Florida School Shooting Suspect Seemed ‘Normal’ To Family That Took Him In

The couple that took in Nikolas Cruz had no idea that the suspected gunman would engineer a mass shooting like the one that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14.

“Everything everybody seems to know, we didn’t know,” James Snead said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Monday. “We had rules, and he followed every rule to a T.”

Cruz, 19, moved in with Snead and his wife Kimberly Snead in November after his adopted mother died. The alleged gunman was friends with the Snead’s son, who attends Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and the family was stunned when they heard the news of what happened.

Since Cruz was arrested for allegedly killing 17 people at his former high school, it’s been revealed that that FBI received a tip in January that the suspected shooter was capable of carrying out such an act. But the Sneads claim Cruz seemed “normal” in the nearly three months that he lived with them.

“Nothing like they portray on television or in the media, in the newspapers,” Kimberly Snead said when host Michael Strahan asked what Cruz was like in their home.

FULL INTERVIEW: "I still can’t believe what he’s done.” The family that took in the Florida shooting suspect speaks out, sitting down with @michaelstrahan in their first TV interview since the shooting: https://t.co/ACQcOyfQRq pic.twitter.com/axoxIzYEvf

— Good Morning America (@GMA) February 19, 2018

Cruz reportedly showed an obsession with violence, as well as racist and anti-Semitic beliefs in a private Instagram group chat. He allegedly killed animals in elementary school and as a teenager, posted a picture of what appeared to be a dead animal on social media.

“We knew he had one Instagram account that my son had and I guess that would be the normal one. These other Instagram accounts that he had, we had no idea about. My son had no idea about. As far as the animal killings, he never did anything like that at our house. We have animals, and he loved our animals. Our animals loved him,” James Snead said on “GMA.”

“As far as the animals go, I’m very much an animal person. Anybody who knows me knows that. There’s no way I’d let anybody in my house if I had known that he was torturing animals, at all,” Kimberly Snead said. “If we had known about the Instagram accounts—I don’t even know how to use Instagram. I’m old school— but if we had known anything about that he wouldn’t have even been in our home. That wouldn’t have even been an option.”

The Sneads knew that Cruz owned guns, claiming they would only allow the weapons in their home if they were kept in a safe. James told “Good Morning America” that he thought he was the only person that had a key to the safe.

“These folks opened their house up to the FBI. They’ve opened their phones. They’ve cooperated in every way,” said Jim Lewis, the family’s attorney. “I just wanted people out there to know these are good people that took this young man in and got him into a different school. They got him a job. They brought him into their home and tried to show him love. The young man even indicated that he was very happy in this home, and now, like they say, no good deed goes unpunished.”