury all of these were warning signs that should have been caught by his parents. McGuire also told jurors how Pagourtzis had easy access to guns in the home and explained how he used his mother’s .38-caliber handgun and 12-gauge shotgun to carry out the mass shooting.
“This shooting was premeditated, it was predictable, and it was preventable,” said McGuire.
The defense gave two opening statements, one from an attorney representing Pagourtzis and one from the attorney representing his parents. Roberto Torres did not dispute the shooting was planned, but said his client could not control his descent into madness and didn’t know how to ask for help.
“A very painful, a very slow, descent into his personal hell,” Torres said.
Torres and the parents’ attorney, Lori Laird, said Pagourtzis showed no signs of violence prior to the shooting.
“She had no idea what was going on in her son’s mind, you don’t know what you don’t know,” said Laird. “He never came to his parents and said, ‘I need help.’”
Both Laird and Torres blamed the online ammunition seller, Luckygunner.com, for not having more robust age verification systems at the time Pagourtzis purchased ammunition. A separate lawsuit was filed against Luckygunner and has been settled. Laird also said Pagourtzis did some of his research on school shooting using computers at the high school, yet no warning bells were set-off. Laird said teachers also never expressed concern about Pagourtzis when his mother contacted them, concerned about her son’s poor grades and his becoming more withdrawn.
Laird said prior to the shooting the family was having a hard time dealing with ailing parents and the suicide of Antonios Pagourtzis’ brother.
“So whose fault is it, whose fault is it that my son left in a body bag,” said Rosie Yanas Stone, mother of Chris Stone. “All I heard in there was excuses.”
Several family members of victims filled the court room on the first day of trial.
“The defense presented their case as ‘the devil made me do it,’ to me, everybody else is to blame but us, it’s hard to swallow, it’s hard to hear,” said Scot Rice, Whose wife Flo was critically wounded during the shooting.
The trial continues Thursday.