Nearly 40 people from New Jersey were killed when a terrorist bomb brought down Pan AM Flight 103 in 1988.

The mid-air explosion killed all the passengers on the trans-Atlantic flight, as well as 16 crew members and 11 people on the ground when the wreckage crashed onto the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland. It was the deadliest foreign terror attack on Americans until Sept. 11, 2001.

And now the United States has taken custody of the Libyan man believed to have made that bomb. Abu Agila Muhhamad Mas'ud will face trial in the U.S.

“We're very anxious and eager to hear what comes out of this trial,” says Kara Weipz, whose brother Richard Monetti, of Cherry Hill, was killed in the bombing.

Weipz says that the trial can’t come soon enough.

“We will have a trial in the U.S. to hold him accountable, and that is very important to the families,” Weipz says.

Montvale resident Mary Kay Stratis is the chair of the organization Victims of Pan Am Flight 103. Her husband was killed in the bombing. In an interview for the FBI on the 30th anniversary of the bombing, Stratis explained how she keeps her quest for justice alive without letting tragedy dominate her life.

“I'm not going to forget it. I want to pay attention to it, but I need to pull myself into living life day by day. And as my children grew, just being there for them,” Stratis says.

The Justice Department had indicted Mas'ud in 2020 after he allegedly confessed his role to Libyan authorities.