WAUKEGAN, Ill. — Witnesses of the 2022 mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade near Chicagoemotionally relived the massacre at the gunman's sentencing hearing on Wednesday — even though Robert E. "Bobby" Crimo III didn't show his face in court.
Crimo, 24, pleaded guilty last month to 69 counts, including 21 counts of murder, for the shooting that killed seven people and wounded nearly 50 more at a July 4, 2022, parade in Highland Park, about 30 miles outside Chicago.
He faces life without the possibility of parole, as Illinois doesn't have capital punishment.
The over 10 survivors, family members of victims, first responders, and witnesses of the shooting who were expected to make victim impact statements were denied their chance to confront Crimo after Lake County State's Attorney Eric Rinehart told the court he had declined to attend his sentencing and opted to remain in jail.
Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti said Crimo had been informed that sentencing would proceed with or without him in previous court appearances.
Dana Ruder Ring, a Highland Park mother, was among the first to make a statement to the court, recalling how she helped a little boy to safety as Crimo opened fire.
Crimo shot from a building rooftop into crowded streets below at about 10:14 a.m., officials said.
In the chaos, Ring said, she came across a woman and a child, both covered in blood, as the woman handed her the baby and said: "Blood's not ours; baby is not mine."
Ring said she wrapped the boy in a blanket and eventually reunited him with his family.
The boy "was covered in blood" and "he had one shoe missing," she said.
"I was just in mom mode" as she cared for him, she told the court.
People in the Lake County courtroom took deep sighs, wiped their eyes and covered their mouths as prosecutors showed pictures and videos of the horrific summer day.
Crimo killed Stephen Straus, 88; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; and married couple Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35.
Gerald Cameron Jr., a retired commander of investigations for the Highland Park Police Department, told the court about "rhythmic pace at which point I believed to be gunfire" as people at the parade "frantically panicked."
"People were still running, yelling, screaming for help," Cameron said in his victim impact statement.
After he was arrested, Crimo told investigators he'd been planning a mass shooting since 2017 and was set to open fire on July 4, 2020, Highland Park Police Detective Brian Bodden testified.
Despite having given it years of thought and planning, Crimo said, he was thinking about aborting his deadly mission minutes earlier.
"I was sitting there waiting because in my head, I was thinking, you know ... should I stay or should I go?" he said, according to a video of him speaking to investigators.
It felt like a "sleepwalk" before "it just clicked," Crimo said.
"All of a sudden, just pulled it out," he told investigators. "I walk up the stairs and jump on the roof ... then I opened fire.”
Days before the shooting, Crimo had visited the shooting scene where an abortion rights rally was held, Bodden said.
Crimo wanted to see where police would be stationed and how advantageous a high position could be, Bodden said.
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Crimo said of his prep work.
Once he squeezed the trigger, Crimo told police, one of his main goals was to avoid hitting children. He wanted to hit as many adults as possible, "chest up."
"Everyone was starting to run for cover. I didn’t want to hit kids,” Crimo said. "Everyone's all running into each other."
Dr. Jeremy Smiley, an emergency room physician who traded shifts just to be at the parade, said he still can't shake images of that day.
His most lasting memory is of Cooper Roberts, then 8, who was shot and paralyzed.
"Not a day goes that I don’t think about Cooper," Smiley testified. "That initial feeling of walking in and seeing someone my kid's age, sick like that, that'll never leave me."
By the end of Wednesday's hearing, 16 people had delivered 17 victim impact statements, including Cooper's mother.
Many of the witnesses recounted the horror they experienced and what they had to do to survive it, as well as the chaos that has ensued since they lost loved ones.
Many also spoke about how Crimo must be held accountable for his actions.
Goldstein's husband delivered a moving recollection of his relationship with his wife, speaking about how they reconnected and fell in love later in life and how he lost his best friend when she was killed.
Toledo-Zaragoza's son, whose statement was read to the court by an assistant district attorney, recalled that he encouraged his father to attend the parade on July 4 but that "it was only a matter of seconds before a bullet took my father's life."
Straus' family spoke about being haunted by his death certificate, which said he died from "multiple gunshot wounds." His niece said there is an empty space now in her father's life that "no one else can fill."
Uvaldo's daughter put her father's story and death plainly: "On July 4, 2022, my dad was living the American dream and died the American nightmare."
Court proceedings will resume at 10 a.m. ET Thursday, when one more victim statement will be read. The sentencing phase will begin after that.
Samira Puskar reported from Waukegan and David K. Li from Los Angeles County.
