Survivors, family members of victims give powerful testimony in Austin Thompson sentencing hearing

Tuesday, February 3, 2026
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Austin Thompson's sentencing hearing is now underway. He faces five life sentences.

He plead guilty late last month to five counts of first-degree murder, among other charges.



Lives forever changed



We heard from Officer Gabriel Torres's wife, Jasmine, who was emotional almost the entire time she was on the stand and gave an heartbreaking account from that day.

Jasmine Torres says she was driving home and on the phone with her husband when she heard a series of shots being fired. She had the couple's baby in the car.

When she pulled up in the driveway, she realized what happened to her husband.



She left the baby strapped into the car seat and ran to Torres' vehicle.

Jasmine Torres says when she opened her husband's door, he was shot multiple times, barely holding on, and she did everything could think of to save him.

She said, "I tried to stop the bleeding, so I had my fingers on every wound that I could get to. I used my other arm to prop up his neck because he kept falling down, and I wanted to keep his airway as open as it could. I was trying to help him so that he could breathe because his lips were turning blue. but he was alive cause I felt a pulse where I had my fingers."



We heard from victim Mary Marshall's mother, who says Mary was the baby in the family and a loyal, loving person.

Marshall's mother cried telling the judge, "This is by far the most difficult thing we've been through and I don't think we'll ever fully recover."

Victim Nicole Connors' husband Tracey Howard explained the couple had just celebrated their five year anniversary before she was killed.

Howards says the tragedy has left him a broken man.

"I don't enjoy the things that I used to do," said Howard. "I feel socially awkward now, I don't go anywhere. I feel guilty about having fun without my wife."
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