Connecticut jury hears testimony about Alex Jones and false Sandy Hook claims: Live Updates
Mother of teacher killed at Sandy Hook recounts a decade of harassment
Donna Soto said it’s been nearly a decade since her daughter Victoria Soto was killed at Sandy Hook. But the harassment from conspiracy theorists is still part of her daily life.
“Just last Sunday, we had a man come on [a Facebook page dedicated to Victoria Soto] and say, ‘Haven’t you made enough money off these dead kids yet?’” Soto said.
Soto said the harassment started within weeks of Vicki’s death.
“There was 25 [Facebook] pages with Vicki’s name on it with just lies. They were all fake,” Soto said. “They were all people that questioned if she had lived, if we were real, if we were actors.”
Soto said a friend reached out to Facebook in January 2013 to have the fake pages removed. And the friend continues to monitor a page memorializing Vicki for online trolls.
Donna Soto also got to share positive experiences her family has had over the last 10 years, like when former first grade students of Vicki’s gathered for a picture during their graduation from Newtown High School.
“Another teacher from Sandy Hook got them all together, took a picture, and sent it to me,” Soto said through tears.
She also recalled the last book drive held by The Vicki Soto Memorial Fund. She said over 200 teachers came to fill bags for their classroom and said Vicki – who had always wanted to be a teacher – loved collecting books.
“She collected books for Easter and Christmas and her birthday, and she amassed this huge library,” Soto said. “And she was so proud of that library that she had in school.”
Soto said Vicki's classroom library was lost to the shooting because the books were covered in the blood of victims killed there.
The trial resumes Tuesday. Judge Barbara Bellis said she expects the presentation of evidence in the trial to conclude next week.
Brother of teacher killed at Sandy Hook testifies to 10 years of dealing with people ‘infected with the Alex Jones lies’
Matthew Soto said he found out very quickly after his sister Victoria Soto was killed at Sandy Hook that some people didn’t believe the shooting happened.
He said in testimony Thursday that shortly after the shooting, he posted to Facebook a video of former President Barack Obama calling his sister a hero.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Josh Koskoff asked Soto if he’s continued to receive harassment ever since he wrote that post.
“Yes,” Soto replied.
Matthew Soto was 15 years old when his sister was killed. Shortly after the shooting, a family member spoke with ABC News and said they were told Soto put children in the closet and huddled over others to save them from gunfire.
When he returned to Stratford High School in January of 2013, Matthew Soto said a student approached him in the cafeteria asking if his sister really died.
“[I] home-schooled sophomore and junior year because I was afraid something like that would happen again,” Soto said Thursday.
Soto also detailed dropping a class at Southern Connecticut State University after a teacher asked his class who thought the Sandy Hook School shooting actually happened. He said some students didn’t raise their hands and after that, he dropped the class, for which he wasn’t reimbursed.
Soto said he’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Soto did get to talk about his sister and things he loved about her – like when Vicki would get dressed up for “mix-match day” or blast Michael Bublé Christmas songs in her car during the holiday season.
Sandy Hook father says threats following Alex Jones’ broadcasts would ‘come in these waves’
Robbie Parker, the father of Sandy Hook victim Emilie Parker, said Thursday it was only a matter of weeks before he was forced to take down a memorial page for his deceased 6-year-old after online harassment from people who believed the shooting wasn’t real.
“I felt like I couldn’t protect Emilie’s name or her memory anymore, so I had to get rid of it,” Parker said.
Parker returned to the witness stand to testify in a trial to determine how much money Infowars host Alex Jones should pay Sandy Hook families for lies he told about the shooting.
Jones accused Parker of acting after Parker read a statement in memory of Emilie in front of television cameras. This happened the day after the mass shooting on Dec. 14, 2012.
Jones mocked Parker – who broke down weeping in the clip – for several years. In court Thursday, Parker had to sit and watch 10 videos displaying the clip of him memorializing his daughter the day after her death, a clip Parker said he hates.
In videos shown to the jury, Jones criticized Parker for “heavy, heavy acting.” Parker said threats would follow Jones’ commentary.
