Psychologist: School shooter didn't get consistent treatment

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A psychologist who treated Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz when he was 8 years old testified Wednesday that Cruz was a “peculiar child” who had many behavioral and developmental issues but his widowed mother seemed overwhelmed and wasn’t consistent in her discipline or in getting him treatment.

Frederick Kravitz said he began treating Cruz in 2007 on a referral from Cruz's psychiatrist with Lynda Cruz telling him her adopted son suffered from anxiety and nervousness and had trouble controlling his temper. But she also said he was friendly and got along fine with his peers — claims that a neighbor, preschool teachers and an elementary school special education counselor have testified were not true.

Kravitz said that while he suggested weekly sessions for Cruz, his mother only brought him 15 times over a 13-month span, a decade before he murdered 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.

He said that was a major issue — Lynda Cruz would agree that her son needed more consistent treatment and she needed to be more consistent in her discipline of him and his younger half-brother, Zachary, but did not follow through. She was 57, depressed from her husband's sudden 2003 death and dealing with two “tumultuous” young children, he said.

They would yell, throw tantrums and break furnishings, he said.

“They raised it to an art form," Kravitz said. “Nikolas was easily set off and Zachary seemed to derive some pleasure from pushing Nikolas’ buttons.”

That would set off their mother, something both boys seemed to enjoy.

“She lost her cool frequently and backed down to the boys frequently, which only made the problems worse," he said. He said he tried to work with her, but she felt embarrassed by her sons' behavior and felt people were judging her.

Cruz's attorneys are in Day 3 of their defense, hoping to persuade his jury to sentence him to life without parole instead of death. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder and the trial, which began July 18, is only to determine his sentence.

The defense is trying to overcome the prosecution’s case, which featured surveillance video of Cruz, then 19, mowing down students and staff with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle as he stalked a three-story building for seven minutes, photos of the aftermath and a jury visit to the building.

For Cruz to receive a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous. If one juror votes for life, that will be his sentence.

The defense has focused on the mental and emotional problems Cruz exhibited from his earliest days. Testimony has shown that his birth mother was a street prostitute who abused cocaine and alcohol and as a toddler he was developmentally delayed, often violent towards other children and teased and bullied for his small stature, unusual appearance and odd behavior. When he was 8, he acted like a 6-year-old, at best, Kravitz said.

“He stood out like a sore thumb," he said.

Steven Schusler, who lived across the street from the Cruzes from 2009 to 2015, said that when Nikolas Cruz was 10, his landlord called Cruz “the weird one” to his face, causing the boy “to curl up” like a salted snail. He once saw Cruz running around the house with an air gun, his limbs flailing wildly — a move he demonstrated for the jury.

Kravitz said Cruz had a fear of abandonment because of his father's death and his adoption and had an active “bad imagination.”

“He was extremely fearful his mother would forget to pick him up (at school) and he would be stuck there,” Kravitz said, even though that never happened.

He said Cruz had some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder — for example, he always had to have exactly eight chicken nuggets.

He said he asked Cruz what his three wishes would be.

“Pokemon, a dog and more Pokemon,” Kravitz said.

Lynda Cruz died in November 2017, about four months before the shooting.

Under cross-examination, Kravitz conceded that Cruz's mother did get him further psychiatric and psychological treatment and might have been reluctant to keep her son's appointments with him because of the $87 per visit copay her insurance required.

Prosecutor Jeff Marcus asked Kravitz is there was anything about Cruz when he was 8 that would have indicated he would eventually commit mass murder. He said no.

“I've worked with some other very damaged kids and certainly to the best of my knowledge none of them have ever acted out like this,” Kravitz said.

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4 riding in golf cart killed in crash at Texas intersection

GALVESTON, Texas -- Four people riding in a golf cart were killed — including two juveniles — when an allegedly intoxicated man driving an SUV ran a stop sign at an intersection in Southeast Texas, police said.

Miguel Espinoza, 45, has been charged with four counts of intoxication manslaughter in the crash about 11:30 p.m. Saturday in Galveston, roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Houston, police said.

Espinoza was being held in Galveston County jail Sunday on $400,000 bond, police said. Jail records did not list an attorney for him.

Galveston police Sgt. Derek Gaspard said that after the SUV failed to stop, it struck a pickup truck, which then crashed into the golf cart that had six people aboard. He said that the golf cart and pickup were traveling in opposite directions through the intersection on a street that did not have a stop sign.

Police said the adult driver of the golf cart was pronounced dead at the scene while a woman and two juveniles on the golf cart were taken to a hospital, where they died. The two other passengers — an adult and a juvenile — were hospitalized Sunday in critical condition, police said.

