revealed something pretty surprising about the shooter. he told us he was depressed. we knew he was depressed. when you say he was quirky, just give us a sense of what that looked like. he was just he was just trying to fit in. he was just didn t know what to say or when to say it or how to stay it so he d ask a lot of questions. he d apologize a lot. if we told him to do something, if he needed to clean up after himself, he d apologize and say he was sorry. you don t have to be sorry, just do it. i want to bring in paula mcmahon who had the first interview with this couple and wrote about it. paula, i read your piece over the weekend and your headline is we had this monster living under our roof and we didn t know. i mean the question is how did they not know, because there seemed to be so many other signs. they acknowledged that he was depressed after his mom died. what did they say to you? what james and kimberly snead
and what about this his p predilection to killing animals. did they not see any signs there? they said they saw quite the contrary to what s been reported about him in the aftermath of this tragedy. they said that they had two dogs and about six cats that come and go on their property. they saw only love shown to those animals. they said he was loving on their dogs and one of the cats used to like to sit on his chest. they never saw that s what they told me at least. they never saw any indication. and kimberly told me if anyone came into her home and was mean to her animals, they would be thrown out promptly. how awful for this family. we know they re suffering as well. the son at the school and everything that they re dealing with right now. paula mcmahon with quite a fascinating picture there in the sun sentinel.
that was about 2:18, i believe. 2:18 is three minutes before the shooting began when the swat team called the sneads and asked where cruz was. they didn t know. they texted their son that was fleeing the school at the time and they say they quickly put two and two together. shep? shepard: they talked about him being depressed, trace. yeah, they said he followed the rules, very polite. they describe him as being immature, quirky about the death of his mother. kimberly snead tried to get him some counselling. they had no idea about the things that cruz was posting on social media and saw no signs of any animal cruelty. they said that he loved their animals. that s why they were so baffled by the attack. here s kimberly snead talking about seeing nikolas cruz after the shooting. it was at the police station when they were going passed us.
there s more involved here. also today, we re hearing from the couple that took in the accused killer after his adoptive mother died. they recently told the south florida sun sentinel newspaper they did not know they had a monster living under their roof. today they told good morning america that they felt shocked and betrayed. we didn t know anything. we had rules and he followed every rule to the tee. i m heart broken. just heart broken. devastated. i still can t process what he s done. this wasn t the person that we knew. not at all. shepard: that s kimberly and james snead that took the accused in. his lawyer now describes the two as good people who tried to do the right thing by helping the young man. the couple said they had they none of his disturbing social media posts, they would have never let him in their house. we have team fox coverage now. steve harrigan outside the courthouse in ft. lauderdale,
florida. first, trace gallagher with more on the couple that took in this accused man. trace? shep, nikolas cruz went to live with james and kimberly snead last thanksgiving a few weeks after his adoptive mother died of pneumonia. the needs say they took cruz in because their son was his friend and he asked them to. they knew nikolas cruz owned guns but they bought a gun safe. james snead did not have access to the safe and snead thought he had the only key. apparently that was not the case. on the day of the shooting. nikolas cruz was living with the family and they did not see any warning signs. he told my son he was going to the movies. he said he had something to tell him. my son pressed him, what is it? he goes nothing bad, bro. he goes and that was it. then he said he was going to the movies. the last text my son got was yo, that was it.