Nikolas cruz2/19/2023 She recounted witnessing her “horrible” mother use drugs and alcohol while pregnant. “Nikolas, I’m sorry, but that’s how it was.”Īlso testifying was Cruz’s older half-sister Danielle Woodard, who was never adopted and spent her childhood with her grandmother and living in foster care. “She didn't want it,” Deakins testified, turning to Cruz. Deakins, who is recovering from addiction, testified about the women’s daily drug and alcohol use, sex work, and stealing, and said Woodard had been adamant about not raising the baby herself. After she became pregnant, she began making plans to place the baby for adoption, but continued to use substances every day.Ĭruz’s defense first called as a witness Carolyn Deakins, who was friendly at the time with Woodard. The jury heard that Cruz’s birth mother Brenda Woodard stole meat from supermarkets or turned to sex work in order to fund her addiction to crack cocaine and beer. “He was poisoned in the womb and because of that his brain was irretrievably broken through no fault of his own,” McNeill said. ![]() Speaking to the jury, McNeill painted a portrait of a “damaged human being” whose future was sealed before he was even born due to his mother’s extensive drug and alcohol use while she was pregnant and experiencing homelessness. ![]() The trial began on July 18, but McNeill opted to take the rare step of deferring her opening statement until the prosecution had rested its case.Ĭruz has already pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder, but the trial on whether he should be executed or imprisoned for life still represents a rare occasion where a jury has heard extensive evidence about a mass shooter, many of whom are either killed by authorities or kill themselves at the end of their rampage. People commit crimes, but we must understand the person behind the crime,” McNeill said. Instead, McNeill said her job was to tell them more about who Cruz is and about his background - statements that caused at least one of the victim’s mothers sitting in the courtroom to close her eyes and shake her head silently. With the trial resuming after a roughly two-week break for the jury, lead attorney Melisa McNeill told the seven male and five female jurors that the evidence they would hear about the defendant was not a justification, explanation, or even defense for his crimes. They have heard excruciating autopsy evidence detailing how his bullets tore through flesh, bones, and organs.Īnd they have listened to heartbreaking testimony from relatives and friends who wept as they shared details of the victims’ lives and described their unending grief.īut on Monday, the 12 jurors and 10 alternates began hearing evidence about the shooter himself as Cruz’s attorneys began their defense in the death penalty trial in Fort Lauderdale. They have watched graphic security footage of the attack, showing Cruz stalking the corridors and killing indiscriminately, stopping over some bodies to shoot them again. They have visited the crime scene where dried pools of blood still remain four years later, and notebooks are open on classroom desks, left behind by students who fled or were killed. They have seen the AR-15 rifle Cruz, now 23, used to kill 14 students and three staffers at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Across a trial that’s lasted for weeks, the jury who will decide whether Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz lives or dies has been subjected to deeply disturbing evidence.
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