The Parkland shooter’s online activity leading up to the massacre was detailed to jurors on day eight of his sentencing trial. NBC 6’s Tony Pipitone reports
Jurors got to see nearly 200 online comments and search histories that convicted killer Nikolas Cruz made in the months leading up to the Parkland school shooting.
Broward Sheriff’s Detective Nicholas Masters explained Wednesday afternoon how investigators tracked and compiled Cruz’s online activities using browser cookies from Google and YouTube accounts dating back to July 2017.
Cruz repeatedly searched for information and videos of other mass shootings in Columbine, Charlottesville, Aurora, and Las Vegas, among others.
One search included: "How to Become Evil in Society."
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Records showed Cruz also sought information on weaponry, ammunition, police response times, mass shootings, and a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School map and school hours.
“The last part makes me scared. What happens when I have no one? I am 18, still in high school and everyone is on their way to college. I am there thinking about killing people and ending their lives,” Cruz wrote on Sept. 18, 2017. “I hate my life and I want to take people with me.”
Parkland School Tragedy
Comments were rife with his hatred for humanity and how he intended to become as infamous as past mass shooters such as Elliot “The Virgin Killer” Rodger, who killed six and injured 14 before killing himself in Isla Vista, California, in 2014.
One Cruz comment read, “It makes me happy to see people die,” followed by a smiley face emoji.
At one point, Masters read a comment Cruz wrote that said, “I love to see ...the familys suffer.”
The courtroom was filled with the families of the 17 people Cruz confessed to killing and the 17 he shot and wounded.
They have been hugging, crying, and grimacing throughout the eight days of heart-wrenching testimony.
The 23-year-old pleaded guilty last October to the mass shooting in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.
Jurors will have to determine whether Cruz should be put to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. It would take only one vote against the death penalty to give Cruz a life sentence.
The sentencing trial will resume Monday at 9 a.m.
