FBI agents

They describe her actions after learning of husband’s death

recount their observations on Noor Salman’s behavior during interrogation after the Pulse attack.

FBI Special Agent T.J. Sypniewski walked into a room at the bureau’s Fort Pierce office the morning of June 12, 2016, and told Noor Salman that her husband “died in a violent incident in Orlando.”

He didn’t immediately say what else happened — that 49 people were dead and dozens more injured, or that Omar Mateen pledged his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group. “She broke eye contact with me,” FBI Special Agent T.J. Sypniewski said on the witness stand on the 12th day of Salman’s trial. “She looked away.”

Her behavior before the massacre, and her reaction to the news of her husband’s death, is important to the case against her because prosecutors say Salman knew in advance about her husband’s intention to commit mass murder — and helped him carry out the attack.

FBI agents who questioned her that morning and people who interacted with Salman and Mateen in the week before the attack took the stand Tuesday and described their impressions of Salman’s behavior.

Initially, Salman “was silent,” Sypniewski said. “She didn’t ask any followup questions.”

But soon she began giving reasons why her husband would not have carried out an act of mass violence, or why she could not have known he planned to do so. He’d just paid their bills and had recently bought airline tickets for a family trip. She had recently bought him a Father’s Day present. “How could I have known he was going to commit a violent act if I just bought him a Father’s Day gift?” she said, according to the agent.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Duel Valentine, who watched Salman for several hours, said she was “talkative” and had questions about her finances. She said her husband ran up credit card debt and she wanted his death certificate so she could ask the bank to forgive it, Valentine said.

“It struck me as a very odd conversation,” Valentine said.

Jurors also heard from a Kay Jewelers manager who helped sell Salman and Mateen a diamond engagement ring and a wedding band for $8,623 on June 6, 2016. He said Salman

seemed “focused” on buying a ring in the style she wanted and described Mateen as “very aggravated,” possibly because of a conversation he had in a different language with another mall employee.

Earlier Tuesday, Salman’s defense again questioned FBI Special Agent Ricardo Enriquez about what he knew about Pulse while he was interviewing Salman in the hours after the attack. Defense lawyer Charles Swift has suggested Enriquez may have contaminated her statements with information he got from watching news coverage on the shooting. FBI agents did not record Salman on June 12, 2016. Enriquez said he did not remember exactly what he read and saw in the news.

Jurors also got a look inside Mateen and Salman’s Fort Pierce condo through crime scene photos taken as FBI agents searched the home. They saw some of Mateen’s web browsing history, including thumbnails of beheading videos created by members of the Islamic State group.

The only witness Tuesday with a more personal connection to the case was the mother of Mateen’s friend Nemo, who testified under an alias. She ran into Mateen’s mother at a mosque the night of June 11, 2016. “My son went to see your son,” Shahla Mateen said.

But Nemo, a medical student, had left Florida. “I said, ‘my son, he’s doing a new rotation in Washington, D.C.,’ ” Nemo’s mother testified.

Court officials have been referring to Nemo only by his nickname. His mother’s testimony may be relevant because of text messages Salman sent Mateen on June 11, 2016.

“If ur mom calls say nimo invited you out and noor wants to stay home,” she wrote at 5:55 p.m. Then: “She asked where you were xoxo. Love you.” Prosecutors say the messages prove Salman knew of Mateen’s violent plans and helped him come up with a cover story to tell his parents. The defense says she was unknowingly repeating a lie Mateen told her, and he often claimed to be with Nemo when he left home to cheat with other women.

Prosecutors are preparing to rest their case today or Thursday. Defense lawyers plan to call eight to 10 witnesses after that, Swift said.