Espinoza, who lives in the Houston-area city of Rosenberg, and his passenger had minor injuries, police said. They were taken to the hospital and later released.

The occupants of the pickup were not injured, Gaspard said. Names and ages of the dead weren't immediately released.

Gaspard said that he believes the golf cart, which was rented, was operating legally on the city street. He said members of two different families were riding on the golf cart at the time of the crash.

Galveston Mayor Craig Brown said golf carts have become “quite a prolific mode of transportation” for residents and visitors to the island resort area, which is located on the Gulf of Mexico.

Brown said that the city has in the past put in place ordinances aimed at make operating them safer, and will be considering additional ordinances at an upcoming City Council meeting.

“I was out last night," Brown said. “The island was busy and there were golf carts — residential as well as rental golf carts — out all over these streets.”

———

This story has been updated to correct that Miguel Espinoza lives in Rosenberg.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/4-riding-in-golf-cart-killed-in-crash-at-texas-intersection/?feed_id=7927&_unique_id=62f01fe7d826d

Texas trial begins for man accused of killing his daughters

DALLAS -- A man who evaded arrest for more than 12 years after being accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in a taxi parked near a Dallas-area hotel was “obsessed with possession and control,” a prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements of his capital murder trial.

“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date," prosecutor Lauren Black said. "And he controlled everything in his household."

Yaser Said, 65, is accused of killing 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said on New Year’s Day in 2008. Said, who entered a not guilty plea Tuesday, faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.

About a week before the sisters were killed, they and their mother fled their home in the Dallas suburb of Lewisville to Oklahoma to get away from Yaser Said, who worked as a taxi driver, Black said. The sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Said “put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her,” the prosecutor said.

But, Black said, in another act of “control” and “manipulation” by Said, he told them he had changed and convinced them to return home. The evening the sisters were shot, their father wanted to take just the two of them to a restaurant, she said.

In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said he was not happy with his kids’ “dating activity” but denied killing his daughters. Defense attorney Joseph Patton said in opening statements that the evidence would not support a conviction, that police were too quick to focus on Said and suggested that anti-Muslim sentiment played into that focus. Said was born in Egypt.

Before the sisters were found shot to death in a taxi parked near a hotel in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Sarah Said had managed to call 911 using a cellphone, telling the operator that her father shot her and that she was dying.

Black said Sarah Said was shot nine times and Amina Said was shot twice.

In moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations, Patton said.

In an email to her Lewisville High School history teacher a few days before she and her sister were killed, Amina Said said that she and Sarah did not want to live by their father’s culture and marry men from the Middle East, “especially men we don’t know or love.” So they were running away from their father's home, she said in the email prosecutors read into evidence.

“I know that he will search until he finds us, and he will without any drama nor doubt kill us,” the email read.

After the sisters were found fatally shot in the taxi, police contacted the taxi's registered owner, who said Yaser Said had been driving the taxi for the past 10 days, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant.

Said, who had been sought on a capital murder warrant since the slayings, was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list. He was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kilometers) northwest of Dallas. His son, Islam Said, and his brother, Yassim Said, were subsequently convicted of helping him evade arrest.

Black said the sisters, both high school students in Lewisville, dreamed of becoming doctors, and that Yaser Said grew “angrier” as they grew up and became more educated and independent.

“When they had more independence, that was less control for him,” Black said.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/texas-trial-begins-for-man-accused-of-killing-his-daughters/?feed_id=5825&_unique_id=62e9c8fb4c2f3

Alabama gov: Execution set despite wishes of victim's family

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's governor said Wednesday that she has decided the state will proceed later this week with a plan to execute a man convicted of killing his former girlfriend decades ago, overriding a plea from the victim's family to spare the man's life.

Gov. Kay Ivey told reporters she won't call off the scheduled lethal injection of Joe Nathan James Jr. at a south Alabama prison on Thursday evening. The inmate was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1994 shooting death of 26-year-old Faith Hall, in Birmingham.

Hall’s daughters, who were just 3 and 6 when their mother was killed, had urged along with Hall's brother that officials change the sentence to life in prison without parole. But Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall urged Ivey to let execution plans proceed and ensure “justice is done."

In making public her decision Wednesday morning, Ivey said, “My staff and I have researched all the records and all the facts and there’s no reason to change the procedure or modify the outcome. The execution will go forward.”

