Colt Gray sentencing hearing resumes — FOX 5 News

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: sorry i just want to make sure all the pages are here yes this is like a copy of the report that i wrote [00:00:20] Speaker 2: okay um as we go through some of these issues i'll allow you to refer to it but please don't read directly from it okay okay um going back to your initial interview with colt um did you immediately jump into covering the facts of the event or how does that work out with you [00:00:47] Speaker 1: no typically when i do an interview i start with easy questions like what's your birthday where are you from where'd you grow up you know and so a lot of the first interview was talking a lot about his history where he lived where he was born you know who his mom and dad were whether he had siblings that kind of thing just getting kind of basic background information and in that background [00:01:08] Speaker 2: information did he cover his family life circumstances that happened between his parents his brother and sister he did okay um some of those issues that came up when he was young can you enlighten us as to what you think may be important in this development um there was a lot of moving [00:01:28] Speaker 1: around a lot of chaos there was uh the family moved in a really large number of times uh there were financial problems there were issues with uh neglect um lack of money lack of moving into places that didn't have any furniture having utilities shut off not always having food in the house those kinds of things there was reports of some uh abuse by the dad i think the dad was using drugs eventually both parents were using drugs which also had a detrimental effect on the well-being in the family so it was pretty chaotic uh there was a lot of uh i think abuse and a fair bit of kind of neglect and just a lot of uh transition in chaos where was called position in the back he's the oldest of three he's got a younger sister named jenny and a little brother named coley i think jenny's 15 now [00:02:19] Speaker 2: i think coley's 12. when he was going into his background did he describe anything to you that raised special red flags like what has perceptions of the violence that you may have seen in his development [00:02:32] Speaker 1: i think he talked about the stuff between him and his dad i think there was a lot of chaos between uh the parents as well i'm not sure if that was uh physical i think maybe it was at times but i think a lot of it was a lot of screaming yelling [00:02:49] Speaker 2: did he give you an education of whether he was closer to his mom or his dad or did he [00:02:55] Speaker 1: uh i think he had complaints about both of them at different times i would say he probably had a closer relationship with his mom than he did with his dad [00:03:05] Speaker 2: and how did any of this chaos that you were referring to in constant moving how did any of [00:03:10] Speaker 1: that affect his feelings stability i think he he's you know he already started out as like i said kind of an unusual kid and i think all of the um all the chaos and so forth but what it really led to him being was really isolated a lot of times his mom and dad weren't putting him in school um they didn't take him to socialize he didn't hang out with other kids didn't have like a normal uh childhood where he had friends and things to do they were always uh moving and like i said he wasn't in school a fair bit at the time and it kind of drove him into a sort of a very an isolated position um at which point i think he discovered the computer and then that's kind of where that whole situation took off he said it was spending uh money on drugs and irresponsible purchases things that couldn't be afforded uh and then moving into houses and apartments that couldn't afford and getting evicted um instead of spending the money on taking care of the family buying trucks and boats and rvs and stuff like that um just a lot of really irresponsible uh behavior with money uh did he talk about how many schools here i don't recall exactly it was it was inconsistent because sometimes he was in school and sometimes he wasn't i think there was an entire year where they they just didn't even bother to [00:04:33] Speaker 2: register him so was there any extended family that he was involved with uh it seems like a pretty good [00:04:39] Speaker 1: relationship with his grandma uh miss polhamus i think that's marcy is his mom i think that's marcy's [00:04:48] Speaker 2: mom um do you know how much contact he had with her during this time i think he was in and out of her [00:04:54] Speaker 1: home at various times um she would take him i know defects was involved with the family uh at times and like i said both of the parents were having issues with you know drugs and financial problems and so forth and so i think when those things would get bad i think there were times when debbie stepped in [00:05:10] Speaker 2: i think the kids lived with debbie at various times did he have a chance to go down and say it very much [00:05:17] Speaker 1: um again we didn't discuss specifically but it was clear he spent a fair bit of time with his grandma [00:05:24] Speaker 2: obviously some of this time occurred or occurred during photo how did that impact [00:05:29] Speaker 1: i think it impacted like everybody else you know i think he was already a kid who was was pretty isolated and you know koba didn't help that for any of us and so i think the idea that you know stuck at home not going to school um you know locked down i think it just kind of uh reinforced the level of