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9/11 victims' last words played at trial

Jury hears tapes of 911 calls and stories of families as trial for Zacarias Moussaouis punishment resumes

BY JOHN RILEY | Newsday Staff Correspondent

April 11, 2006

Photo of Melissa Doi, who died on September 11, 2001 (Handou / April 10, 2006)

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - They were the desperate moments, just before the south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. on Sept. 11, and Kevin Cosgrove of West Islip was trapped on the 105th floor in the northwest corner of the building, grimly determined but losing hope.

"Lady, there's two of us in this office," he told a 911 operator, in one of two tapes of emergency calls from inside the towers played publicly for the first time yesterday at Zacarias Moussaoui's death-penalty trial in federal court here. "We're not ready to die but it's getting bad."

She tried to calm him down by saying help was on the way. "You can say that," said an aggravated Cosgrove, 46, an executive with Aon Corp. "You're in an air-conditioned building." His pleas continued. " ... Tell God to blow the wind from the west," he said a few seconds later. "It's black, it's arid ... How the hell are you going to get my ass down? I need oxygen."

Then, a moment later, at precisely 9:59, TV screens around the country showed the start of the skyscraper's slow implosion. The image was displayed on courtroom video monitors as it began to disintegrate from the top down. "Oh God!" screamed Cosgrove from the inside. "Oh ... " The call ended abruptly.

His terrified words climaxed the second day of wrenching victim impact testimony in the punishment phase of Moussaoui's trial, as prosecutors employed tearful stories of grief and loss from 14 victims' relatives, one horribly burned survivor and the recorded words of Cosgrove and a woman trapped in raging fires inside the south tower in an effort to persuade jurors to execute the al-Qaida operative.

Jurors have already found that Moussaoui, 37, a French-Moroccan, allowed the Sept. 11 plot to succeed by not telling the FBI about it when he was arrested in August 2001. Yesterday, he slumped in his chair and listened indifferently to the parade of family stories.

He did exchange a glare with Sharif Chowdhury, a Muslim Bangladeshi-American, as he left the stand after describing his daughter's death, but broke his silence only as he left court for recesses. "Burn in the U.S.A.," Moussaoui shouted at the morning break. "Hollywood deadly circus," he exclaimed as he left for lunch.

Prosecutors contend that the terror of victims in their final hours and the aftermath of family pain constitute reasons to lethally inject Moussaoui. His lawyers, beginning later this week, are expected to present evidence that a difficult upbringing, fierce religious indoctrination and mental illness shaped him.

In addition to Cosgrove, jurors yesterday also heard a haunting 911 tape from Melissa Doi, trapped on the south tower's burning 83rd floor. "It's very, very, very hot," she told the dispatcher. She saw only smoke, and couldn't find air. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" she said. "I'm going to die." The dispatcher told her to stay calm and say her prayers. "Please God," she cried. "It's so hot. I'm burning up."

The voices from inside were amplified by witnesses like C. Lee Hanson, the grandfather of 21/2-year-old Christine Lee Hanson, Sept. 11's youngest victim. She was on United Flight 175 with her father, Peter, Hanson's son, and her mother. Peter called, Hanson testified, and said he thought the hijackers would fly the plane into a building.

"Don't worry, Dad," Peter said. "If it happens, it'll be quick." Watching TV as they talked, Hanson heard his son say, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" and heard a scream as he saw the plane fly into the World Trade Center.

The mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters testifying also included Elaine Hughes of Smithtown, who said her son Kris, a trader on the 89th floor, was the "glue" of her family and his death had "devastated" everyone.

She said Kris' brother and buddy, Keith, 35, still goes through periods when he asks everyone not to mention his brother's name at family gatherings. His nephew, Nicholas, wrote a letter to Kris, and insisted on putting a real stamp on it. "Grandma," he asked, sobbed Hughes, "how does the postman know what planet to go to?"

And her husband Henry, Hughes testified, has already made a last request: "He says when he dies, no matter what it is, he wants it on his headstone that he died of a broken heart." She ended her testimony by saying, "May God Bless America."

Most witnesses described victims in idyllic terms -- perfect children, blissful marriages, generous and loving to a fault. But there was one exception.

Mary Ellen Salamone of New Jersey, a mother of three whose stockbroker husband John died in the north tower, said she was ravaged by regret over a rocky, "imperfect" marriage that was at a low point on Sept. 11. Phone records showed later that her husband tried to call her, but all she heard was static.

"We didn't have a chance in death," she said. " ... I miss him. I want to be able to say, 'Johnny, we love you.' And I want to have the peace of him saying, 'I know, Mar.' "