DIGGING FOR MERCY

Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Asks to Exhume Dead Dad to Prove Paternity

Robert Bowers’ lawyers have been pushing evidence that suggests he suffers from severe mental illness and schizophrenia, which he may have inherited from his father.

Attorneys for Robert Bowers, the man convicted for gunning down 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, is asking for permission to dig up the remains of his father as a jury weighs whether or not to impose the death penalty. His lawyers have been pushing evidence that suggests Bowers suffers from severe mental illness and schizophrenia he may have inherited from his father. Federal prosecutors expressed doubt during the penalty phase of the trial about paternity, which Bowers’ legal team believes can be resolved through DNA testing. According to The Associated Press, his long-dead father Randall Bowers died by suicide in 1979, on the day before his own rape trial. While the younger Bowers was found guilty on all 63 federal counts—including hate crimes—for the mass shooting, his defense has insisted that schizophrenia motivated the horrific and antisemitic attack. A judge has yet to rule on the motion to exhume the body, and a jury will have to decide between a death sentence or life in prison without parole.