Mina Justice has revealed her anguish after receiving messages from her son when he was trapped inside the Pulse nightclub

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A mother of a man killed in the Orlando shootings has revealed her anguish after receiving terrified texts from her son telling her that he was being held hostage in the club’s bathroom.

Mina Justice was sound asleep when she received the first text from her son, Eddie Justice, who was in the gay nightclub Pulse when a gunman opened fire, leaving 50 dead and more than 50 wounded.

This is the conversation she had over text message with her 30-year-old son:

“Mommy I love you,” the first message said. It was 2:06am. “In club they shooting.”

Mina Justice tried calling her son, an accountant, but there was no answer so she texted him to see if he was OK.

At 2:07am he replied: “Trapp in bathroom.”

After she asked which club, responded: “Pulse. Downtown. Call police.” Then at 2:08am he said: “I’m gonna die.”

Now wide awake, Justice dialed 911 and sent her son a flurry of texts over the next several minutes.

“I’m calling them now.

U still in there

Answer our damn phone

Call them

Call me.”

Eddie was normally a homebody who liked to eat and work out, Justice said. He liked to make everyone laugh and lived in a condo in downtown Orlando. She knew he was gay and at a club – and all the complications that might entail. Fear surged through her as she waited for his next message.

At 2:39 am, he responded: “Call them mommy. Now.”

He wrote that he was in the bathroom.

“He’s coming

I’m gonna die.”

Justice asked her son if anyone was hurt and which bathroom he was in. “Lots. Yes,” he responded at 2:42am.

When he didn’t text back, she sent several more messages. Was he with police? “Text me please,” she wrote.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mina Justice speaks to a reporter about the texts. Photograph: Tamara Lush/AP

“No,” he wrote four minutes later. “Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us.”

At 2:49am, she told him the police were there and to let her know when he saw them.

“Hurry,” he wrote. “He’s in the bathroom with us.”

She asked: “Is the man in the bathroom wit u?”

At 2:50am: “He’s a terror.”

Then, a final text from her son a minute later: “Yes.”

Hours after that text, Justice still had not heard from her son. She and a dozen family and friends were at a hotel that had become a staging area for relatives awaiting news.

“His name has not come up yet and that’s scary. It’s just ...” she said. “It’s just, I got this feeling. I got a bad feeling.”

Authorities confirmed in the early hours of Monday morning that her son had died.