The fate of the man accused of killing 10 people at a King Soopers is now in the hands of a dozen Boulder citizens, but not before the jurors heard five hours of closing arguments from both sides on Friday.

The prosecutor waved plastic evidence bags holding 30-round magazines that Ahmad Alissa bought just months before the mass shooting at the King Soopers in Boulder Table Mesa.

“These lives were taken after deliberation and with intent,” said 20th Judicial Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Kupfner.

The defendant’s attorney countered that the case is not that simple.

Though prosecutors insisted that, under Colorado law, mental illness is separate from insanity, defense attorneys blamed the “killing voices” brought on by severe schizophrenia for Alissa’s actions.

“This tragedy was born of disease, not choice. He committed these crimes because he was psychotic and delusional,” said Colorado public defender Kathryn Herold. “Someone that sick does not know right from wrong.”

To help prove her point, Herold showed a forensic psychiatrist’s video evaluation of the defendant in which he described “killing voices” in his head as he drove to the King Soopers in March 2021.

”The consistent voices convinced me to commit the mass shooting,” Alissa said.

Dr. Loandra Torres asked him, “You thought the voices might stop because it’s what you thought they had wanted?”

“Yes,” he answered.

But in another interview, he also told her that the voices never had conversations with him — they only said “Oh” and “Ah.”

Trial ends, jury deliberation begins 

During closing arguments, jurors listened and watched a large monitor showing a map of the grocery store parking lot, interspersed by color screen grabs of the surveillance video from the afternoon of March 22,2021, as the second victim, Kevin Mahoney, died while doing the routine task of returning his shopping cart.

“Kevin ducks and he dodges and he tries his best to get away. He wants to live,” said Kupfner. The shots hit not only Mahoney, but the windows of a nearby yoga studio.

“Kevin Mahoney died of four gunshot wounds. His intent? No question,”  Kupfner told the jury.

Prosecutors said the defendant intended to “kill as many people as he could” when he drove up Highway 93 to the store. He used a scope, changed his magazine cartridge and surrendered, which they said proves that he was able to distinguish right from wrong.

“What was he experiencing emotionally?” asked Kupfner. “Adrenaline rush. That ladies and gentleman is not insanity.”

Herold told the jury that two court-appointed psychologists who found Alissa to be sane at the time of the shooting were not as confident in their opinion until they saw a late interview by a third mental health professional this past June.

During that evaluation, the defendant showed signs of  improvement. Doctors believe that the defendant was more engaged due to strong medications he had been taking for more than a year.

The reported gunman is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder after deliberation — meaning that he knew right from wrong when he shot people.

The defense is not contesting that Alissa shot the 10 victims.

Alissa, who has schizophrenia, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the attack. His attorneys acknowledged he was the shooter but insisted he was legally insane at the time of the shooting. He is also charged with multiple counts of attempted murder and other offenses, including having six high-capacity ammunition magazine devices banned in Colorado after previous mass shootings.

Testimony began on Sept. 5, three-and-a-half years after the shooting.

On Friday morning, jurors turned the pages of a thick packet of instruction pages, as 20th Chief Judicial District Judge Ingrid Bakke read from it. When Bakke read the names of each of the 10 victims, one juror in the front row wiped her eyes with a tissue.

Interpreters with headsets sat in the back of the court room, translating in Arabic through headphones for Alissa’s mother. She sat behind her son with his father, and three of his brothers. It was the first time the family came to court to watch from the gallery.

During 15-minute breaks, they were lead from the courtroom by court personnel, single file.

This week, six family members were subpoenaed to testify about Alissa’s strange behavior. Their view from the witness chair was the first time they had been in the same room with him since the morning of the shooting when he had breakfast with them. His mother said he had “big hair” that day and gave him $20 to see a barber.

A mom, a dad, two sisters and two brothers recounted that Alissa, the eighth of 10 children, started getting isolated from them in 2019 and that COVID made things worse for him. Each talked about how the defendant taped cameras on his phone to prevent people from watching him and saw figures in his bedroom, which they said were not there.

Their stories were not consistent when it came to the guns. At one point a brother said that he didn’t know about a gun, but then admitted he knew the defendant had practiced shooting.

“If they thought he was insane back then, they would have never let him have that weapon, the car, leave their children with him or let him work at the (family) restaurant,” said District Attorney Michael Dougherty.

Alissa, dressed in a button down shirt, kept his head down as the instructions were read. He has appeared agitated during the trial, often biting his nails and twisting in his seat. He yawned when sensitive testimony was read. He has been taking a strong anti-psychotic medication called Clozapine, which has side effects that include drowsiness, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity under Colorado law. State law defines insanity as having a mental disease so severe it is impossible for a person to tell the difference between right and wrong.

During two weeks of trial, the families of those killed saw graphic surveillance and police body camera video. Survivors testified that a man parked his Mercedes sedan next to a service van at around 2:30 p.m., ran around the back and shot his first victim through the windshield and the driver’s side window.

Three shoppers, who had run to the store to grab groceries on a slow Monday afternoon, were shot in the parking lot. Seven others were “hunted down” inside the store, first at the checkout lines and then in the aisles, according to 20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty.

An emergency room doctor crawled onto a shelf and hid among bags of chips. A pharmacist, who grabbed a chair as her only weapon, testified she heard Alissa say, “This is fun” at least three times.

In his rebuttal, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty pointed out that the three week trial was not a battle experts because every forensic mental health professional deemed the defendant sane at the time of the shooting.

“The defense attorneys said there were no words to address this tragedy,” said Dougherty. “There’s only one word the evidence demands.” On a large monitor facing the jury was the word in big red letters – “GUILTY.”

Jurors deliberated for two hours before they went home Friday night without reaching a verdict. They will return Monday morning at 9 am.