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Nikolas Cruz: Parkland shooter is 'delusional' and now wants to dedicate life to 'helping people'

Nikolas Cruz’s defense team will lobby Judge Elizabeth Scherer to admit testimony from several mental health analysts, including Wesley Center

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA: Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, 23, who pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, told Texas counselor Wesley Center that he wants to assist those in need after the end of his imprisonment. On February 14, 2018, Cruz, then 19, shot dead 14 students and three staff members at his former school in South Florida. Nikolas Cruz is so delusional that he believes he will get out of jail at some point in the future, according to the mental health expert hired by his defense team. He had some sort of epiphany while he was in (jail) that would focus his thoughts on being able to help people. “His life’s purpose was to be helping others.” He is now in the penalty face of his trial, where jurors will decide if he gets life without parole or the death sentence.

Describing the massacre as a "planned, systematic ... mass murder", Prosecutor Mike Satz said in his opening statement. "Three days before the massacre, Cruz made a video saying, 'My name is Nik. I'm going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It's gonna be a big event and when you see me on the news you'll know who I am. You're all gonna die. ... I can't wait.'" Mike Satz said that he's going to prove a minimum of seven aggravating facts that he deserves the death penalty over life in prison, and how he carried it all out with no remorse! How he would shoot someone and go back to them again and shoot them again to check if they were dead. Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder after mowing down his victims with an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle. The jurors also watched graphic surveillance videos of the killer’s rampage, saw gruesome crime scenes and autopsy photos, received emotional testimony from teachers and students who witnessed others die, and heard from tearful and angry parents, spouses, and other family members about the victims and how their loved one's death impacted their lives. After the shoot, he went to the subway, ordered an Icee, a frozen drink, and afterward went to McDonald's and asked a student there, who was from the same school for a ride, turns out the student's sister was one of the people who was shot. 

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Cruz's defense team has hired a mental health expert, Starting on August, 22, they hope they may be able to point to how he still has "irrational thoughts." Cruz’s defense team will lobby Judge Elizabeth Scherer to admit testimony from several mental health analysts, including Wesley Center. The counselor fitted Cruz’s scalp with probes for a scan to map his brain at the Broward County Jail last year. The defense hopes to present the “quantitative electroencephalogram” of Cruz’s brain that they say shows evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome and other deficits. They intend to use the evidence to fortify their case that Cruz’s traumatic upbringing and badly compromised mental health are mitigating factors in the slaughter and that a sentence of life in prison is sufficient. "He had some sort of epiphany while he was in (jail) that would focus his thoughts on being able to help people," transcripts show Wesley Center, texas counselor told prosecutors during a pretrial interview this year. "His life's purpose was to be helping others." The prosecution is expected to dismiss the tests as inadmissible pseudo-science. 

EEGs have been common in medicine for a century, measuring brainwaves to help doctors diagnose epilepsy and other brain ailments. But the qEEG analysis, which has been around since the 1970s, goes a step farther - a patient's EEG results are compared to a database of brainwaves taken from normal or "neurotypical" people.
While qEEG findings cannot be used to make a diagnosis, they can support findings based on the patient's history, examination, behavior, and other tests, supporters contend.
A "qEEG can confirm what you already know, but you can't create new knowledge," Center told prosecutors in his interview. They also have reports giving circumstantial evidence of his mental illness. Cruz got kicked out of preschool for hurting other children. During his years in public school, he spent significant time at a center for students with emotional issues. He also received years of mental health treatment. Then there are his life circumstances. Cruz's adoptive father died in front of him when he was 5; he was bullied by his younger brother and his brother's friends; he was allegedly abused sexually by a "trusted peer;" he cut himself and abused animals, and his adoptive mother died less than four months before the shooting. Soon, it will be Cruz's attorneys arguing why he should be spared, hoping to convince at least one juror their mitigating factors outweigh the prosecution's aggravating circumstances - a death sentence must be unanimous.