Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz has struck up an unlikely friendship with the mother of a 6-year-old boy slaughtered in the 2012 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, his defense lawyer revealed Monday.
Melisa McNeill told jurors in her opening statement that Cruz and Scarlett Lewis, who lost her son in the Connecticut mass shooting that killed 26 people, have communicated regularly in video jail visits.
"You will hear through those conversations that [she] and Nick are trying to find a way to prevent this from ever happening again," said McNeill, who kicked off the defense’s case in Cruz’s penalty trial.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last October to 17 counts of first-degree murder for opening fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 14 students and three staffers.
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Nikolas Cruz, 23, in court Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, at his penalty trial. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
The trial in Broward County Circuit Court in Fort Lauderdale will determine whether Cruz is sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole for the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre.
"I stand before you today in a space filled with overwhelming sadness, painstaking grief, anger and trauma," said McNeill, pointing to Cruz and saying he is the person responsible for this immense suffering.
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Mitigation, she said, is not a justification. She added that we must understand the person behind the crime.
"His brain is broken, he’s a damaged human being and that’s why these things happened," she told jurors before walking them through his deeply dysfunctional upbringing.
Sandy Hook victim's mother, Scarlett Lewis, has been in regular communication with Nikolas Cruz, it was revealed in court Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. (Briana Sanchez/Austin American-Statesman via AP, Pool)
His mother, Brenda Woodard, was a homeless drug addict who abused alcohol and cocaine and worked as a sex worker when she was pregnant with him.
"Because Nikolas was bombarded with all of those things, he was poisoned in the womb and because of that his brain was irretrievably broken through no fault of his own," McNeill said in court.
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After his birth, Linda and Roger Cruz adopted him — but almost immediately noticed that he was not like other kids.
His development was severely stunted behaviorally and academically, and he suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and antisocial personality disorder, she said.
Nikolas Cruz's lawyer, Melissa McNeill, delivering her opening statement Aug. 22, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
Two years later, the couple also adopted Cruz’s biological brother, Zachary Cruz. At the age of 5, Cruz witnessed his father die of a heart attack.
His mother struggled to cope as a single parent and made shocking decisions — including taking her troubled son to buy his first gun two years before the massacre.
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Cruz’s brother, Zachary Cruz, and half-sister, Danielle Woodard, are expected to testify on his behalf.