“They would come in these waves and it was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something because we would get a huge wave of stuff.”
Parker made several decisions during these waves, including one to move out of Sandy Hook.
Parker said he was motivated to sue Jones in part because he believed Jones was continuing to spread false statements about school shootings. He said relatives of victims in other mass shootings reached out to him saying they were being targeted by conspiracy theorists.
“They don’t have the energy to deal with this. Nor should they have to deal with this,” Parker said in court Thursday.
“There’s something I can do for them. I can fight this.”
Father who was the target of Alex Jones’ conspiracy theories continues testifying
Robbie Parker is on the stand again this morning. Parker lost his daughter, Emilie, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
The day after Emilie was killed, Parker made a statement on television in Utah. In the pre-taped video, he laughs before speaking about his daughter’s bright personality and breaking down in tears.
Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists have dissected that clip for years, falsely accusing Parker of acting and claiming that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting never happened.
Parker said a joke his dad made – coupled with nerves – forced him to laugh as he approached a live mic.
On Wednesday, Parker also said online trolls descended on a Facebook memorial page set up for his daughter.
“I was looking for something to keep me stable because my compass was spinning. I didn’t know which way was what, and seeing these comments broke that connection I had, that stability,” Parker said.
All week, family members of Sandy Hook victims have given gut-wrenching testimony detailing death threats and harassment from conspiracy theorists convinced the shooting did not happen.
Jurors are tasked with deciding how much money Jones owes for promoting the lie that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. A judge last year found Jones and his company liable by default for defaming and inflicting emotional distress on the plaintiffs.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
‘He wanted to honor her.’ Wife of Robbie Parker describes backlash to video dedicated to memory of daughter
The day after his daughter Emilie was killed at Sandy Hook, Robbie Parker made a statement on television in Utah. In the video, which was pre-taped, he speaks about his daughter’s bright personality and begins breaking down in tears.
Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists have dissected that clip for years, falsely accusing Parker of acting and claiming that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting never happened.
Alissa Parker, Robbie’s wife, told jurors Wednesday that the video was a way for her husband to memorialize their daughter.
“It was so sweet. He just loved that little girl, and he wanted to honor her,” Alissa Parker said.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Josh Koskoff then asked Parker if she knew Jones would capitalize on it.
“No. That never occurred to me,” she said.
Robbie was accused by Jones of pretending to cry during the video. And because he prepared the statement, some people posted online that it was part of a larger scripted conspiracy.
Parker said she could tell something was bothering Robbie after he made the public remarks. She said he was having trouble sleeping and eventually told his wife that people were saying “really terrible things” about the video on a Facebook page dedicated in Emilie Parker’s memory. And they didn’t stop at Robbie’s statement.
“It was so intense, and the words that people were using were just so scary,” Alissa Parker said.
As the family grieved, Parker said a “full-on assault” was taking place on the Facebook memorial page.
“It was horrific what they were saying about my sweet daughter. Things you could never imagine, calling Robbie a liar and that we were going to burn in hell for what we’d done,” Parker said.
While they were planning their daughter’s funeral to take place thousands of miles away in Utah, where Robbie and Alissa began dating in high school, people were threatening to come in protest.
Parker said she and her husband have since moved several times to avoid death threats that come via the mail.
“Could never hide,” Alissa Parker said. “But we tried.”
Jurors see Emilie Parker's creativity and hear testimony about how her father was targeted by Alex Jones’ lies
Alissa Parker spoke in front of jurors Wednesday about her daughter Emilie and “the sweet relationship” she had with her father, Robbie Parker.
Robbie Parker has been the target of false statements from Alex Jones. The Infowars fabulist falsely referred to him as a crisis actor amid broader mistruths that the Sandy Hook shooting was a “false flag” operation aimed at taking away gun rights in America.
The Parkers are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against Jones by an FBI agent and relatives of eight victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
On the witness stand Wednesday, Alissa Parker remembered Emilie as “incredibly verbal,” artistic and kind.
“Emilie got that from her dad,” Alissa Parker said of Emilie’s kindness.
