Father of Youngest Victim Supports Death Sentence for Gunman

The man who lost his 9-year-old daughter in the weekend shooting rampage in Arizona, a girl he said had a zest for life, said justice would be served by a death sentence for the gunman.

"My wife is very forgiving in that regard. I'm a little about the Old West," John Green said on CBS' "The Early Show." "It's a fairly clear-cut case, and I'm a fan of capital punishment in this regard."

He said he would not want to speak with the gunman who killed his daughter, Christina, and five others on Saturday at an event for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in the shooting.

"I wouldn't care to even talk to the guy, because that wouldn't change anything," Green said. "My daughter's gone and she's not coming back. Again, that would be a waste of breath."

He choked up and said he believes Christina is smiling down on him.

His wife, Roxanna, added: "She'll always be with us. She's always a little bright light in our little family, and she touched everyone that met her. And she always will, she'll always be with us. She was a very special, beautiful little girl."

Christina had gone to Giffords' event with a neighbor, who was wounded in the shooting. When John Green arrived at the hospital, one look at his wife's face signaled the tragedy that claimed their daughter's short life.

"As I walked into the emergency ward, things began to get graver and graver," Green recalled on NBC's "Today" this morning. "I just had a sense of doom as I walked up there.

"I saw my wife's face and I knew," he said. "I knew things weren't as they should be."

Green said he believes his daughter was alive when she arrived at the hospital, and he wishes the family could have been with her when she needed them.

"She's a fighter, but there was nothing we could do," said Green, a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the son of former baseball manager Dallas Green. "The only thing as a family we wish we had a chance to be there with her and support her, help her while she was down."

The family did see Christina after she died, a difficult moment Green felt was needed, especially for their 11-year-old son, Dallas. Green said the siblings were inseparable.

"We thought it was important for him to be able to say goodbye, and both my wife and my son handled everything with grace. They were really amazing," he told NBC.

"He's going to miss her, as we all are," Green said of Dallas.

A newly elected member of her school's student council, Christina had a growing interest in public service that led her to go to Giffords' meeting with constituents on Saturday, her parents said.

Christina was born on Sept. 11, 2001, a horrific day, like Saturday, that changed the mood of the country. She was featured in the book "Faces of Hope, Babies Born on 9/11."

Roxanna Green said her daughter was proud to be in the book and was hopeful about the future.

"She didn't really look at 9/11 as so much a tragedy like the rest of us did," she said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "She looked at it as an opportunity for change, for hope. ... She always wanted peace."

She added, "She was an amazing little girl. She got robbed of all the wonderful things she could have done."

While John Green said everyone else will remember Christina for what happened on the days on which she was born and died, "We're going to remember her for the nine years that we had her."

He described on NBC as "such a beautiful, young, vibrant girl."

"She had a zest and spirit for life that's hard to describe," Green said. "Not only was she competitive and tenacious, yet she also had just a very good sense of caring for others."

As he ended the NBC interview, he defended America's freedoms.

"This shouldn't happen in this country or anywhere else, but in a free society, we're going to be subject to people like this," Green said. "So I prefer this to the alternative."