sort of isolation and loneliness [00:05:54] Speaker 2: now you had indicated that the graph involved a lot with the computer did he tell you the direction or [00:06:00] Speaker 1: any interest he had with the computer i mean most of his social life was on the computer he was a gamer he played um online video games but he was also spending a lot of time on uh communication platforms specifically on discord which is a place you can go to play games but also chat with people and look for people similar interests he spent time on reddit and then eventually kind of got really focused on this what they call the true crime community which is a group of mostly teens and adolescents that are uh focused on uh true crime primarily focused on people who do mass shootings [00:06:40] Speaker 2: i mean it's the point of being assessed so the context of social development how does that kind of isolation impact the growth of a child going through at all honestly well i think what happens [00:06:52] Speaker 1: is that you end up you know everybody's impacted by the experiences that they have when they're growing up and i think if you're really isolated those kind of normal social developmental uh you know experiences that people have but you're deprived of those and when you kind of go into the online world um you know there's problems so if you're carrying on your social life or carrying on your uh you know the substitute for a social life online it can lead you into some dark places [00:07:21] Speaker 2: during that time that he was dead and involved the true crime community did he indicate that he had [00:07:26] Speaker 1: any fixation on any certain types of crimes it was primarily on well it's primarily on school shootings although he was focused on a fellow named holmes who was the individual who did the shooting in the aurora colorado movie theater that wasn't a school shooting it was a mass shooting but it wasn't at a school he initially i think was focused on adam lanza who was the person that did the school shooting at sandy hook elementary up in connecticut and then ultimately became really focused on nicholas cruz who was the person who did the school shooting at parkland uh at the high school uh uh marjorie stone douglas high school in parkland florida and that was the one i think he was most focused on although he said he was more focused on uh holmes just prior to the shooting and as he was getting into the true [00:08:22] Speaker 2: crime community that he's imparted the information to you that gave you red flags about his mental health [00:08:30] Speaker 1: uh well i mean he was talking a lot about how he kind of related to these people how he could you know felt like he had similar histories uh you know i kind of asked him what drew him to it he said well you know nicholas cruz was a lonely guy and he had a bad family life and uh you know he was depressed and he thought about killing himself and i had all those things too uh and so i i felt like i could relate to him uh and and and so it kind of you know again it eventually kind of turned into an obsession um but in terms of his mental health i think it was uh you know he became more isolated more focused on the computer and and consequently in parallel his ability to kind of have relationships and interactions with people outside of the online world became impaired to the point where he even said if i went out and tried to have interactions with people it would be really hard i just had panic attacks because i've been so focused on online and it was clear by the time the shooting happened that his entire life basically was online he wasn't he didn't have any friends outside he wasn't i don't think going to school very much he mentioned knowing some kids at school but he hadn't been at apalachee very long so there wasn't really anything going on for him aside from his intense focus on these online relationships and these online online relationships were in the true crime community which is a pretty [00:09:49] Speaker 2: dysfunctional place uh what point did he indicate to you he began having suicidal obligations uh it's been [00:09:57] Speaker 1: going on for a while it's hard to know exactly when i think it's waxed and waned over time he's dealt with depression and anxiety and i think at times uh depending on circumstances in his life getting worse or better um he would think about hurting himself or killing himself uh he also did some non-lethal self-harming behavior cutting himself um there was an instance he said he comes up once with a butter knife he had some kind of a he described it almost like a surgical tool that he used to cut his arms with so there was that as well i don't think he ever made an actual suicide attempt but he thought about it and became uh feeling like he wanted to kill himself but never actually tried [00:10:36] Speaker 2: how are you familiar with gamers and tcc community to give us an idea that whether that's a normal component or is that something that's unique to him well i learned quite a bit about the true crime [00:10:49] Speaker 1: community just working on this case um but that seems pretty those are the kids that are in there you know there are kids who have issues there are kids that have problems there are kids that have mental illnesses there are kids that are disaffected uh lonely uh you know suicide and self-harm are themes that come up a lot this obsession fixation on people who have done these horrible crimes comes up quite a bit and so these are the people that are that are there that's who you're interacting with when you're in that uh community