The team of lawyers seeking a life sentence for the convicted Parkland school shooter paraded a family friend, a school guidance counselor, and a clinical pharmacologist before jurors Tuesday.
Day Six of the defense case began with the pre-recorded, edited video of the state’s cross-examination of Finai Browd, a long-time friend of Lynda Cruz who adopted Nikolas Cruz.
Browd admitted his behavior got more disturbing and violent as Nikolas grew up forcing Lynda to wrap herself around him.
“She would have to make herself kind of like a straight-jacket type of thing where she has to hug him while he was having these episodes to try to calm him down," Browd said.
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The 15th defense witness was guidance counselor Jessica Clark-Flournoy who met with Nikolas Cruz in the sixth and seventh grades at Westglades Middle School.
She testified Nikolas Cruz was concerned about doing well in school, but his attitude declined with his grades.
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“Over time his behavior worsened,” she said. “He was trying to do well in school …but it got progressively worse over time.”
Clark-Flournoy said Cruz yearned to make friends, was bullied, anxious, and laughed and cursed uncontrollably in class at times.
“He said his biggest challenge [and] struggle at school is understanding the world,” she said.
Forensic toxicologist Dr. Susan Skolly-Danziger was the last witness of the day discussing her review of Cruz’s birth records and what they showed.
One set of test results were negative for traces of drugs or alcohol in Cruz’s biological mother Brenda Woodard, but that didn’t mean she was clean and healthy, Skolly-Danziger said.
“The devil is in the details of the test,” she said, acknowledging she contacted the lab to see how the tests were conducted. She did not perform any tests herself.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 23-year-old Cruz who pleaded guilty in October to 17 murders and 17 attempted murders in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting on Feb. 14, 2018.
The sentencing trial resumes at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
