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Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz struggled in middle school and asked bizarre questions – including if people ate the corpses of soldiers who died in the U.S. Civil War, according to a behavioral expert.
The specialist conducted an assessment of Cruz and those notes were introduced Tuesday through Westglades Middle School counselor Jessica Flournoy.
Cruz, the expert noted, became “fixated on death” and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
“Some questions he asked were, ‘What did it sound like when Lincoln was shot? Did it go pop, pop, pop really fast?Was there blood everywhere?’ the notes say. “‘After the war, what did they do with all the bodies? Did people eat them?”
FLORIDA SCHOOL SHOOTER NIKOLAS CRUZ THINKS HE’S GOING TO GET OUT OF PRISON
Nikolas Cruz, 23, in court Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, at his penalty trial.
(Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
The expert added that Cruz would find any excuse to bring up guns.
Flournoy, who saw Cruz once a week from 2011 to 2013, said that his behavior deteriorated over time. “He progressively got worse,” she said.
It was the second week of the defense’s case in Cruz’s Broward County Circuit Court penalty trial.
PARKLAND SHOOTING TRIAL: NEIGHBOR COMPARES NIKOLAS CRUZ TO ALFRED NEUMAN
He pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree homicide for the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Feb. 14, 2018, that left 17 people dead.
The Fort Lauderdale trial will determine whether the 23-year-old is sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Cruz broke a bathroom sink, laughed uncontrollably and had a habit of “blurting out inappropriate things in class,” according to Flournoy and school notes.
Police evacuate students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, after Nikolas Cruz opened fire February 14, 2018, killing 17 students and staff.
(AP/South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
His conduct became so egregious that he required an escort when he went to lunch or switched classes. He later transferred to a school for students with special needs before landing at Marjory Stoneman. He was eventually expelled.
The defense has argued that Cruz was born damaged and this is a mitigating factor that jurors should consider in their decision.
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His biological mother was a sex worker who smoked crack and drank while pregnant – and his adoptive mother, who died four months before the shooting, struggled to cope with his extreme behavioral and developmental deficits.
