Widow of Pulse nightclub gunman shares her story
“I hate how people assume I didn’t care or that I supported him. It hurts sometimes to think that people assume that I am this kind of monster.” Noor Salman Widow of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen
Months after the five-year anniversary of one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, a widow at the center of it is speaking publicly.
Noor Salman, the wife of Pulse shooter Omar Mateen, spoke with VICE News in a series of interviews that were published Oct. 13. Mateen killed 49 people and injured dozens more in an early-morning shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016.
Seven months after the attack, Salman, now 35, was accused of having prior knowledge of it and was charged with helping her husband plan the shooting.
She was arrested in January 2017 and faced the possibility of life in prison, if convicted.
Her trial drew national attention and outrage, with complaints of Islamophobia and accusations that she was being charged for her husband’s crime. A federal jury acquitted her of all charges later that year.
“It’s time people know the truth,” Salman told VICE, speaking to the media for the first time since her trial. “I hate how people assume I didn’t care or that I supported him. It hurts sometimes to think that people assume that I am this kind of monster.”
The Pulse shooting was the deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community in American history. It was considered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history until a massacre on the Las Vegas Strip nearly 16 months later.
In 2021, on the fifth anniversary of the Pulse shooting, President Joe Biden officially designated the club a national memorial.
Salman told VICE News she and Mateen met on a website called Arab Lounge. The two married shortly after; it was the second marriage for both.
Salman told the publication she “was on eggshells every day” and alleges Mateen kicked, punched and raped her throughout their marriage – and verbally abused their son. He even beat her during her pregnancy, she said.
In a 2016 essay following the shooting, Mateen’s first wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said she experienced similar abuse.
“He became increasingly violent and also afraid that I would leave him,” Yusufiy wrote in Marie Claire.
“Looking back now, I should have seen the red flags,” Salman told VICE News.
“I should have seen his behavior. I should have seen it.”
Law enforcement and evidence have confirmed Mateen was the sole shooter, though the Islamic State group initially claimed responsibility for the attack.
Salman was inside the couple’s Fort Pierce, Florida, home during the early morning of June 12 as the massacre unfolded. After the shooting, the Fort Pierce Police Department searched the home for explosives and evidence and took her in for questioning at an FBI field office in Florida.
In documents made public by law enforcement, Salman initially claimed to know about plans for the shooting.
She was accused of misleading law enforcement agents and charged with “aiding and abetting Mateen’s provision and attempted provision of material support for terrorism, as well as obstruction of justice,” TCPalm previously reported. In 2018, Salman was acquitted by a federal jury in Orlando.