FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Four years before Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people at a Florida high school, therapists at another school wrote a letter to his psychiatrist saying he was fixated on guns and dreamed of killing others and being covered in blood, testimony at his penalty trial showed Thursday.Negin and another psychiatrist who treated Cruz in the decade leading up to the Feb.
Dr. Nyrma N. Ortiz and therapist Rona O'Connor Kelly's two-page letter addressed to Negin says Cruz, then 15, was experiencing extreme mood swings, adding,"He is usually very irritable and reactive." They said he is"inappropriately" obsessed with guns and the military, defiant, verbally aggressive toward his teachers, paranoid and places the blame on others for the problems he creates.
Negin testified Thursday he never received the letter and no one followed up with him when he didn't respond. He said Cross Creek's typical procedure if the staff was having problems with one of his patients was to have a counselor come to his office with the student and parents to discuss the issue.Negin also testified that in 2013 he wrote a letter for Cruz's mother supporting his voluntary hospitalization. That also never happened.
The defense is trying to show that Cruz, 23, had a long history of mental health issues that were never fully treated. He pleaded guilty in October to the murders — the trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life without parole.