| ...pre-attack diagnoses of autism, anxiety, depression and significant psychological problems, described as a troubled kid obsessed with guns — the police frequently went to the family home to deal with him. Mr. Cruz was adopted at birth, then his adoptive father died when he was young, followed into the grave by his adoptive mother a few months before he ran amok. So really he was a classic school shooter. Interestingly, his biological sister Danielle Woodard, a decade older, is classified as a habitual violent offender... |
Prosecutors played video last week at Cruz’s penalty trial of jailhouse interviews he did this year with two of their mental health experts. In frank and sometimes graphic detail, he answered their questions about his massacre of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 — his planning, his motivation, the shootings.
While it can’t be known what the 12 jurors are thinking, if any are wavering between voting for death or life without parole, his statements to Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, didn’t help his cause.
"All of this made Cruz himself perhaps one of the state’s best witnesses," said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been monitoring the trial.
The jury will likely decide Cruz’s fate this week. For the 24-year-old to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous on at least one victim. But if all 17 counts come back with at least one vote in favor of life in prison, then that would be his sentence. Closing arguments are scheduled Tuesday, with deliberations beginning Wednesday.
| Horrifying interview quotes at the link. It sounds very unhappy in his head. |
