Nikolas Cruz sentencing trial: Outbursts, then apologies, marked Parkland gunman's behavior

FORT LAUDERDALE — Testimony in the death penalty phase of the Nikolas Cruz trial is set to continue at 9 a.m. Thursday in Fort Lauderdale.

This week, the defense team for the Parkland school shooting gunman continues to call witnesses in its effort to win Cruz a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The team of Broward County public defenders called three witnesses to the stand Wednesday, including a man who once lived next door to Cruz, and two Broward County deputies who responded to the Cruz residence years before the shooting.

'He dreams of killing others': Witnesses say Nikolas Cruz's childhood marked by paranoia, aggression

All it takes: Nikolas Cruz's lawyers concede he killed 17. Can they persuade one juror to spare his life?

'Disturbing on a number of levels': Jurors tour preserved crime scene at Stoneman Douglas High

Cruz pleaded guilty in 2021 to killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The 12-person jury will recommend whether Cruz, then 19 and now 23, is put to death or sentenced to life in prison. If it recommends death, a move that must be unanimous, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will make the final ruling, likely sometime this fall.

The Palm Beach Post is covering the daily proceedings live.

Broward deputies responded to Cruz home years before shooting

Broward County deputy Gary Michalosky said he was called to Cruz's home in August of 2012 for reports of a domestic disturbance. Cruz was upset that his adoptive mother locked his Xbox in the trunk of her car, Lynda Cruz told the deputy.

By the time the deputy arrived, the floor was littered with things the teen had thrown against the wall, including a now-shattered vase and a broken bowl. Cruz barricaded himself inside his room. He'd asked to stay home from school that day because he was having trouble in his classes, but Lynda Cruz wouldn't let him.

Michalosky radioed to dispatch and told them to change the call's classification from "domestic disturbance" to a "mental illness."

There were holes in the walls of Cruz's bedrooms from previous tantrums, he said. They escorted Cruz out of the room in handcuffs, and the boy was calm, flat. Not talkative.

“No emotions," Michalosky said. "Like the calm after the storm.”

'Out of no where, he would just snap,' says Paul Gold, gunman's neighbor

Paul Gold lived next door to the Cruz family in Parkland from 2008 to 2011. He said he remembers his first time meeting Nikolas Cruz vividly.

They had begun to play pool in Gold's home, where he lived with his then-fiancée, Rocxanne Deschamps. Gold struck the cue ball, and at the sound of the bang, Cruz jumped away from the table and grabbed his ears.

"He just held his ears and just kind of rocked back and forth, and may have screamed a little bit," Gold said. The loud noise startled him "a lot more than was normal."

It was disconcerting, Gold said, and he voiced his concern to Cruz's adoptive mother, Lynda. She became angry.

"She said there's nothing wrong with her son," Gold said. "That was it. Didn't mention it again."

Lynda seemed to favor Cruz because he was smaller and weaker than his younger brother, Zachary, Gold said. He seemed younger than he was, both physically and mentally. And "out of nowhere, he would just snap."

Gold never knew what triggered the episodes. He described an incident when Cruz became irate and smashed Gold's motorcycle trailer with a golf club. Afterward, he became profusely apologetic.

That was his routine, Gold said. He was often pleasant enough, and then from one moment to the next, "he would just break things and go off — seemed out of his mind."

Then he'd calm down again and become "extremely apologetic," Gold said. He sometimes seemed shocked at himself. "It was like he was another person."

Gold said Cruz would move from obsession to obsession, laser-focusing on one thing at a time. One year, it was penguins. That's all he would talk about. Another year, it was toads. His childhood dog had eaten a poisonous toad and died because of it, Gold said, and he went on a "killing spree."

"He tried to kill every toad in the neighborhood," Gold said.

Cruz seemed like he wanted to have friends, his neighbor said, but his "strange behaviors" made it difficult to maintain a relationship with him. While Zachary Cruz would play video games with his friends, his brother would walk the neighborhood alone.

Lynda Cruz told Gold that she was sometimes afraid of her son.

"She told me not to believe the angelic appearance that he had and his very nice ways," Gold said. "That he would turn and do bad things."

Lynda Cruz died in November 2017, and few people attended her funeral.

"Why is nobody here?" Gold said Cruz asked him.

Gold explained that when he submitted an announcement to be published in the newspaper, he had put the wrong date. It was a lie, he said, but he felt bad.

Three months later, Gold picked up his phone to tell Cruz about something terrible he'd seen on the news.

"I called Nik to warn him there was a shooter around, " he said. "I couldn't even imagine that it was him."

When he found out who wielded the gun, Gold started to scream. He never thought he would speak to Cruz again. But as time went on, and as details about Cruz's biological mother's substance abuse came to light, his opinion changed. When Cruz calls him from jail, he answers the phone.

"This young man had been given everything that could have possibly gone wrong in a kid's life," Gold said.

A prosecutor cut him off with an objection.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Nikolas Cruz sentencing trial: Gunman's mom feared him, neighbor says