Too close to home
Family that took in school shooter shocked by rampage
’No idea we had a monster under our roof,’ say couple who took in Florida gunman.
WASHINGTON: The couple who took in Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz after his mother’s death have described him as quirky but pleasant and seemingly on the right track, saying they had no idea they had a “monster living under our roof”.
Cruz, 19, moved in with James and Kimberly Snead of Parkland, Florida, in late November after his adoptive mother died earlier that month from complications of pneumonia, they told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an interview published on Sunday.
He was a friend of their son. Prone to odd eating and sleeping habits and unused to any form of housework, he was nevertheless making progress in dealing with his grief and kept himself busy with adult education classes and his job at a discount store, the couple said.
“I told him there’d be rules and he followed every rule to the T,” James, 48, an army veteran and military intelligence analyst, said.
“We had this monster living under our roof and we didn’t know,” said Kimberly, 49, a neonatal nurse. “We didn’t see this side of him.”
Cruz killed 17 people at his former high school last Wednesday using an AR-15 rifle that he had legally purchased. It was the country’s worst school massacre since the horror at Sandy Hook six years ago that left 26 dead.
He also owned several other guns, including two other assault rifles as well as knives, said the Sneads, who own firearms themselves and did not find this unusual.
Cruz’s ultimate aim was to join the army and become an infantry-
man, something he had become excited about after a recent meeting with a military recruiter.
A profile has emerged of a troubled young man who was expelled from school last year for “disciplinary reasons”.
The FBI admitted receiving a detailed warning last month about Cruz’s gun ownership, erratic behaviour and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential for him to carry out a school shooting.
Despite the tip-off, the agency took no action.
Cruz was also known to police after his mother repeatedly reported him for violent outbursts, while records obtained by the same newspaper showed authorities investigated Cruz in 2016 after he cut his arms on messaging app Snapchat and threatened to buy a gun.
But he was eventually deemed a low risk and later passed a background check, allowing him in February 2017 to buy the AR-15 rifle used in the massacre.
The Sneads said it appeared he had grown up without ever having to do common chores – he could not cook, do laundry, pick up after himself or even use a microwave.
“He wasn’t dumb, just naive,” James told the Sun Sentinel.
Cruz had quirky habits such as putting a chocolate chip cookie on a steak and cheese sandwich, and going to bed at 8pm.
He seemed lonely and badly wanted a girlfriend, and was also depressed about the death of his mother, the couple said.
Kimberly had taken Cruz to the office of a therapist just five days before the shooting, and he had said he was open to therapy if his medical insurance would cover it.
Cruz told the Sneads that he would inherit at least US$800,000 (RM3.1mil) from his parents, with most of the funds becoming available when he turned 22.
On the day of the attack, Cruz sent several text messages to the Sneads’ son, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
In one, he asked what classroom the boy was in, adding in another that he had “something important” to tell him. But he then wrote: “Nothing man.”
The couple last saw Cruz at the Broward County Sheriff ’s office, handcuffed and surrounded by deputies.
“He said he was sorry. He looked lost,” said James. “That was the last time we saw him.”