She said Emilie would open doors for people and when she got others mad, she’d write a note saying, “I’m sorry. I love you.”
Her mom said Emilie would stay up late writing notes and drawing pictures. Jurors saw a picture of one piece of Emilie’s artwork Wednesday — an abstract painting filled with vibrant, bright colors.
But Alissa Parker said Emilie didn’t get that artistic talent from her father. She said Robbie Parker couldn’t even draw during the game Pictionary. Still, she’d catch her husband sitting with his daughter attempting to create art.
“They had a really sweet relationship,” Alissa Parker said. “They had nothing in common as far as interests go, but they made it work.”
Robbie Parker took the stand about five minutes after Alissa finished Wednesday.
Mother of Sandy Hook victim recalls a birthday party that never happened
Alissa Parker, mother of Emilie Parker, a first-grader killed at Sandy Hook, recalled a friend her daughter made after moving to town.
Speaking before jurors Wednesday, Parker said her family lived in Sandy Hook for less than a year prior to Dec. 14, 2012. They had spent time remodeling their home, so they didn't know a lot of people there. But Parker said Emilie made friends with Josephine “Joey” Gay.
Joey had autism along with apraxia, including apraxia of speech. Alissa Parker said Emilie probably gravitated toward her because she could do the majority of the talking.
Joey liked Emilie’s Barbie backpack. And she liked it when Emilie would wear pink, fluffy tutus to school.
Alissa Parker said she was looking forward to Joey’s birthday party, which was scheduled for the weekend of Dec. 14. Just days before the party, she remembered going to the store with her daughter to get Joey a birthday gift.
“She picked a Barbie with a tutu because she knew [Joey would] like the fabric and the texture,” Alissa Parker said.
The gift was wrapped, but Emilie couldn’t give it to Joey. Only a few days later, both children were killed at Sandy Hook.
Husband recalls wife’s death at Sandy Hook and the lies that followed: ‘You started to see these distortions’
Bill Sherlach, the husband of Sandy Hook Elementary School psychologist Mary Sherlach, took the stand Wednesday morning to open the 10th day of evidence presentation.
He related to jurors the work his wife did for nearly 20 years at Sandy Hook, and recalled what went through his head after he raced to a firehouse near the school on Dec. 14, 2012, to see if Mary survived the shooting.
“I don’t see Mary, and I don’t know anybody there,” he said.
Sherlach recalled talking with someone in the firehouse who worked at the school and hearing from her that Mary, principal Dawn Hochsprung and a “lead” teacher were sitting in a meeting room when they heard gunshots. They got up and left.
“Only the lead teacher came back,” the person told Bill Sherlach.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Mary's last day at Sandy Hook ended with Mary and Hochsprung confronting the shooter. They were the first two of 26 people killed there.
Bill Sherlach recalled on the stand Wednesday what it was like to be told in a back room of a firehouse by then Gov. Dannel Malloy that if they were there, they’d likely lost the person they were looking for.
”The reaction in that room – you never want to hear or see anything like that,” Sherlach said.
Another powerful moment in Bill Sherlach’s testimony came when he spoke about what he lost. His daughters came back to the house after the shooting and stayed with him. That Sunday, before they went to church together, Sherlach woke up and didn’t see Mary, his wife of 31 years, next to him.
“This is how it’s going to be,” Sherlach recalled saying to himself. “And then, I totally lost it.”
Sherlach was also asked about false statements made about the shooting. He confirmed for the plaintiffs’ attorney that at no point in his wife’s 18 years at the school was it closed because it was a “toxic waste dump” as was said on Infowars.
Like other family members of victims, Sherlach said he went to the web in the days after the shooting to learn more about what happened. And that’s when he started to read things that didn’t add up in his mind, like the lie that Robbie Parker, the father of victim Emilie Parker, was actually a crisis actor.
“You started to see these distortions of what I knew to be true,” Sherlach said.
He said he told his daughters that the lies about Sandy Hook are something they’ll have to live with. And he echoed to them what Connecticut State Police officials have told him: “Be aware of your surroundings.”
