![]() ![]() Prosecutors also presented graphic surveillance videos gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle emotional testimony from teachers and students who saw others die and four days of tearful, angry statements from parents, spouses and other family members about how their loved one’s death affected them. McNeill told the jury that doesn’t excuse what her 23-year-old client did, but are factors they should consider as her team presents its case over several weeks. ![]() His lead attorney, Melisa McNeill, told the jury during her deferred opening statement that Cruz has fetal alcohol and drug issues that weren’t dealt with adequately by his adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, who suffered from severe depression and financial woes after her husband died suddenly when their son was 5. 14, 2018, shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (AP) - The birth mother of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz abused crack cocaine and alcohol during her pregnancy, his half-sister and another witness testified Monday - a circumstance that his lead attorney said left him with “an irretrievably broken” brain and set him on the road to mass murder.Ĭruz’s attorneys began their defense Monday, hoping to convince his jury to sentence him to life without parole instead of death for slaying 14 students and three staff members during the Feb. _Īssociated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. Their mother died less than four months before the shooting. Zachary now lives in Virginia with two benefactors. In the coming weeks, Cruz’s attorneys are expected to present testimony about his transfer to a school for students with emotional and behavioral problems, his time at Stoneman Douglas and call his brother to the stand. Cruz stood up, walked outside and jumped clothed into the pool. She said Lynda Cruz complained Nikolas wouldn’t bathe, so Forrest tried to explain to him the importance of hygiene. That’s what brought case manager Tiffany Forrest to the home. Lynda Cruz became so overwhelmed in Cruz’s early teens, a social services agency was assigned to help. At middle school, his outbursts disrupted classes and he plastered his homework with racist slurs, swastikas, obscenities and stick figures having sex or shooting each other. When his dog died after eating a poisonous toad, he went on a killing spree against the amphibians. When he was 9, a parent called police after he hit her child in the head with a rock. She sometimes locked his video game console in her car as punishment - and Cruz at least once broke a window to get it back.īut Cruz’s behavior was often strange and sometimes violent. He loved online, often violent video games, but hated losing - that’s what caused him to destroy TVs and damage walls. ![]() Cruz’s mental health treatments weren’t fully covered by insurance. In either case, she had expenses other parents didn’t. She padlocked the refrigerator so her sons couldn’t eat without permission and kept it so poorly stocked neighbors gave her groceries.įriends gave conflicting testimony over whether Lynda Cruz really was financially strapped or had wealth she didn’t want to spend. One friend said her monthly electric bill was $80, a fraction of what the owner of a large South Florida home typically pays. Unemployed, she became paranoid about spending, keeping her air conditioners’ thermostats in the 80s (25 to 30 Celsius) and unplugging unused appliances. That left Lynda Cruz alone in her mid-50s with two sons who would have challenged a much younger couple. Nikolas started seeing psychiatrists and psychologists at age 3 and didn’t fully talk or become potty trained until 4.Īt 5, just as Cruz entered kindergarten, he witnessed his father suffer a fatal heart attack in the family’s den. He was anxious, fell when he ran and couldn’t use utensils. Neighbors and teachers testified he hit and bit other children and didn’t socialize. She was just the happiest I ever saw.”īut by preschool, Cruz showed extreme behavior. She would go and get him all these sailor outfits. So once she got Nikolas, she felt like her family was complete,” friend Trish Davaney-Westerlind testified. Lynda Cruz “had wanted a child, always wanted a child. Roger Cruz, then 61, owned a successful marketing business. Lynda Cruz, who turned 50 shortly after adopting Nikolas, was a stay-at-home mom. They adopted Nikolas at birth in 1998 and, in 2000, Zachary, who had a different birth father. The defense wants to show that from Cruz’s birth to a hard-drinking, crack-smoking Fort Lauderdale prostitute, he never fully received needed help even as he grew increasingly out of control.Īnd nowhere was that more apparent than in the home Roger and Lynda Cruz built in Parkland, an upscale Fort Lauderdale suburb. ![]()
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