The Brookline Anti-Abortion Shootings | 1995 News Report
Channel: Abandoned VHS
Date: 04/01/2024

Rest in peace Shannon Lowney & Lee Ann Nichols

Footage captured from North Carolina Fox affiliate WGHPiedmont sometime in 1995.

Description taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Salvi

John C. Salvi III (March 2, 1972 – November 29, 1996) was an anti-abortion extremist who carried out fatal shootings at two abortion facilities in Brookline, Massachusetts on December 30, 1994. The shootings killed two and wounded five. An insanity defense at his trial was not successful and he was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in 1996 in what was officially ruled a suicide in his jail cell. 

In the mid-morning of December 30, 1994, John Salvi walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, carrying a black duffle bag. In the waiting room, he took a modified .22-caliber Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle from the bag and wordlessly opened fire. A medical assistant, Arjana Agrawal, was hit in the abdomen. Salvi then shot at receptionist Shannon Lowney in the neck, killing her instantly. Approximately forty people were in the room during the assault; of these, five were wounded, including several men who were accompanying women seeking abortions. Salvi shot indiscriminately, including at those protesting outside.

Salvi left Planned Parenthood, and drove west on Beacon Street to the Preterm Health Services office. Preterm was approximately two miles away and Salvi drove past another abortion facility to get there, but did not stop. He asked receptionist Lee Ann Nichols, "Is this Preterm?" When she said yes, Salvi pulled out a hunting rifle and shot Nichols point blank.

As he had at Planned Parenthood, Salvi continued to fire. Among those injured was part-time security guard Richard J. Seron and another employee, Jane Sauer. Seron returned fire. Seron himself was shot four times in the arms, and once in the left hand. Salvi then dropped the black duffle bag, which contained a gun, receipts from a gun dealer in Hampton, New Hampshire, and 700 rounds of ammunition. He then fled in his Audi. Police were able to identify him from the gun shop receipt in the abandoned bag.

The day before the shootings, Salvi practiced shooting at a firing range. He cut his hair immediately after the shootings to alter his appearance.

Salvi was captured in Norfolk, Virginia the day after the shootings, after firing over a dozen bullets into the Hillcrest Clinic. The clinic was open at the time, however Salvi was captured before making his way up to the second floor where Hillcrest was located. 

On February 5, 1996, Salvi was put on trial in a Massachusetts state court for the murders of Lee Ann Nichols and Shannon Lowney. The defense argued that Salvi suffered from schizophrenia, with several expert witnesses including forensic psychiatrist Phillip J. Resnick testifying that Salvi exhibited schizophrenic behavior and was not competent to stand trial.

Salvi frequently disrupted the proceedings by yelling out a religious philosophy in the middle of the trial. The philosophy seemed to be centered around a belief that the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan, the Freemasons, and others were persecuting Catholics. His defense attorneys introduced sections of a long, rambling diary Salvi kept to bolster their claims of mental illness. During a competency hearing, Salvi submitted a rambling document in which he expressed a desire for the death penalty.

The defense argued that Salvi told his parents that "the mafia and KKK are out to get me". Salvi's mother, Anne Marie Salvi, testified that her son had told her that he "was the thief on the cross with Jesus." A state police detective who sat with the Lowney family during the trial said because it "was clear that Salvi was mentally ill" that the Lowney family almost had empathy for him.

The prosecution used the testimony of Bridgewater State Hospital psychologist Joel Haycock, who spent eleven days with Salvi out of his sixty days under observation. Haycock determined that during the time of his observation of Salvi in a hospital setting, Salvi had no hallucinations, could speak in a non-digressive linear way, and was capable of understanding guilt. Haycock observed no signs of psychotic disorder during his time with Salvi. Haycock also asserted that Salvi had no mental disease at the time of the crime and was competent to stand trial.

On March 19, 1996, Salvi was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of armed assault with intent to murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since abortion clinics are also protected under federal law, and Salvi had traveled across state lines between the shootings, he could have been put on trial in federal court, but the U.S. attorney declined to pursue the case after Salvi had been convicted in state court.