
He then went floor to floor, shooting down hallways and into classrooms, firing 140 shots in all.

He told a student who happened upon him to flee because something bad was about to happen.

When he was expelled a year before the shooting, a guard predicted he would eventually return and shoot people.įearing he'd been discovered, he sprinted into a three-story classroom building and quickly assembled his weapon. When he attended Stoneman Douglas, guards frequently checked him for weapons because of his erratic and sometimes violent behavior. He detailed the lessons he learned: Watch for would-be rescuers coming around corners, keep some distance from your targeted victims, attack as fast as possible - and "the police didn't do anything." "I studied mass murderers and how they did it, their plans, what they got and what they used." "I did my own research," the defendant told Scott. The thoughts would return when he watched violent videos, particularly documentaries about mass shootings at Colorado's Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and elsewhere, he said. "A very long time," the defendant told Scott, starting when he was 13 or 14, about five years before he did it. "The question is: What will the jury take away from the interviews? Cold-blooded killer who was vengeful and excited about the murders, or a person so hopelessly deranged that he can't be anything but crazy?" said Bob Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University's law school.Įxcerpts from those interviews, some of which are graphic: How long had he been contemplating a school shooting? Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, did not help his cause. While it can't be known what the 12 jurors are thinking, if any are wavering between voting for death or life without parole, his statements to Dr.

#Shoot point blank trial
Denney testifies during the penalty phase of the trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday, Oct. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter is shown on a courtroom monitor during a videotaped interview with clinical neuropsychologist Dr. 14, 2018, massacre - his planning, his motivation, the shootings. In frank and sometimes graphic detail, he answered their questions about his Feb. Prosecutors played video last week at Nikolas Cruz's penalty trial of jailhouse interviews he did this year with two of their mental health experts. It's possible the Florida school shooter who killed 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has talked himself into a death sentence.