Sister of slain educator says Alex Jones praised conspiracy theorist arrested after harassing her
The plaintiffs will continue calling witnesses to the stand today, building off testimony on Tuesday from three relatives of Sandy Hook victims suing Alex Jones for defamation.
One of those testifying on Tuesday was Jillian Soto-Marino, the sister of Vicki Soto, an educator who died at Sandy Hook in 2012. Soto-Marino said she was harassed by a conspiracy theorist who was praised on-air by Alex Jones.
Soto-Marino, a plaintiff in the defamation lawsuit against Jones, said her family annually hosts a 5K fundraiser in Vicki’s memory to raise money for children seeking a career in education.
After the 2015 event, Soto-Marino said she was approached by a man wearing a “Team Vicki” T-shirt. He asked if she was Jillian Soto.
“This gentleman took out a phone and started recording and pulled out from his pocket a picture of me and my siblings,” Soto-Marino said. “He took the picture and shoved it in my face and asked me to explain this picture and why I was pretending that my sister existed.”
Later in the testimony, Josh Koskoff, an attorney for the plaintiffs, showed a 2014 video depicting a moment from a live ESPN2 broadcast that followed the Super Bowl. Koskoff asked Soto-Marino if she recognized a man in it.
“I do,” Soto-Marino said. “That’s the man that attacked me at my sister’s 5K.”
The plaintiffs said it’s Matthew Mills, who on the live Super Bowl broadcast rushed a news conference stage and said into a microphone, “Investigate 9/11. 9/11 was perpetrated by people within our own government.”
Jones featured that video on his Infowars show. He then introduced Mills, praised him as the “man of the hour” and offered him a part-time position.
“How would you like to go on assignment at least once a month for us on the East Coast and get paid to do it?” Jones asked Mills.
Mills was arrested by Stratford police after approaching Soto-Marino at the 5K. He was charged with breach of peace and interfering with police.
It’s not the only time Soto-Marino said someone questioned Vicki’s existence to her face. Soto-Marino said that during an introduction at a collegiate Family Studies class, a person asked her if she was related to Vicki – and then told Soto-Marino the shooting was a hoax and her sister never existed.
“These lies have taken away my sense of security, my sense of safety,” Soto-Marino said. “Every time I introduce myself and say, ‘I’m Jillian Soto-Marino,’ I don’t know what’s going to happen after that.”
As a result, she says she just goes by “Jillian Marino” at work.
Mother of slain 6-year-old recalls ‘beautiful and deep relationship’ with her son and the pain of Alex Jones’ lies
The mother of Dylan Hockley, a 6-year-old killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, testified Tuesday in a trial to determine how much money in damages Infowars host Alex Jones owes plaintiffs suing him in Connecticut.
Nicole Hockley said she started looking online for information about the shooting in January of 2013, and that’s when she found out about lies being told about the shooting.
One of those lies included Alex Jones, who on his Infowars show made light of a video of Sandy Hook parents crying during a news conference just weeks after the shooting. The parent Jones singled out was Robbie Parker, whom Jones accused of being an actor. Jones also said the shooting was a “false flag” event staged by the government to curtail gun rights.
Hockley said Jones “wouldn’t have popped out as the instigator of a lot of this, but I felt the impact of what he was doing from his followers.”
In the weeks after the shooting, Hockley would see people making fun of Parker online. She’d tell the doubters that her son was killed at Sandy Hook and that her surviving son was there too.
“I would respond. And that was the wrong thing to do,” she said.
She then received direct messages, phone calls to her friends looking for her, and mail at her house.
“I got sent pictures of dead kids because I was told that as a crisis actor, I didn’t really know what a dead kid looked like, so this is what it should look like. I got mail saying ‘F Dylan’ and ‘F You,’ ‘We’re going to extend an RIP Greeting to you,’ and in parentheses RIP was ‘Rot In Pieces,’” she said.
Also on Tuesday, Hockley detailed the “beautiful and deep relationship” she developed with her son after finding out several years before his life ended abruptly that he had autism.
Ian Hockley, Dylan’s father, testified earlier in the day that the family moved to Sandy Hook from England for Dylan as he’d been receiving just an hour of therapy there.
