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Judge Imprisons Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooter For Life, Calls His Crime '85 Seconds Of Evil'

C.M. GUERRERO
/
Miami Herald
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport shooter Esteban Santiago, right, is transferred from Broward County Jail to the Federal Courthouse fin Fort Lauderdale for a detention hearing on January 17, 2017.

Calling his mass shooting “85 seconds of evil,” a federal judge Friday sentenced Esteban Santiago to life in prison for killing five travelers and injuring five other people at a Fort Lauderdale airport last year.

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom read off the names of all 11 victims and described their lives before imposing five consecutive life sentences for those who were murdered along with an additional 120 years in prison for those wounded in the shooting massacre at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Jan. 6, 2017. Esteban, who had flown from Anchorage, Alaska, to Fort Lauderdale, carried out the attack in one minute and 25 seconds before surrendering to a Broward County deputy sheriff at the airport.

Santiago, a 28-year-old Iraq war veteran with mental health problems, said nothing during his sentencing hearing. But a handful of the airport shooting’s survivors and victims’ family members spoke poignantly about the searing loss and maiming of loved ones, all of whom were elderly and traveling to go on a cruise.

“We did not get a chance to say goodbye,” said Julie Beauchamp, the daugther of Mary Louise Amzibel, 69, of Delaware, who was killed in the shooting. Her husband, Ed, who suffered gunshot wounds and was in a coma, stood alongside the daughter. “We did not get a chance to say we love you. ... Nothing is the same as before.” 

Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald

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