Prosecutors said James briefly dated Hall, but that he had become obsessed after she ended their relationship, stalking and harassing her for months before killing her. On Aug. 15, 1994, he forced his way inside an apartment, pulled a gun from his waistband and shot her three times, they said.

In the weeks leading up to the scheduled execution date, Hall's daughters and brother had said they would rather James serve a life sentence in prison rather than be put to death.

“I know it may sound crazy. Like, you really want this man to live? But ... I just feel like we can’t play God. We can’t take a life. And it’s not going to bring my mom back,” Terryln Hall had told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview.

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, who was a friend of Hall's, sent a letter to the governor relaying the family’s request.

“They are simply saying our wish as the family is for him to die in the penal system of the Alabama correctional facility. That's how we want him to suffer and we want to see that suffering for the rest of our lives,” Givan said Wednesday.

Givan said the case was unusual in that the victim's family had asked for clemency. Though James “brutally and senselessly killed” the mother of two simply because she rejected him, Givan said the family's wishes should carry weight.

“This is a tough one,” said Givan, who remembered Hall as a kind and devoted mother.

“She was just the sweetest person you ever wanted to meet,” Givan said.

Meanwhile, James has acted as his own attorney in a bid to halt Thursday's execution procedure, filing handwritten lawsuits and requests for a stay.

He has claimed his lawyers were ineffective and that prison officials did not explain what was at stake when it gave inmates a form in which they could select nitrogen hypoxia as their preferred execution method. Alabama has approved nitrogen hypoxia as an execution means but hasn't developed a system for its use or scheduled any executions by that method.

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Accused man dies in custody after sister awakened from coma

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Daniel J. Palmer III had long been considered the key suspect in a brutal attack that left his sister comatose two years ago. But the case remained dormant — until she awakened last month.

Able to speak only a word at a time after coming out of a coma, Wanda Palmer identified her brother — with whom she had a violent past — as her attacker. Daniel Palmer was arrested on July 15.

Less than a week later, he was dead, likely bringing a close to a highly unusual case in which the investigation was stalled by a lack of evidence.

For now, there are two mysteries: a detainee's death, and an assault without a publicly disclosed motive.

Daniel Palmer was pronounced dead Thursday at a Charleston hospital, a day after he was taken there following an evaluation by jail medical staff, the state Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Division of Corrections, said in a news release.

The statement didn't indicate a cause of death and a spokeswoman for Department of Health and Human Resources, which oversees the state medical examiner's office, said state law only allows the agency to release autopsy information to relatives and law enforcement.

Palmer, 55, of Cottageville, was uncooperative while in custody and during booking procedures at the South Central Regional Jail, where he was taken after being charged with the attempted murder and malicious wounding of his sister, the statement said.

Wanda Palmer was in a coma in a nursing home for two years. She was found unconscious with serious head injuries at her home in Jackson County on June 10, 2020.

Daniel Palmer had been identified as a suspect, but up until the time she emerged from the coma, investigators did not have enough evidence to file charges, court documents said.

“Due to a previous violent history between Wanda Palmer and her brother Daniel Palmer, investigators initially considered Daniel a suspect in the assault," according to a criminal complaint filed in Jackson County Magistrate Court.

Investigators interviewed Daniel, who denied involvement in the attack, saying he had not been to his sister's home in days. Later, a witness told investigators he saw Daniel in the front doorway at Wanda Palmer's trailer on the night she was assaulted.

On June 27, more than two years after the attack, a deputy received a call from a protective services worker who said she had started to speak single words and seemed to respond when questioned.

On July 12, deputies drove to Genesis Healthcare in New Martinsville to speak with Wanda Palmer. Deputy Julia Bowen “entered Wanda's room alone and began speaking with her,” the complaint said. “Bowen asked opened ended questions of Wanda. Wanda indicated (that) she recalled living in her trailer near her mother's place. She indicated that she recalled being hurt there. She made mention of her head.”

Wanda Palmer said the person who injured her was her brother and she identified him as Daniel. When asked during the interview the reason behind the assault, “Wanda stated that he was mean,” according to the complaint.

Wanda Palmer ”appeared oriented to her situation. Her answers to questions were coherent and relevant. She asked for prayer."

Daniel Palmer was being held on a $500,000 bond. He was so combative when he was arrested that it took hours to get him to cooperate with authorities for an arraignment, which required a magistrate to leave a courthouse and come to the Jackson County sheriff’s office, WCHS-TV reported.

Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger was out of his office and unavailable for comment Friday.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/accused-man-dies-in-custody-after-sister-awakened-from-coma/?feed_id=419&_unique_id=62db1ac01f88e