are people that have a similar kind of fixation and also have some you know there was two people i think i read about 50 000 messages discord messages um between him and primarily two young women and and the uh the relationship was extraordinarily dysfunctional [00:11:37] Speaker 2: and as you were going through your investigation you interviewed some other family members yeah just mom okay um what kind of information did she give you about his younger role uh it was kind of parallel to [00:11:50] Speaker 1: what he said she fleshed it out a little bit more obviously because she was able to provide information about him when he was very young information that colt wouldn't have had kind of about his uh you know perinatal development meeting developmental milestones what he was like as a baby what he was like as a toddler and a young kid um so that was helpful um in terms of the way that the uh the family life progressed i think i mean mom clearly has a bias toward she has her own way of seeing things um she has a tendency to blame most things on the dad um and i'm not saying he's without any faults but that's kind of was her angle but she did provide quite a lot of information kind of about the family moving and the uh you know the fans of problems and she was pretty forthcoming about her own issues with drugs and as issues with drugs and uh you know how things just weren't getting taken care of properly with the kids [00:12:46] Speaker 2: did he ever give you any indication that the family had been involved in part of family [00:12:51] Speaker 1: control the services yeah i think there were various times when defects was involved i know there was uh when his mother got uh involved in drugs i think defects got involved then um i know they got involved uh right after the shooting as well but i know there's been involvement there were records that i got that showed that there had been contact with defects over issues with this family uh not sending the kids to school not taking care of the kids being neglectful um i remember specifically reading some records about truancy about how he just wasn't showing up they weren't i don't i'm not even sure [00:13:25] Speaker 2: he was registered and to your knowledge that he was going to find foster care uh foster care again [00:13:31] Speaker 1: i don't recall i know he was with his grandma a fair bit i don't know that he was ever any foster homes [00:13:37] Speaker 2: in the months or actually i'll say weeks before the shooting um as you reviewed the records and the uh discovery that was given to you by mr craft um did you notice an increase in his statements and activities regarding suicidal ideations or related to that stock shooting he was talking to a young [00:13:59] Speaker 1: woman named amanda who went by mandy and he wasn't saying anything specifically about doing the shooting they talked about school shootings a lot both of them were um obsessed in a very dysfunctional way with nicholas cruz uh but he was making statements to the the fact that he you know he was paranoid that he felt suicidal that he felt was hurting himself but he was also making kind of ominous statements about how something was going to happen soon it was going to happen on september 4th and um i think this coots had uh mandy had an inkling that that's what he was talking about but he never specifically said it but he did say something big is going to happen on the 4th and it was almost like a a countdown um in [00:14:40] Speaker 2: their messages as that was approaching and did you get any indication that he had reached out his family for help on a suicidal ideation it didn't seem like it well actually you know i'm sorry you said [00:14:55] Speaker 1: did or didn't i said didn't seem like i know he he made statements to the effect that he was telling his dad that he needed help and when i talked to mom mom said she noticed around the time not long before that he was having more panic attacks more anxiety on that his blow paranoia maybe was a little bit worse i'm mistaken actually yeah he did talk about that and evidently there was some effort afoot to get him into a clinic i had some uh messages they were basically phone messages between uh colt's dad and a mental health facility trying to set up an appointment for him but they never took him to an er or a hospital or anything like that it was it was uh trying to get outpatient treatment so to your [00:15:36] Speaker 2: understanding no one ever called a crisis to mental health center for him not that i'm aware of his mom [00:15:43] Speaker 1: mentioned when uh i spoke with her that she felt like he needed to go to an inpatient facility but nobody ever took him to one and nobody ever took him to an er [00:15:52] Speaker 2: okay and at the time of the the shooting occurred um i want to go back to something else for just a moment and your conversations with his mom did she indicate to you that she had given him any kind of medication [00:16:20] Speaker 1: yeah she started giving him um zoloft she had a prescription for zoloft colt did not have a prescription for zoloft and what she was doing was taking pills and breaking them up and giving him pieces of them so there was no prescription and it's unclear what kind of dose he was getting estimated i think they were 100 milligram or 200 milligram pills she was breaking up and she was giving him about a fourth of them at a time um but again when you you know you break them that's not the way you're supposed to take so long please but that's what how he was getting it he didn't it was from his mom did he describe how it