'I love you babe;' Orlando shooter's last text to his wife
03/21/2018 2:40 pm PDT
By Emilee Speck, WKMG
ORLANDO -- (WKMG) -- “What happened?!” Noor Salman asked her husband, Omar Mateen, in a text message in the early-morning hours of June 12, 2016.
When Mateen received the text just before 4:30 a.m., the 29-year-old was holed up in a Pulse nightclub bathroom in the middle of carrying out one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
Mateen's mother called him hours earlier.
“Omar call me … I am so worried,” she said in a voicemail. "Please call me.”
At 2:30 a.m., when Mateen was in the Pulse restroom, he posted a Facebook message that read, “You kill innocent women and children by doing US airstrikes. Now taste the Islamic State vengeance.”
“Your mom I'd (sic) worried and so am I,” Salman said in a text to Mateen at 2:42 a.m. “You know you work tomorrow right?”
The attorneys for the U.S. government say Salman knew exactly where Mateen was and what he was doing when she sent those messages.
Salman is charged with aiding and abetting Mateen while he prepared for the terror attack. Federal attorneys are attempting to show Salman willingly went with him to look at potential targets and on ammunition shopping trips, and ultimately helped him come up with a cover story saying he was with his friend Nemo the night of the shooting.
At 4:40 a.m., Mateen Googled “bullet lodged in barrel." FBI Special Agent Paul Castillo testified during the first week of testimony that Mateen's Sig Sauer MCX series long gun had malfunctioned and was jammed.
The cellphone history was presented in court Wednesday along with the testimony from FBI information technology specialist Kim Rosecrans about what he found on Mateen's cellphone, which was recovered inside the Pulse nightclub bathroom.
"I love you babe," was Mateen's last text to his wife before being killed in a gunfire exchange with Orlando SWAT officers.
News 6 legal expert Whitney Boan said that despite the fact that Mateen and Salman exchanged "xoxo" and "I love you" via text it doesn't mean that shows the entire dynamic of their relationship.
"This is going to be something the government is going to show, that there was not tension between the two of them or that she wasn't in fear of him," Boan said of the messages."It's worth noting that most relationships between man and a woman or any relationship for that matter shouldn't and can't be reduced to the tenor or words in text messages."
'I wish I knew,' Pulse gunman's mother says
As soon as Mateen's sister, Sabrina Mateen, got on the stand she looked like she was about to cry and was breathing heavily.
“We were like friends, motherly-like, more because we had kids,” Sabrina Mateen said of her relationship with Salman.
Sabrina Mateen said she never heard her brother talking about jihad, ISIS or terrorism.
Mateen's mother, Shahla Mateen, testified next. Both the gunman's mother and sister were emotional while talking about their interactions with Salman and Mateen in the days leading up to and after the attack.
Shahla Mateen said she last saw her son after her got off work around 3:30 p.m. on June 11. She testified that she called him later to invite his family to the mosque for dinner during Ramadan, but he didn't answer, then she called Salman.
"She said 'The boy, he goes to bed early by 9 o'clock,' so she couldn't go and Omar went to Nemo's house for dinner,” Shahla Mateen said her daughter-in-law told her.
When Mateen's mom got to the mosque, she said she ran into Nemo's mom and learned from her that Nemo wasn't even in the state, exposing the lie.
"I feel, like sad. I feel sad and embarrassed. I said, 'He lied,'' Mateen's mother said in court.
She testified that when she got home around 10:30 p.m. that night, she tried calling Mateen again.
"I wanted to ask him where he was. I said 'It's an emergency can you come over?'" she said.
Shahla Mateen waited by the phone for her son's call and she fell asleep. She woke up at 4 a.m. when FBI agents were trying to find him.
Asked by defense attorney Fritz Scheller if her son was acting strange the last time she saw him, Shahla Mateen said he was acting normal.
"I wish I knew. I wish I knew,” Shahla Mateen said.
The defense cross-examined Mateen's sister and mother, during which they both said several things that seem to support some of the defense team's arguments from opening statements that Salman was “simple,” cared deeply for her son and was exhausted after FBI questioning on June 12.
"She was a good mother, attentive to her child," Sabrina Mateen said. "My kids also loved her."
Mateen's mother said Salman was simple and childish. Shahla Mateen began to cry on the stand when she described that she once sent a text to Salman telling her she needs to grow up.
After the FBI questioned Salman for approximately 12 hours,Sabrina Mateen said she saw her sister-in-law and “she looked tired, drained. She had dark bags on her eyes.”
Mateen's sister also confirmed Salman was afraid her son would be taken away.
The defense team said Salman was kept awake for 36 hours while she was questioned by FBI agents in Fort Pierce.
FULL STORY: LIVE UPDATES: 'I wish I knew,' Pulse gunman's mother tells jury - WKMG