February 14, 1996
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. EST
DEDHAM, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The lawyer for John C. Salvi III said Wednesday his client killed two abortion clinic employees because he was a "sick, sick man" and asked the jury to find Salvi innocent of murder by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors, however, said the shooting rampage was the work of a man fully in his senses.
In opening statements at Salvi's trial, Norfolk County Prosecutor John Kivlan detailed what he called "deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty."
Salvi, 23, of Hampton, New Hampshire, is charged with killing two receptionists and wounding five other people at the Planned Parenthood and Preterm Health Services clinics in the Boston suburb of Brookline.
If convicted, Salvi faces life in prison without parole. If acquitted by reason of insanity, he would be sentenced to a maximum security mental hospital and could someday be freed.
Kivlan told jurors Salvi purchased ammunition and an assault rifle in the days before the attacks and practiced target shooting near his New Hampshire home.
In chilling detail, the prosecutor recounted the events of December 30, 1994, telling jurors that Salvi entered the Brookline Planned Parenthood Clinic, pulled his assault rifle from a black duffel bag and shot 25-year-old Shannon Lowney as she raised her arms to cover her face. The bullets penetrated her hands. She died a short time later.
Salvi then shot and wounded another clinic employee before turning to the waiting room where he fired upon several patients and their escorts, Kivlan said. Four people were seriously wounded at that location.
Prosecutors say Salvi then drove two miles to the Preterm Health Services clinic, also in Brookline, and pulled out the same assault rifle. He allegedly pointed it at receptionist Lee Ann Nichols, said "that's what you get," and shot her 10 times. She died almost instantly. Salvi then exchanged gunfire with a security guard, who was wounded.
Salvi's attorney J. W Carney Jr. told jurors that his client was suffering extreme delusions because of his mental illness, schizophrenia. He said Salvi's condition was evident in his late teens when he became a religious fanatic.
Just prior to the shootings, Carney said, Salvi was under the delusion that he had to "save the Catholic people and that he was fighting a Catholic conspiracy."
Anjana Agrawal, a Planned Parenthood medical assistant who was wounded in the first attack, testified that she was shot twice by Salvi. A bullet is still lodged between her heart and spine, she said.
Other witnesses testified that after shooting Agrawal, Salvi sprayed the clinic's waiting area with bullets and backed out of the clinic still shooting. The defense did not cross examine the witnesses.
In court Wednesday, Salvi was seated only a few feet away from members of the victims' families.
Jurors toured both clinics Tuesday, spending about a quarter hour at each location. They were accompanied by prosecutors, defense lawyers and court officials. Salvi elected not to go along.
A few protesters from both sides of the abortion issue turned out Wednesday in front of the courthouse, but there were no incidents.
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