Santa Fe High School shooting trial: Families react to the verdict in the trial against the parents of alleged shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – Nearly 24 hours have now passed since a jury found the parents of the accused Santa Fe High School shooter not financially liable for the mass murder that killed 10 people and injured 13 in 2018.

The families of the victims have gone home, reflected and mourned. Now they share their pain.

“I lived on hope for many years, and it was only in this trial that I realized that we will never hold the man who pulled the trigger accountable,” said Rosie Yanas, whose 17-year-old son, Chris Stone, was shot and killed.

For six years the families searched for accountability.

A criminal trial will probably never take place because the alleged shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been declared unfit to stand trial.

Now they know that his parents will not be held liable.

After a day of deliberations, the jury in the civil trial found the defendant, then 17, 80 percent guilty and the online retailer from whom he purchased the ammunition 20 percent guilty.

The jury awarded the victims' families hundreds of millions of dollars. However, the ammunition manufacturer does not have to pay the fine due to a civil settlement, and the accused shooter, who is in a psychiatric hospital, has no money, according to his lawyer.

“The money was never something I was committed to; it was nothing,” said Gail McLeod, whose 15-year-old son Kyle was killed. “It wasn't important to me. I wanted the parents to be held accountable.”

McLeod, like many other parents and relatives, viewed this process as an opportunity to ensure that other parents recognize and act on the warning signs of mental illness and that their children do not have access to guns.

A juror told Eyewitness News that most jurors felt the accused shooter's parents did everything they reasonably could.

“It's crazy for me to even have thoughts like that because I feel like I'm making excuses for the family of my son's killer and stuff like that, so it's hard for me,” Yanas said. “But first of all, I put myself in their shoes as a parent. And I put myself in their shoes as far as, 'Have I missed something as a mother? Could I have missed something?' But I keep coming back to, 'I know my kids.'”

This case was one of the first attempts in the country to hold parents financially liable for the actions of their child in a school shooting.

“At the end of the day, I think the jury will have blood on their hands if there is another school shooting,” Yanas said. “Just like everyone else, they had a chance to make a big change in this world for other teachers and students. Because the school shooting is already out there, it's already planned, it's already documented. It's just a matter of when.”

During the three-week trial, victims and their relatives relived the shooting, testified, and saw police interviews and the defendant's diary entries for the first time.

The jury’s verdict feels like a final blow.

“I want to hold every single person responsible for my son's death,” Yanas said. “I'm not going to hold the person responsible who put the guns in his hands. That's my opinion. Then there's the school district. They have immunity, so you can't do anything to them. Then there's the police. You have questions about them. You can't do anything to them. So what can I do?”

Nevertheless, they acknowledged that a different verdict would not ease their pain.

“I just miss him every day. Yes, I miss him every day,” McLeod said. “It's a never-ending process, I would say. You'll never get over it. You'll never get to the point where you're okay with it.”

“He was a hero that day, and I don't know what I'm going to do, but maybe I'm supposed to be someone else's hero here on Earth and change more laws in the future,” Yanas said.

For more information on this story, follow Pooja Lodhia on Facebook.X and Instagram.