Nicole followed up by talking about a period of joy in their lives when they got to Sandy Hook, recalling Dylan's playdates with another child who had autism and games of tag Dylan played with kids from the neighborhood.
"They were his wingmen," Nicole Hockley said as she recalled the children playing with Dylan even though he wasn’t playing tag as it’s typically played.
The family had been working on Dylan’s very specific diet of fish sticks, garlic bread and for dessert six squares of Hershey’s chocolate. They were instructed by a doctor to supplement Dylan with a vitamin. Hockley recalled giving him liquid vitamins so that he’d get it down every day for at least a month.
“He wanted to make me happy, so he would keep trying to finish the vitamins, and he never did until Friday, Dec. 14. It was the first day he ever finished the vitamins. He was so proud of himself because he knew that’s what I wanted for him.”
It was the morning Dylan was killed.
Sandy Hook called ‘a toxic waste dump’ on Infowars. For Ian Hockley, it was ‘the place‘ for autistic son Dylan
The Sandy Hook School was not a toxic waste dump.
“It was a toxic waste dump,” said Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Wolfgang Halbig on Alex Jones’ Infowars program in 2014.
“Who would send their children to that school?” Halbig asked.
The Hockleys sent their sons Jake and Dylan to that school. Dylan was diagnosed with autism, according to his father, Ian, when he was 3 years old. Before they moved to Sandy Hook, the Hockleys lived in England, where Dylan received only an hour of therapy each week.
“It was night and day with his care,” Ian Hockley said Tuesday, testifying in a defamation lawsuit filed against Jones by an FBI agent and families of eight Sandy Hook victims. “We chose [Sandy Hook] for Dylan.”
He said that his son Dylan had teacher’s aides assigned to him at the school and that there were special breakout sessions available to Dylan when necessary. Dylan received this care for only a short time as his life ended abruptly within two years of the Hockleys moving to the United States.
Dylan was 6 years old when he was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. His father’s testimony came during a trial to determine how much money Jones owes in damages to plaintiffs in Connecticut for making false statements about the shooting.
Hockley said he became more aware of a Sandy Hook conspiracy when he heard that Halbig was coming to town to confront the Newtown school board. It is one of 22 trips to Connecticut the plaintiffs say the Florida man made to promote false claims about the shooting.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Josh Koskoff played the 2014 clip of Halbig and Jones talking about Sandy Hook for Hockley. After Halbig said the school was a toxic waste dump, Jones made the false claim that the school was closed prior to the “event.” Jones referred to the shooting in the past as a “false flag” event staged by the government to take guns away from its citizens.
“Was the school a toxic waste dump?” Koskoff asked Hockley on Tuesday.
“No,” Hockley said.
He also recalled Dylan’s funeral and attempts he and wife Nicole made to “encapsulate” Dylan’s six years of life in a short service. The family posted a video of the service online to memorialize Dylan but later took it down because of comments on it made by conspiracy theorists.
Hockley recalled that during Dylan’s funeral, a performance of a song featured in “Shrek,” a movie Ian says Dylan loved watching, caused him to smile. He said people have used that moment as “proof” the shooting was a hoax.
Judge dismisses plaintiffs' complaints over Jones’ Friday press conference outside courthouse
Judge Barbara Bellis announced Tuesday morning that she won’t take any action against Infowars host Alex Jones for statements he made to reporters outside the courthouse Friday.
Jones told reporters that if he could, he would tell the jury to “research history and understand how dangerous it is when they’ll pick one event of speech that they can say is hurtful, to then use that to set the precedent, to try to knock over all the dominoes and take everybody’s free speech away.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Alinor Sterling said Tuesday that it echoes Jones’ “nullification argument.” She said that Jones is minimizing the harm of making false statements about the Sandy Hook shooting by dismissing them as free speech.
Jones’ attorney Norm Pattis said his client was just responding to a question from a reporter about what he’d say to the jury if he had the chance to address the members directly.
“I don’t think his comments reached the jury, and even if they did, they’re harmless,” Pattis said.
Ultimately, Bellis didn’t act against Jones for his comments.