Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Parkland shooter’s brother tells ‘Dr. Oz’ about ‘missed signs’
When he first learned his older brother Nikolas Cruz was a suspect in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, Zachary Cruz thought, “I knew it was possible that he did it.”
That was one of the insights that Zachary Cruz shared when he appeared on the “Dr. Oz Show” Tuesday.
Cruz, 19, was interviewed by Mehmet Oz, the Palm Beach cardiac surgeon, on his syndicated show that airs on WTVJCh. 6 in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and WPBF-Ch. 25 in West Palm Beach. The episode was part of the program’s “True Crime Tuesdays.”
When Oz asked Cruz to look back to Valentine’s Day 2018 and whether his brother wanted to die when he fatally shot 14 students and three staff members that day, Zachary Cruz answered, “Yeah, I felt like it was also a suicide attempt.”
The teenager spoke of “the missed signs” from their childhood — his brother’s temper tantrums, breaking things, knife holes in doors. The younger Cruz also recalled how he once saw text messages on his brother’s phone about shooting students.
“I didn’t talk to him about it. I look back now and I wish I could go back in time,” Zachary Cruz told Oz, who also asked if him how he felt for not taking all the signs seriously.
“Responsible. I wanted to hold myself accountable and I know there are signs I missed,” said Zachary Cruz. “I want the world to know, don’t be like me. Don’t let your brother, don’t let your loved one, if you see something going on with them, be there for them. Make sure they’re OK.”
Cruz, like his brother, had been kicked out of the home of Rocxanne Deschamps, who was like a surrogate mother to them after their mother died in November 2017.
Zachary Cruz was put on probation after he trespassed at Stoneman Douglas about a month after the shooting. When Oz asked him how the Parkland community treated him, he said, “they shunned me because my presence brings the remembrance to them.”
The show also featured police footage of Zachary Cruz visiting his brother in jail after the shooting. The video showed him hugging his older brother and telling him that he is not a monster and that he loved him.
When Oz asked Zachary Cruz whether he thinks his brother — who confessed to the killings — knows what he did was wrong, Zachary Cruz said, “I know he does. I just know.”
The show also briefly introduced Mike Donovan, who along with his partner Richard took Zachary Cruz into their Virginia home last year. The teenager also spoke about his own antibullying organization, called We Isolate No-one or WIN.
At the end of the episode, the show featured a montage of the 17 people who were killed in the school shooting.