made him feel a little bit racy um a little bit wound up [00:17:03] Speaker 2: is that kind of like the opposite effect of what it's supposed to have some people do have experience [00:17:08] Speaker 1: a little bit of activation with ssr i mean i'm not an md but i've been around them a bunch um some people do get a little bit of activation um but they also help with anxiety and depression i think he said he felt maybe a little bit better but they made him feel kind of racy and sped up [00:17:23] Speaker 2: how intense at that time was his depression i think it was pretty severe i mean it waxed in vain i think [00:17:29] Speaker 1: it was was pretty severe i think at the time of the shooting the anxiety and paranoia were were probably prominent although the depression was always kind of there um and then you know the thoughts about her you're killing himself were always kind of there but i think around the time of the shooting it was the uh primarily the anxiety that was um that was prominent what kinds of characteristics he talked about being afraid that there were plots against him um he talked about believing uh that people uh were talking about him like if he was out in public he'd see people talking that's called a idea of reference when you believe that uh seeing something happening in public refers to you if you see two people talking to one another and you think they're talking about you um he talked about believing that the teachers were plotting against him um he mentioned this to his mom and also to to mandy and so it was that kind of thing he also had this idea that somehow his computer had been he used the word infiltrated he wasn't sure who did it but he kept changing his usernames and he was storing information i think on like little sd drives like you use with a camera and he was taking those out and destroying them breaking them up because he was afraid uh he never was able to tell me who he thought was doing it or why but felt like somebody was probably keeping track of him he said some more i think more outlandish things that i'm not sure you know about cars going by the house and seeing people i'm not sure how much of that was um uh you know maybe a little bit of an exaggeration but i did believe he he was he used to kind of conflate his paranoia and anxiety he was real anxious but he was worrying about things and so there was an element of paranoia that he used to kind of conflate with the anxiety and the two of them kind of coexisted like that so [00:19:20] Speaker 2: yeah are those the kinds of things that can impair someone's judgment if they're going through those [00:19:24] Speaker 1: uh sure yeah i mean if somebody believes that there are uh you know forces marshaling against them that can certainly impact the way that they carry on their life um you know certainly he was doing certain things in response to the the beliefs that he had like destroying the hard drives or the sd cards and changing his usernames um but i don't think he was really doing you know other things in the service [00:19:51] Speaker 2: of them now you made a reference to his thinking the teachers were against them was that teachers at his current school or his older school uh the teachers at his current school uh were you familiar with the circumstances of taking place when he was in jackson town i'm not sure specifically what you mean [00:20:09] Speaker 1: uh yes yeah i was aware that he they uh there was a message i think it got flagged on discord um about somebody making a statement about doing a school shooting and uh law enforcement showed up at the house because they were able to uh trace the they were able to look at the account the email associate with the account traced the email to him and so they went and uh interviewed him [00:20:36] Speaker 2: about uh whether he had made this threat did you listen to um inspector smith's interview of colt when [00:20:46] Speaker 1: he was arrested there were two of them there was one at the school and there was one at cid and i [00:20:54] Speaker 2: listened to both of them and the uh particular one at the school um what were your initial impressions when you were there he was pretty hysterical that was the main thing um at any point did you try to deny them didn't you no no he didn't when he was um taken into oidc did they do any checkups or any assessments on him to determine if there were any [00:21:24] Speaker 1: psychological approaches i think they do that with most kids but you know what i learned when i was talking with him is that he was having these these symptoms he was telling me about this paranoia and stuff that he was having and then i asked him you know what do the mental people think about it and he's alive and told them and so i suggested that maybe being more forthright about these things if they were going on uh would be a good idea and then i think he started talking more to the staff [00:21:50] Speaker 2: about it also alerted his attorney did you have access to the recognition uh not until just a few [00:21:56] Speaker 1: days ago did you have a chance to review them uh yeah there was a lot but yeah i reviewed them um [00:22:03] Speaker 2: um what was your understanding of his initial treatment [00:22:09] Speaker 1: initial treatment okay uh you know i think it changed over time um he was reporting some paranoid ideation that was continuing worrying about other kids in the roidc worrying about the staff worrying about the cooks putting stuff in his food um and i think at one time they diagnosed him with something called schizoaffective disorder which is a schizophrenia