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Lynda cruz florida obituaries1/15/2024 ![]() ![]() "I didn't see anything that different until about maybe 18 months old. She was just the happiest I ever saw her."īut she saw many of the same issues that Fischer did - that other than her daughter, who was about eight months younger than him, Nikolas Cruz could not relate to other children. "She would go and get him all these sailor outfits. "He was a cute little baby," she said of Nikolas. 23, 2022.Īmy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill shows an undated photo of Roger Cruz holding baby Nikolas Cruz to Patricia "Trish" Devaney Westerlind as she testifies during the penalty phase of the trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Tuesday, Aug. Patricia Devaney-Westerlind, who lived across the street from Lynda and Roger Cruz, said Lynda Cruz kept the family's 4,500-square-foot home immaculate and that she was nurturing to Nikolas and his younger half-brother Zachary, whom the family also adopted. She said Lynda Cruz, his adoptive mother, was loving toward Nikolas and tried to do the best she could, but was slow to admit he had problems. If a teacher was trying to work with him to get him to use his spoon or not his hand, he would hit the teacher's hand away." "If someone else had a toy that Nikolas wanted, he would just go up and grab the toy and hit the child's hand to get the toy or the object. He pushed other kids because he "didn't know how to express himself," she said. He would sit in the corner and observe," Fischer said. She said he would fall down when he tried to run and his head and ears seemed disproportional to his body. She said while the other toddlers could ask for their water cups and use a spoon, Cruz could not. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to the murders and the trial is only to determine his sentence.Īnne Fischer, who ran the daycare center Cruz attended from about age 1, said he did not progress as fast as other children and was smaller. They are trying to persuade his jury to sentence him to life without parole instead of death. He remained socially and behaviorally stunted through elementary school, a special education counselor also testified.Ĭruz's attorneys began the second day of their defense by building on testimony that his birth mother's cocaine and alcohol abuse during pregnancy left him severely brain damaged, putting him on a road that led to him murdering 14 students and three staff members at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz was intellectually and physically behind other children as a toddler, which caused him to isolate himself and hit and bite to get what he wanted, a daycare administrator and former neighbor testified Tuesday at his penalty trial for the mass murder of 17 people. ![]()
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