Nikolas Cruz wrote “666” in his own blood on the walls of his prison cell just two months before the start of his sentencing trial, a disturbing photo has revealed.
The chilling image depicts Satanic images including “666” and the inverted pentagram all scrawled in the mass murderer’s own blood on a cell wall inside Broward County Jail.
Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) released the image among a trove of disturbing jailhouse drawings and notes made by the 23-year-old behind bars, as he awaits sentencing for the 2018 mass murder of 17 innocent victims.
In the 30 pages of incoherent ramblings, Cruz has drawn pictures appearing to depict the Valentine’s Day 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and wrote that he wants to “go to death row” and then be “buried with a woman who had a s***ty life like me”.
He also blames others for his decision to murder 17 innocent victims in the attack, speaks of his hatred for BSO and says he wants to be dead.
Discovery of the chilling notes and drawings led prison officials to place Cruz on suicide watch inside the jail back in May.
The jailhouse notes and images were released on Monday as Cruz’s legal team began his defence in court in Florida.
During the opening statement, Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill mentioned the disturbing drawings and said that he wrote “666” on the walls of his jail cell.
“The evidence will show you that he draws a lot of bad things and that he continues to do that stuff over at the Broward County main jail,” she said.
She added: “You’ll hear that one day he wants to live and one day he wants to die, and you will also hear that throughout his life he has had obsessions ... videogames, guns, exercise, bowel movements, vegan diets. And most recently, demons and Satan.
“And you will hear that with an atomic fireball candy, he’ll write on his cell wall ‘666’. Those are the things he does in isolation.
“You’ll hear that he writes disturbing things, like a school shooter manifesto. Horrible. We’re not hiding that from you. But his brain is broken. He’s a damaged human being and that’s why these things happened.”
Cruz has often been seen scribbling away with some pen and paper while sat in the courtroom during his sentencing trial.
The release of the drawings offers a glimpse into the state of mind of the man convicted of 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder, as the jury is set to decide whether he should be sent to death row for his crimes.
His attorneys are calling on the jury to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole rather than sentence him to death.
In the disturbing notes made inside his prison cell, Cruz writes that he wants the death penalty.
“All I want is to go to death row. I do not want life please help me go to death row!!!” he writes on one of the pages.
On another page, he pleads for death, writing: “I never wanted to be alive. I hope I die and never wake up. My life is painful, always has always will be. I just wana [sic] sleep and never wake up.
“I do not want to be bothered by anyone or anything, I can’t wait to die. Blood, blood. I only wanna see blood.”
He also claims that he has been taking painkillers in the hope that he will die and describes himself as “a ghost of death”.
When he dies, Cruz writes that he wants to be “buried with a woman”. Chilling sketches show a figure believed to be Cruz labelled “N” and a figure of a woman labelled “M” being buried together.
In one of the harrowing images, he appears to recreate the massacre at the high school he once attended.
The drawing shows what appears to be students sitting at desks in a school as a shooter opens fire.
Several of his notes reveal an obsession with the devil, with Satanic symbols, drawings of a devil figure and repeated use of the number “666”.
On one of the pages of notes, he writes: “Hail Satan!”
Cruz, who is said to suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome (FASD) and anti-social disorders, also makes threats to kill an individual who he tries to blame for the massacre he carried out on his own.
He claims the individual “sexually humiliated me on f***in Instagram” and claims that they are the “main f***ing reason why I shot up Stoneman Douglas”.
“The blood is not only on my hands but yours as well, your [sic] nothing but a worthless parasite,” he rants.
Cruz then scrawls images of a person with a machine gun labelled “me” shooting another person labelled “you”.
The 23-year-old also addresses the sheriff’s office directly telling them that “I pray that you all die horrible deaths”.
Another drawing appears to show a courtroom with a jury member saying: “We find the defendant going to death row!!”
He also writes a list of the “best songs before death”.
Other pages include drawings of ammunition, bullets, guns and tactical vests – while other drawings and notes are unintelligible.
The defence is seeking to argue that Cruz is mentally ill and that his troubled origins are to blame for him carrying out one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.
During opening statements and testimony from the first defence witnesses called to the stand, much of the blame for his troubled start in life was placed squarely on the shoulders of his biological mother Brenda Woodard.
Ms McNeill told jurors that while “there is no defence for this crime” and Cruz is the “one person responsible for all the pain and suffering”, the “choices” Woodard made when she “poisoned him in the womb” led to the “choices” her son made.
Witnesses and official records have revealed that Woodard drank heavily and abused drugs while pregnant with Cruz and the defence is claiming he was left with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
“His brain is broken. He is a damaged human being,” said the attorney.
Educators and family friends have also taken the stand to testify that Cruz displayed developmental and behavioural issues from an early age.
On Wednesday morning, retired clinical psychologist Dr Frederick Kravitz, who treated Cruz when he was eight to nine years old, testified that he was a “peculiar” child with a “very bad active imagination”.
