A mentally ill man who killed 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 was sentenced Monday to life in prison for murder after a jury rejected his attempt to avoid prison time by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.
Victims’ relatives recounted in pained testimony the lives gunman Ahmad Alissa destroyed in the 2021 attack in the college town of Boulder.
“To the person that’s done this, we hope that you suffer for the rest of your life. You are a coward,” said Nikolena Stanisic, whose only sibling, Neven, was killed. “I hope this haunts the defendant until the end of time. The defendant deserves the absolute worst."
She recalled going out to ice cream with her brother the night before he was shot and how he would sometimes help her with bills. Their household — once filled with talk and laughter — is now mostly silent, she told the court.
Defense attorneys did not dispute that Alissa, who has schizophrenia, fatally shot 10 people including a police officer. But the defense argued he was insane at the time of the attack and couldn’t tell right from wrong.
In addition to 10 counts of first-degree murder, the jury found Alissa guilty on 38 charges of attempted murder, one count of assault, and six counts of possessing illegal, large-capacity magazines.
Judge Ingrid Bakke sentenced him to 10 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“This was not about mental illness. This was about brutal, intentional violence,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said.
Alissa and his attorneys declined an opportunity to speak during his sentencing.
The courtroom was packed largely with victims’ families and police officers, including those who were shot at by Alissa. Several members of Alissa’s family sat just behind him.
Alissa started shooting immediately after getting out of his car in a King Soopers store parking lot in March 2021. He killed most of the victims in just over a minute and surrendered after an officer shot him in the leg.
The daughter of killed Officer Eric Talley lamented the life milestones they would not be able to share. Madeline Talley and her mother said they would not hold onto bitterness, extending their forgiveness to Alissa.
“He taught me to believe that God brings good out of evil,” Madeline Talley said of her father.
Others weren’t ready to forgive. Robert Olds — whose niece, Rikki, was killed — said Alissa’s family should have been held criminally responsible because their “ignorance, inattentiveness and inaction” led directly to the attack.
Alissa did not visibly react as the guilty verdicts were read. During the sentencing part of the hearing, he looked at times toward the victims’ relatives as they spoke, but for much of the time sat hunched over, talking to his attorney or writing.
Prosecutors had to prove Alissa was sane. They argued he didn’t fire randomly and showed an ability to make decisions by pursuing people who were running and trying to hide from him. He twice passed by a 91-year-old man who continued to shop, unaware of the shooting.
He came armed with steel-piercing bullets and illegal magazines that can hold 30 rounds of ammunition, which prosecutors said showed he took deliberate steps to make the attack as deadly as possible.
Several members of Alissa’s family, who immigrated to the United States from Syria, testified that he had become withdrawn and spoke less a few years before the shooting. He later began acting paranoid and showed signs of hearing voices, they said, and his condition worsened after he got COVID-19 in late 2020.
Alissa was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack, and experts said the behaviors described by relatives are consistent with the onset of the disease.
State forensic psychologists who evaluated Alissa concluded he was sane during the shooting. The defense did not have to provide any evidence in the case and did not present any experts to say that Alissa was insane.
Despite the fact that he heard voices, the state psychologists said, Alissa did not experience delusions. They said his fear that he could be jailed or killed by police revealed Alissa knew his actions were wrong.
Alissa repeatedly told the psychologists that he heard voices, including “killing voices” right before the shooting. But Alissa failed during about six hours of interviews to provide more details about the voices or whether they were saying anything specific, forensic psychologist B. Thomas Gray testified.
Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity. Colorado law defines insanity as having a mental disease so severe that it’s impossible for a person to tell right from wrong.
Family members of the victims attended the two-week trial and watched graphic surveillance and police body camera video. Survivors testified about how they fled and in some cases helped others to safety.
Prosecutors did not offer any motive for the shooting. Alissa initially searched online for public places to attack in Boulder, including bars and restaurants, then a day before the shooting focused his research on large stores.
On the day of the attack, he drove from his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada and pulled into the first supermarket in Boulder that he encountered. He shot three victims in the parking lot before entering the store.
An emergency room doctor said she crawled onto a shelf and hid among bags of potato chips. A pharmacist who took cover testified that she heard Alissa say, “This is fun” at least three times as he went through the store firing his semi-automatic pistol that resembled an AR-15 rifle.
Alissa’s mother told the court that she thought her son was “sick.” His father testified that he thought Alissa was possessed by a djin, or evil spirit, but did not seek any treatment for his son because it would have been shameful for the family.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement justice had been served. “Loved ones, friends, and neighbors were taken from us far too soon by an act of pure evil,” he said.
