The protection group for Nikolas Cruz, the self-confessed perpetrator of the 2018 South Florida highschool bloodbath wherein he killed 17 individuals, on Monday requested the jury to view “the individual” behind the crime and mentioned that mitigating components exist that justify not handing the dying penalty to the killer however somewhat life behind bars.

“He was poisoned within the womb, and due to that, his mind was irretrievably damaged via no fault of his personal,” Melisa McNeill, the assistant public defender who heads the previous Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College scholar’s protection group instructed the jury in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, courtroom room.