BARTENDER: Lizsa Lehman
"I remember thinking that Mohamed was capable of everything they had said was done."
When Lizsa Lehman saw the 19 mugshots of the 9/11 terrorists displayed prominently in the newspaper, she found two familiar faces starring back at her — Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohamed Atta.
She got to know them both when they bellied up to her bar at the Outlook in Venice after their flying lessons a few miles away.
They were dressed well. They were well spoken. And al-Shehhi, was one of the bartender's favorite patrons.
Lehman said he was always striking up conversations. She remembers him laughing, often.
But to this day, the mere thought of Atta — his face, his cold stare, his voice — brings goosebumps to her arms and tears to her eyes.
"The look on his face was very true to his everyday actions," said Lehman, describing Atta as unfriendly and cold.
The hardened expression in Atta's picture never left his face, she said.
Al-Shehhi was different.
"I, to this day, have trouble seeing (him) doing it," she said.
Describing him as jolly, Lehman wants to believe that the round man with glasses had to be coaxed into piloting a plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.
"Marwan would talk to you; he enjoyed being in the bar," she said. "He enjoyed company."
The polar opposite of al-Shehhi, she said, Atta never engaged in conversation with the bartenders because they were all women.
"He didn't like the fact that women were behind the bar," she said. "It was almost like (he) was offended that we would stand and talk to them."
Seeing his face in the newspaper, Lehman knew.
"I remember thinking that Mohamed was capable of everything they had said was done," she said.