A Connecticut judge on Thursday approved the largest portion yet of a settlement in which the estate of the mother of the gunman who carried out a 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school will pay out $1.5 million to families of 16 victims.

Probate Court Judge Joseph Egan in Bethel, Connecticut approved deals with the families of six of the 20 first-graders killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, rampage, according to a court clerk and attorneys who were present at the closed hearing.

Two survivors of the attack, which also killed six educators, joined the initial lawsuit but were not part of the final settlement, which represents the amount of a homeowners’ insurance policy that gunman 20-year-old Adam Lanza’s mother had held on her Newton, Connecticut home.

One deal had been approved earlier and nine more are pending approval at other probate courts around the state, according to attorney Rosemarie Paine, the president of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, which arranged legal representation for the families, each of which will receive $93,750 under the settlement.

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