Category: Nikolas Cruz

Defense Urges Florida Jury to Spare Life of Parkland School Shooter

A defense attorney on Monday implored a Florida jury to spare the life of Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people in a 2018 high school mass shooting in the city of Parkland, citing brain damage linked to fetal drug and alcohol exposure as reason not to impose the death penalty. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last…


Jurors See Florida School Shooter’s Violent Internet Posts

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Jurors in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz saw evidence Wednesday of his growing obsession to commit a massacre, seeing internet posts and searches about mass killings in the months before he murdered 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In an emotionless monotone, Broward County sheriff’s Detective…


Teachers Weep Recalling Students Killed in Parkland Shooting

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Teachers gave heart-wrenching testimony Wednesday in the penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, with one recalling how a boy in her Holocaust studies class correctly answered a question seconds before he became one of 17 people murdered during the school shooter’s rampage four years ago. Ivy Schamis, then a teacher at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman…


Parkland School Shooter Nikolas Cruz’s Death Penalty Trial Begins

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—The prosecutor seeking the death penalty for the gunman who massacred 17 people at a Parkland, Florida, high school detailed for jurors Monday how Nikolas Cruz coldly mowed down his victims, returning to some as they lay wounded to finish them off with a second volley. Some parents wept as prosecutor Mike Satz…


Florida High School Shooter’s Penalty Trial Begins

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—The penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began on Monday, the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to go before a jury. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty last October to 17 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 14 students and three staff members at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, and is only…


Life or Death for Parkland Shooter? Trial Will Take Months

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Four years, five months, and four days after Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, his trial for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to reach a jury begins Monday with opening statements. Delayed by the COVID-19 lockdown and legal wrangling, the penalty-only trial is expected to last four months…


Parkland High School Mass Shooter’s Jury Selection Enters Final Stretch

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—The final phase of jury selection in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz began Wednesday with prosecutors and defense attorneys asking candidates about their job histories, opinions on law enforcement, whether they own guns, and if they could handle viewing gruesome crime scene photos. The final 83 candidates remaining from…


Judge’s Mistake May See Parkland Shooter Avoid Death Penalty

PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—A Broward County Circuit judge’s procedural mistake on April 25 could cause the Parkland shooter to get a life sentence instead of the death penalty. Attorneys for Nikolas Cruz—who is accused of murdering 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018—filed a motion asking Broward County Judge Elizabeth Scherer…


Parkland, Florida, School Shooter’s Jury Selection Begins

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—Jury selection in the deadliest U.S. mass shooting ever to go to trial began Monday with preliminary screening for the panel that will determine whether Nikolas Cruz will be put to death for murdering 17 students and staff members at a Parkland, Florida, high school. Eighteen members of the first panel of 60 prospective…


Parkland School Shooter’s Jury Selection Begins

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—The first day of jury selection in the Parkland mass shooting trial was slow, methodical, and painstaking—a process that is expected to drag on for two months. More than 120 of the first 160 prospective jurors who filed through Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer’s courtroom on Monday were dismissed. Most said it would be…