According to defense witnesses, John Salvi was distant and robot-like in the days before he shot and killed two and wounded five others at two Brookline, Massachusetts abortion clinics. When an aunt said Salvi had acted withdrawn and listless, prosecutor Marianne Hinkle implied that Salvi may have been preoccupied with the attacks he was planning on the clinics.
The owner of a hair salon where Salvi had been working as an apprentice the months before the shootings, Rick Griffin, said he and others noticed the collage of fetuses and slogans” on the back window of Salvi’s pickup truck. According to Griffin, when word of the pictures spread through the shop, Salvi started parking on the other side of the lot. When one of the hairstylists mentioned the pictures and said that Salvi told her it was a picture of Jesus, Salvi smiled in the courtroom, took a drink of water, and began making noises the prompted his lawyers to ask for a short recess.
