Family opened home to ‘monster’
Nikolas Cruz was immature, quirky and depressed when James and Kimberly Snead took him into their home. But he was pleasant and seemed to be growing happier, they said.
How the 19-year-old turned into a killer still baffles them.
“We had this monster living under our roof and we didn’t know,” Kimberly Snead told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an exclusive interview Saturday. “We didn’t see this side of him.”
“Everything everybody seems to know, we didn’t know,” James Snead said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Cruz was still living with the Sneads on Wednesday when he walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with an AR-15 rifle and killed 17 people — the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook.
The Sneads’ son had asked whether his friend Cruz could move into their home last Thanksgiving. Cruz’s mother died of pneumonia Nov. 1, leaving him without parents. He stayed briefly with a friend in the Lantana area but wanted to move on.
The Sneads quickly agreed — though they realized Cruz was extremely depressed about his adoptive mother’s death.
Five days before the shooting, Kimberly Snead took Cruz to the office of a therapist she has been seeing to deal with her grief over her dad’s death. Cruz said he was open to therapy but didn’t like medication. He took a business card and was figuring out what his health insurance would cover.
James, 48, is a decorated Army veteran and a military intelligence analyst who served stints in the Middle East between 1988 and 1996. Kimberly, 49, is a neonatal intensive care nurse who cares for premature and ill babies.
They told Cruz there would be strict rules in their home.
“I told him there’d be rules and he followed every rule to the T,” James said.
The Sneads both grew up around guns and are comfortable with them, but they insist on gun safety.
They made Cruz buy a locking gun safe to put in his room the day he moved in. Cruz had a handful of guns, including the AR-15 and two other rifles that Snead said would be considered assault rifles. Cruz, a hunter, also had knives, BB guns and pellet guns.
James Snead thought he had the only key to the cabinet, but has figured out that Cruz must have kept a key for himself. The family kept its own rifles, bought after a burglary a couple of years ago, in a separate locked cabinet.
They told Cruz he needed to ask permission to take out the guns. He had asked only twice since November. They said yes once and no once.
Cruz’s mom seemed to have cosseted him.
“He was very naive. He wasn’t dumb, just naive,” James said.
He didn’t know how to cook. They had to show him how to use a microwave. He didn’t know how to do his laundry and had to learn to pick up after himself.
He didn’t drive, but bought a bicycle and rode it to work at a nearby Dollar Tree.
The Sneads had raised their own three boys and jokingly called the process of teaching Cruz “Adulting 101.”
They insisted he enlist in adult education classes run by the school district and drove him to school each day. He didn’t have much time to himself.
He seemed to be doing well and wanted to be an Army infantryman. He was excited when an Army recruiter visited school recently.
As far as they know, Cruz wasn’t particularly close to any of the victims and don’t know of any resentment he might have had toward any of the people who were killed. They have no clue why he did it.
The night before the massacre seemed just like any other, they said.
Cruz had some odd eating habits. He quietly put a chocolate chip cookie in his steak and cheese sandwich. He went to bed around 8 p.m., which wasn’t unusual.
They said they were sure he was bullied; he was the kind of kid who would attract the attention of a bully.
They said he badly wanted to have a girlfriend and seemed lonely. They don’t know anything about rumors they’ve since heard about a breakup with a girl, stalking or fighting.
They also saw no signs of animal cruelty. The Sneads are animal lovers, with two dogs and six cats. He’d have been kicked out if he had been mean to their animals. Cruz seemed to love their pets.
On Wednesday morning, Cruz told them he didn’t need a ride to school: “It’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,” he said.
Cruz had a “boxer’s fracture” in his right hand after falling on a step in their house about three weeks ago. They now think he removed the cast on his hand — the second cast he’d had — the day of the shooting. He’d also removed the first.
Kimberly last saw him around 10 that morning before she left to run errands. He said he was going fishing and was gone when she returned.
She went to sleep because she was scheduled to work a night shift.
Cruz sent their son a few texts that day. In one, he asked what classroom the boy was in. He said he was going to see a movie.
Later he texted he had “something important” he wanted to tell the teen. Then he wrote: “Nothing man.”
They have since figured out those texts were sent during the Uber ride Cruz took to the high school. His last text to their son, as Cruz pulled up at the school, said, “Yo.”
They think Cruz moved out of the family friend’s home in Lantana because of tension about his guns and a possible misunderstanding about money.
Cruz told them he stood to inherit at least $800,000 from his deceased parents. Most of the money would come when he turned 22, he said. The Sneads have since seen paperwork they think supports the claim.
Cruz thought the family friend in Lantana was stealing money from him, but the Sneads think she was innocent and he was a victim of common identity theft. They reported about $2,900 in fraudulent charges on his debit or credit card.
Around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, their son called, sounding panic-stricken. He was safe, but had heard shots fired on campus. He helped classmates flee by climbing a fence to neighboring Westglades Middle School.
Snead told his son to walk to Walmart and he’d come get him.
As Snead drove there, a SWAT commander called his cellphone and asked where his son Nik was. Snead told him Cruz wasn’t his son and he didn’t know where he was.
As he kept driving and put two and two together, he became terrified and called the commander back. Snead told the cop the last he knew was that Nik was home alone with Kimberly: “I need a police presence at my house. Go make sure my wife is OK.”
Snead called his son to say he needed to check on mom first and drove home: “I was fearing for her life.”
Kimberly was awakened by law enforcement officers banging on her door with guns drawn, yelling: “Put your hands up.”
When they asked where her son was, she assumed something had happened to him, but soon realized they meant Cruz. They searched the house but already had Cruz in custody elsewhere.
After an emotional reunion of husband and wife, they were brought to Broward Sheriff’s headquarters to be reunited with their son. They later realized he was being questioned in case he was involved.
As they waited, Cruz was led in, handcuffed and wearing a hospital gown, surrounded by deputies.
Kimberly tried to run at him, James held her back.
“Really, Nik? Really?” she yelled at him.
“He said he was sorry. He apologized. He looked lost, absolutely lost,” said James. “And that was the last time we saw him.”