Lawyer: Roof's mom had heart attack during trial

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Dylann Roof's mother suffered a heart attack not long after prosecutors described how her son planned a calculated killing of nine black church members in a racially motivated attack, the white man's lawyer said in court documents Thursday.

Roof's mother collapsed and said, "I'm sorry" several times Wednesday during the opening of her son's federal death-penalty trial.

Roof's attorney mentioned the heart attack in court documents asking for a mistrial, saying a survivor's testimony was so emotional "spectators and even court personnel -- including members of the prosecution and defense -- were crying with her."

The documents didn't give the mother's current condition.

Later Thursday, 360-degree computer images of the crime scene were shown to the jury. The pictures showed the victims lying in pools of blood on the floor of the fellowship hall at Emanuel AME Church.

In the motion for the mistrial, Roof's lawyer David Bruck argued Wednesday testimony from shooting survivor Felicia Sanders was inappropriate because it seemed to contain a statement on what Roof's sentence should be.

Sanders described the horror of seeing her son and her aunt shot to death and sheltering with her granddaughter beneath a table. At one point, she looked across the courtroom toward Roof and called him "evil, evil, evil."

Bruck asked her on cross-examination whether she remembered Roof saying anything in the aftermath of the shootings.

"He said he was going to kill himself," she said. "I was counting on that. There's no place on Earth for him other than the pit of hell."

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel denied the mistrial request and said he interpreted Sanders' testimony as "a religious comment."