![]() 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. Cruz ”curled up” and “looked like a snail when you put salt on one.”īut Cruz’s behavior was often strange and sometimes violent. “He’s the weird one, aren’t you Nicky?” Schusler recalled the woman saying. Steven Schusler testified that shortly after moving nearby, his landlord called over the Cruz boys and pointed at Nikolas, then about 10. Still, Zachary remained popular in the neighborhood while Cruz was the outcast - and not just with children. Friends testified that wasn’t wholly a facade - Cruz and his mother did have a strong, often affectionate attachment and she favored him over his brother. “She was a little afraid of him,” neighbor Paul Gold testified.ĭespite Cruz’s tantrums, Lynda Cruz told teachers and counselors he was gentle and loving, a mama’s boy. She sometimes locked his video game console in her car as punishment - and Cruz at least once broke a window to get it back. 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. In an attempt to counter that, assistant public defender Melisa McNeill and her team have made Cruz’s history their case’s centerpiece, hoping at least one juror will vote for life. Parents and spouses gave tearful and angry statements about their loss. He showed graphic autopsy and crime scene photos and took jurors to the still blood-stained, bullet-pocked classroom building Cruz terrorized. Teachers and students testified about watching others die. He played security videos of the shooting and showed the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle Cruz used. Lead prosecutor Mike Satz’s case was straightforward. The trial resumes Monday after a week off. His trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life without parole. Nikolas Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murdering 17 students and staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. ![]()
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