Pittsburgh synagogue shooting survivor cried ‘Mommy’ as her elderly mother was shot by her side

PITTSBURGH — A survivor of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre says she saw her right arm “get blown open in two places” by a gunman and cried “Mommy” after her 97-year-old mother was shot and killed next to her in the nation’s deadliest attack on Jewish people.

Andrea Wedner is expected to be the government’s last witness as prosecutors wrap up their case against Robert Bowers, who burst into the Tree of Life synagogue building with a military-style rifle and other weaponry and opened fire, shooting anyone he could find.

Bowers killed 11 worshippers and injured seven others, including five police officers, in the 2018 attack. The 50-year-old truck driver is charged with 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and the obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. Some of the charges carry a potential death sentence.

Wedner tells jurors Shabbat services had started five or 10 minutes earlier when she heard a crashing sound in the building’s lobby, followed by gunfire. She says her mother, Rose Mallinger, asked her, “What do we do?”

Wedner says she had a “clear memory” of the gunman and his rifle.

“We were filled with terror — it was indescribable. We thought we were going to die,” she says.

Wedner called 911 and was on the line when she and her mother were shot. She testifies she checked her mother’s pulse and realized, “I knew she wouldn’t survive.” As SWAT officers entered the chapel, Wedner says, she kissed her fingers and touched them to her dead mother, cried “Mommy,” and stepped over another victim on her way out. She says she was the sole survivor in that section of the synagogue.

Her harrowing testimony caps a prosecution case in which other survivors also testified about the terror they felt that day, police officers recounted how they exchanged gunfire with Bowers and finally neutralized him, and jurors heard about Bowers’ toxic online presence in which he praised Hitler, espoused white supremacy and ranted incessantly against Jews.

The defense has acknowledged that Bowers was the gunman, but suggests he acted not out of religious hatred but rather a delusional belief that Jews were enabling genocide by helping immigrants settle in the United States.

Also testifying today is Pittsburgh SWAT Officer Timothy Matson, who was critically wounded while responding to the rampage.