On Monday, a jury found the mass shooter who killed ten people at a Boulder King Soopers in 2021 guilty on all 55 counts facing the defendant. The gunman pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
The trial started the first week of September and was over three years in the making. Families and friends of the ten people who were killed packed into the courtroom, day after day, in honor of the people they loved.
The ten people killed on March 22, 2021, were Neven Stanisic, Kevin Mahoney, Tralona Bartkowiak, Rikki Olds, Denny Stong, Lynn Murray, Teri Leiker, Jody Waters, Suzanne Fountain, and Boulder Police Officer Eric Talley.
Talley was one of the first three police officers to enter the store, knowing they were running directly into danger. Kirstin Brooks knows her older brother ran into that store absolutely furious.
"Eric was not afraid. Eric did not suffer. Eric was furious," Brooks said the day after the guilty verdict. “I saw his eyes on the video when he ran in, and I would not want to be in front of my brother at that moment. He was furious.”
Brooks said her brother was determined to stop the suffering. That was the big brother she knew — the person who wanted to help everyone, no matter what that meant.
Denver 7's coverage of the Boulder King Soopers shooting and trial
“He was always about right and wrong, and good and evil, and he was my hero," Brooks said.
That day, Talley became a hero to everyone at the King Soopers and the Boulder community. The gunman shot him — the tenth person killed. No one else died after Talley walked into the grocery store.
“Every officer that tore in, they were heroes," Brooks told Denver7. “The true, true heroes now are the people who have to live every day with loss, and be strong, struggle, fight through the memories, the trauma. My brother would want to help them so much.”
That's who Eric Talley always was, his little sister said.
“We moved from Texas to Kansas — I was little. I remember wheat fields and playing with him out there. He always snuck me out of nap time. He hated it when I was in a nap, and he wasn't because Eric never napped," Brooks said with a smile.
Brooks said the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, next, where she started kindergarten. There, the two siblings would grow into young adults.
“He was not so much a rule follower as a child I was. He loved to push the boundaries a bit. And there were more than enough times when my mom was getting called to go to the school to, you know, 'Eric, did you try to set Miss Martinez's hair on fire? Or was that on accident?' He was goofy, and he liked to be silly, but I was very quiet and shy, and so he was so protective of me.”
According to Brooks, her brother was always a protector and began talking about becoming a police officer when he was young.
“Eric was always my hero, and I would tell him that. He knew that. He took me to his prom. I mean, he took me everywhere," Brooks said.
Talley originally wanted to become a pilot, but as a teenager, he learned he was colorblind and could not pursue that career. He got a master's degree in computer science and worked in that field until he was 40 years old.
Then, he told his family he wanted to pursue his dream of becoming a police officer—a dream he'd had since he was a boy.
Talley loved his family, his seven children, and life in the Colorado mountains. His birthday is September 26, coinciding with the week the guilty verdict in the trial came down.
"I was super afraid that I would be hearing a verdict on his birthday," Brooks said. “I had anxiety about that, but he'll be celebrating.”
She vividly remembers the details of March 22, 2021. She had taken her dog Luna out for a walk, a walk they did regularly. Just before they left the house, Luna appeared sad to Brooks, who took a picture of the pout since her dog is usually a ball of energy.
She had no idea that the picture was taken at the exact same time as her brother was killed inside the Table Mesa King Soopers.
“I was uneasy. We were always very connected, and I was near the end of that walk, and I heard a gunshot. I have walked that walk — it's a daily thing for me — and I've never heard a gunshot. I'm assuming it was duck hunters. I don't know, but it startled me enough that I wanted to go back to my car. I didn't feel right," Brooks remembered. “I typed in 'national news' on my iPhone. The first thing that came up was that picture of the shooter in the parking lot being led away, and it said 'Boulder.' And just the intuitiveness of knowing something, hearing the gunshot, the startle, the something not right, seeing that — my first thing was to text my mother and say, 'Is Eric at work?'”
Her uneasiness continued as she drove home from walking her dog. She was texting her brother, begging him to check in with her.
Her phone rang as soon as she walked into her home.
"It was my mother and my father, both calls trying to come in at the same time, and I remember answering on speaker, and all I heard was screaming and wailing, and 'Eric!' And I remember throwing my water bottle so hard there is a dent now in the wood floor," Brooks said. "I remember screaming, "Who killed my brother? I need to talk to this person who killed my brother.' I don't know why I said that, but I wanted to know who killed him. I didn't know nine other people had died. I just knew somebody killed my brother.”
Eventually, Brooks got through to former Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold on the phone.
"That's a dark memory for both of us, I think, because she answered the phone, and I said, 'I would like to know where my brother is.' And she said, 'I'm following him right now.' And then it was quiet. She said, 'He's in an ambulance.' And then I said, 'Is he dead? I need to know if he's dead.' And she said, 'I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but your brother died today.' And then she said, 'Your brother's a hero,'" Brooks recalled. “I just remember that, at that moment, that simple innocence that I had carried throughout my life, that evil falters and life and goodness wins — that dream died. That hope, at that moment, just was gone."
Brooks was catapulted into a wave of grief that dimmed the light she saw in the world. She lost her sense of hope, which she always found in her brother.
“It was very long and difficult because I didn't see light shining through at that time. It was very dark," Brooks said. “When we're trying to survive, we're not ourselves. We're trying to survive. And so we lose a lot, and sometimes we lose people because of that, because they just don't know who we are anymore."
Throughout the trial, Brooks was consumed with the mental health aspect of the arguments — as a licensed therapist with her own practice who conducts assessments on patients who are diagnosed with primarily paranoid schizophrenia. Her patients are typically brought into an emergency room or are brought in by the police.
“I care a lot about my patients, and very few of them are violent. Almost all of them are victims. They're victimized, they're frightened," said Brooks. “I wanted to believe that he [the shooter] thought he was saving the world, that there were aliens. I never wanted to believe that this was a planned, targeted ambush on innocent human beings. And as it came to light, more and more, I began to realize I'm looking at murder.”
The evidence in the case was devastating to see and hear, but when it was announced the jury had reached a verdict, Brooks experienced peace that surprised her.
"My emotions actually shifted an hour prior to sitting on Eric's grave," Brooks said. “The anxiety was gone, and I could hear Eric very loud, 'What are you worried about?' And by the time I got to the courthouse, I was not anxious anymore. I just began thinking, I don't know what the verdict is. I don't know that moment, the future. I didn't know, but I knew that it was going to be OK when the jury came in. I just thought there is no other verdict. There's none.”
There was only one word needed to describe what it felt like to hear the word guilty 55 times — hope.
“When they read guilty for everybody, it was a sense of something else leaving me. It was a sense of that feeling that evil wins, that left. And I thought, oh, there is hope, there is hope," Brooks said. “When they read his name, I saluted him."
Brooks heard laughter from the victim's loved ones on Monday. She saw smiles and hugs. She saw the light begin to shine again—the light she'd missed for so long.
“I saw justice, and it gave me hope in the dark world," Brooks said. “I guess you don't realize how heavy this burden is until, all of a sudden, you're not carrying it anymore.”
Her brother's light continues to shine, no matter what happened on March 22, 2021.
“I miss him. We all miss him. I wish he'd stayed, but it was his day, and I don't know when mine is or yours or anybody's, and I think we have to love hard while we're here," Brooks said. “One beautiful life. That's it on this earth, and I believe he lived every day of his life with love, and I want to, I want to do the same.”
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