The troubled half-sister of Parkland college shooter Nikolas Cruz testified Monday that their prostitute mom smoked crack and drank closely whereas pregnant with him — main him to develop inside a “polluted womb.”
Danielle Woodard, 35, who’s presently awaiting trial on carjacking prices, instructed jurors that their mother “put medicine above all the pieces else,” summing up her parenting as “horrible.”
“She launched me to a life that no little one ought to ever be launched to,” she stated of mother Brenda Woodard, who died final 12 months.
Protection attorneys known as Cruz’s sister to the stand to focus on their argument that his turbulent childhood warrants a lesser sentence.
The legal professionals need jurors to reject the loss of life penalty and as a substitute give Cruz a time period of life in jail for killing 14 college students and three staffers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
His mother’s use of alcohol and crack whereas pregnant, Cruz’s legal professionals argue, possible broken the event of his mind operate.
The killer’s half-sister, who was 11 when he was born, instructed jurors that she requested their mother if they may hold Cruz after holding him as a new child in 1998.
However her drug-addled mother had already organized to have him adopted by a Parkland couple. Cruz’s legal professionals stated earlier Monday that his unknown father was both a rapist or a John.
Danielle Woodard, who stays behind bars, had not been in the identical room as her notorious half-sibling since his start and briefly flashed him a number of tender seems at the beginning of her testimony.
Woodard instructed jurors that she has been convicted of 16 felonies and served a number of jail phrases. She blamed a lot of her dysfunction on her mom’s neglect.
However prosecutors famous Monday that Cruz’s was adopted right into a affluent and largely useful house.
Lynda and Roger Cruz, they stated, took him into their sprawling home and offered him with summer season camps, remedy classes and different hallmarks of a wholesome upbringing.
Regardless of these efforts, Cruz confirmed aggressive tendencies and irregular fantasies from a younger age, prosecutors stated.
These included adopting the personalities of untamed animals — together with lions and tigers.
Cruz’s adoptive father died from a coronary heart assault when he was 5, whereas Lynda Cruz handed simply months earlier than the bloodbath.
Cruz, 23, has already pleaded responsible to one of many worst mass shootings within the nation’s historical past and now awaits his sentence.
Prosecutors contend that the enormity of Cruz’s crime requires the loss of life penalty.
Supply hyperlink
