ATLANTA — It was June 6, 2014 when shots rang out at the Forsyth County Courthouse in Cumming. It's a day Jackie Dennison will never forget.
"I thought my heart was ripped out and I would never feel the same," Dennison said. "I was just in such horrible shock. I couldn't stop screaming, screaming bloody murder. Sometimes I still do."
Dennison spoke publicly about that day to Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne. Her son, Dennis Marx, was supposed to be at the courthouse that morning to accept a plea bargain in a marijuana case.
Instead, investigators say, he drove a SUV to the steps of the courthouse and opened fire.
"He was my first born, he was my best friend," Dennison said.
Dennison shared with Winne a series of events in her son's life leading up to that day in the courthouse; events that may help explain why he did what he did.
According to the GBI report, Marx had explosive devices, two pistols and a rifle inside the SUV that day. He was wearing a gas mask and two bullet-proof vests.
Dennison showed Winne video of Marx just days before the incident. The video, never seen publicly before, shows Marx smiling and laughing with a friend.
Winne asked her if her son was mentally unstable.
"Not in my opinion. I went to work with him. I went to his friends with him. I stayed with him," Dennison said.
She told Winne that before her son's arrest on marijuana charges, he had a clean record and even worked as a TSA screener.
She broke down when Winne asked her about a memory her son had in 2008. He revealed to his mother that he was molested as a child.
Dennison said Marx went to a therapist and was put on psychotropic drugs. She said because of that, he lost his job as a hospital security guard. She added that he also suffered from back pain.
"(It was) excruciating. He would get on the floor in the fetal position and curl up and scream in pain."
In 2011, authorities raided his house and arrested him on drug and weapons charges.
"He believed this was the beginning of the end for him," Dennison said.
She told Winne Marx considered the raid excessive and filed a federal lawsuit over it. His attorney Manny Aurora confirmed that in the raid police confiscated money Marx had collected.
The cash was considered a collector’s item and worth more than face value, but Aurora backed up Dennison's claim that police treated the money at face value.
"He had been saving that money since he was 16," Dennison said.
She said he had been taken off the psychotropic drugs and was self-medicating with marijuana. Prosecutors in Forsyth County also claimed Marx admitted to huffing.
Winne asked if her son was a survivalist. "Our family has taken precautions as to having extra groceries, extra water, extra clothes, one of two gas cans filled with gas, just in case, after witnessing Hurricane Katrina."
Still, she told Winne reports that Marx was a sovereign citizen are false.
"Not that I'm aware of. (He) paid his taxes, he had his gun permit renewed every year,” Dennison said. “(He) had his passport and owned property. (He) worked. (He) paid income tax."
In 2013, Marx's home caught fire and his sister died. Dennison said Marx and his sister were very close. Authorities found her ashes inside a necklace he was wearing the day of the courthouse shooting. He also had a picture of a dog with him.
Dennison confirmed it was Marx’s beloved rottweiler that he had to euthanize in 2008.
"He'd lived the last three years of his life in fear for his life,” she told Winne. “I guarded him the best I could and I stayed by his side. Every time he left my sight I was afraid I would never see him again."
"My son felt alone. No matter how hard I tried to reassure him, (he felt) defenseless, abandoned," Dennison said. "I did everything in my power to try to protect him and to keep him safe."