Editor's note: Denver7 has chosen to not include the defendant's name in our coverage of the trial to respect victims and their loved ones, and to not glorify the defendant. This trial aims to determine if the defendant was insane or not at the time of the shooting — not if he shot and killed people at the King Soopers, which the defense is not contesting. Therefore, we have removed words such as "alleged" and "suspected" from our trial coverage when referring to him.
BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — The jury trial is underway to determine if a defendant accused of shooting and killing 10 people at a King Soopers store in Boulder on March 22, 2021 was insane at the time of the shooting.
The defendant was arrested the same day as the mass shooting, but the case was stalled by several competency hearings. He was found competent to stand trial in August 2023 and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity three months later. He faces a slew of charges, including 10 counts of first-degree murder, 38 counts of attempted murder, first-degree assault, and six counts of using a large-capacity magazine in a crime, plus multiple crimes of violence.
The 10 people who lost their lives that day were Suzanne Fountain, Rikki Olds, Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley, Jody Waters, Denny Stong, Tralona Bartkowiak, Neven Stanisic, Kevin Mahoney, Lynn Murray and Teri Leiker. Read more about them here.
Opening statements began on the morning of Sept. 5. Denver7 will follow each day of this trial. Read the latest below.
Denver7's Coverage of the Boulder King Soopers Shooting
Wednesday, Sept. 11
The fifth day of the Boulder King Soopers shooting trial began with Sarah Cantu, the senior investigator with the district attorney's office, back on the stand. She had previously testified on day 3 of the trial. She was a major crimes detective with the Boulder Police Department from October 2013 through November 2023.
In court Wednesday, prosecutors brought up the animation of how people — the shooter, victims and witnesses — moved around the parking lot and store that day, alongside surveillance video. That animated video has been used multiple times in court.
This included video of the shooter surrendering to police after he had been shot by Richard Steidell, an officer with the Boulder Police Department. Steidell testified on Tuesday and you can read his statements in our previous story here.
The video played in court showed the shooter start walking toward officers with his hands up. In the video, SWAT took the defendant out of the store handcuffed.
Various evidence was collected from the scene, Cantu said. This included a pair of jeans, shoes, socks, a shirt, tactical vest, Ruger AR 556 pistol — which is technically classified as a pistol because of its barrel length, but has been referred to as a rifle in the trial — Girsan 9mm pistol, three magazines for the Girsan, and one spare magazine with the rifle. Both firearms had magazines inside. Three additional magazines for the Ruger were found in the defendant's car, Cantu said. One more rifle magazine — for a total of six magazines — was found near the front of the store, where the defendant had dropped it when he went to reload, she said.
There were six 30-round magazines discovered for the Ruger in total, according to Cantu. Those are illegal.
Cantu said more magazines and the Beretta handgun were discovered at the defendant's home.
On the second day of the trial, Agent Joel Hegarty, special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives explained where each of the firearms had come from.
The defense did not cross-examine her and Cantu was dismissed, though she will testify again later in the trial.
Watch Denver7's previous coverage of the Boulder King Soopers shooting in the video playlist above.
The second witness of the day was Aimee Qulia, who has worked in the firearms unit of the FBI for more than nine years. The FBI has employed her for almost 20 years. She was submitted as an expert in firearms.
Qulia processed the crime scene at the Table Mesa King Soopers with a team, and they found 31 individual trajectories in the case. Cartridge cases were scattered around and she determined an AR-style pistol had been used, she recalled.
She provided an in-depth analysis for the jury of the bullet holes, impacts and trajectories. This included not just the King Soopers store and parking lot, but the Yoga Loft nearby, which was damaged in the shooting.
After the defense said they had no questions for Qulia, she was dismissed.
The court then broke for lunch and will return at 1:30 p.m. Monday.
After lunch, the third witness took to the stand. Dr. Meredith Frank, a forensic pathologist, explained that she performs medical procedures, including about 3,900 autopsies as of Wednesday, and determines causes and manners of death. She is no stranger to the courtroom, and has testified as an expert about 90 times across city, state and federal court systems.
Frank was responsible for five of the autopsies of the victims shot and killed at the King Soopers on March 22, 2021: Denny Stong, Lynn Murray, Teri Leiker, Jody Waters and Suzanne Fountain.
Gunshot by gunshot, she walked the jury through how each of the victims were hit and the impact on their bodies. In each case, she found the cause of death to be the gunshot wounds and the manner of death as homicide.
Out of respect for the victims and their families, we are not including the details of the autopsies.
Notably, four of the victims — Murray, Leiker, Waters, and Fountain — had green tip bullets recovered from their bodies during the autopsy. Green tip bullets are designed to pierce steel. Those four victims were shot after the gunman killed Stong. The defendant reloaded his weapon after shooting Stong, surveillance video played in the courtroom shows.
During a cross examination, defense attorney Sam Dunn confirmed that Frank was not asked about her opinion on what the shooter was thinking at the time. She said that is correct.
The fourth witness was Dr. Daniel Lingamfelter, also a forensic pathologist. He has performed more than 9,000 autopsies and testified as an expert in courtrooms about 150 times. He walked the jury through the autopsies for Neven Stanisic, Kevin Mahoney, Tralona Bartkowiak, Rikki Olds and Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley.
Like Frank, Lingamfelter found in each case that the cause of death was the gunshot wounds and the manner of death was homicide.
Lingamfelter was then released as a witness.
The fifth witness was Amber Cronan, special agent with the FBI. After starting her career as a terrorism agent, she moved to investigate violent crime. She is based out of Colorado Springs and was involved in the investigation of the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, 2015 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting and Boulder King Soopers shooting.
Cronan was called to search the defendant's car, which had been towed from the supermarket to a locked location only accessible for evidence response team members. The car was clean with no damage, she said, and was registered to the defendant's brother. Her team spent about three hours searching the car, taking nearly 90 photographs.
The only item found in the trunk of the car was a packing slip from GrabAGun.com, with the defendant's shipping address — something that was brought up on day two of the trial. The defendant's wallet was in the car and included a few dollars, cards, receipts — including one from a gun store — and his driver's ID.
Cronan said she saw a green rifle bag in the backseat of the car on the floorboard and a magazine under the driver's seat with 29 5.56 rounds. The magazine had huge bullets with small green tips, she recalled. There were more magazines found inside the rifle bag.
Prosecutors brought the magazines, rounds and green rifle bag to the witness stand to put in front of Cronan, who began pulling items out of the bag and describing what they were. That included a magazine in the front part of the bag that was loaded and two spent cartridges.
At one point, she held up a massive bag of bullets showing the 127 rounds that were recovered from the defendant's car during the search.
In total, prosecutors identified least 15 magazines, designed for different weapons, found so far.
Cronan was not cross-examined, and the court took a brief recess.
This is a developing story and we are updating it throughout the day Wednesday. Refresh for updates.