spectrum disorder um he said they did i didn't find evidence of that in the records um but they were treating him with antipsychotic medication and also an antidepressant medication they're actually giving him zoloft which is what his mom was giving him uh they started him on a uh an antipsychotic called quetiapine uh but evidently he had some side effects so they changed him to one called uh olanzapine or zyprexa which he remained he's still on it now and zoloft uh yeah they diagnosed him with a mood disorder depression uh with psychotic features they diagnosed with conduct disorder they diagnosed him with an unspecified personality disorder and they diagnosed him with ptsd or post-traumatic stress disorder that basically means that you think somebody has a personality disorder but personality there's there's a variety in the dsm which is a diagnostic manual there's a number of specific personality disorders personality disorder is a dysfunctional pattern of interpersonal behavior that's kind of persistent across time and situations they tend to develop in adolescence and early adulthood and they can manifest in various different ways and uh if you're not really sure if you think the person probably has a personality disorder has dysfunctional interpersonal uh functioning that impairs their relationships you can diagnose them with a personality disorder unspecified which means you're not sure whether it's a narcissistic or borderline or you know some other specific personality disorder oh did you find substantiation for that no well i mean 14 15 is really too young to diagnose a personality disorder if you're talking about something that develops and you know late adolescence and early adulthood he hadn't even really gotten there yet and you know one of the things about kids in adolescence is that their character and their personalities are not fully formed they're developing their works in progress their brains are still developing their personalities are still developing and so to find evidence of a personality disorder you have to have something that you observe kind of onsetting in late adolescence and early adulthood carrying on into adulthood and impacting a person's ability to have normal functional interpersonal relationships but it has to be across time and situations that can't be limited to one particular relationship or one particular situation and and when you're 14 15 years old it's really just i'm just really just too young to diagnose a personality disorder in my opinion um what about schizoaffective disorder i don't think he has schizoaffective disorder uh schizoaffective disorder is a schizophrenia spectrum disorder if you want to think of it in a simple way if you have schizophrenia and you have either bipolar disorder and depression epic at the same time that's what schizoaffective disorder is so a person has the we call the the main criteria for schizophrenia which is psychotic symptoms hallucinations delusions disorganized behavior that kind of thing at the same time that they're having either a manic episode or a major depressive episode [00:25:31] Speaker 2: um so conduct disorder that changed in the dsm-5 it used to be diagnosed in a different way um there's [00:25:44] Speaker 1: basically a list of 15 kind of dysfunctional behaviors that kids can manifest uh and if you have three of them i think in a 12-month period then you can get diagnosed with conduct disorder um there are also specifiers about your kind of emotional function if there's a more kind of characterological developing pattern of of these kinds of behaviors that are occurring again occurring across time and situation um like personality disorder would later then you can get diagnosed with i think it's called with [00:26:13] Speaker 2: like limited emotional function or something like that um all kinds of behaviors that he exhibited that [00:26:19] Speaker 1: were qualified in the conference i actually didn't find a lot i mean there was obviously the main one that landed in rydc but uh while he was in the rydc actually all the behavior management plans were directed at protecting him from being victimized or preventing him from hurting himself there was no indication there was ever any kind of aggressive behavior or persistent rule-breaking behavior that was occurring um so you know aside from and also prior to uh you know being arrested uh for the shooting there wasn't really a pattern of antisocial kind of comic disorder behavior that was documented anywhere uh do you recall having um looked at pictures from his second interview were checked yeah i well i had an issue with the getting the videos to play right so i i i was able to see them interacting but i couldn't hear them so then i got the audio files and [00:27:17] Speaker 2: listened to the audio files and um was there anything noticeable about his physical state his arm particularly did you notice that that the photograph of him with cuts or marks on his arm i [00:27:32] Speaker 1: remember there were i mean because i remember them mentioning and photographing them uh and he told me he'd been cutting himself with a some kind of a thing with a blade on it is that uh one of the self-arm actions that he did yeah that was what he was you know those were it was that and the incident with the butter knife that he told me about i don't know if there were others and there was someone he was in the ry as well um breaking up um buttons off polo shirts and then making scratches but you can really kind of only scratch yourself superficially but still it was brought to the staff's attention um didn't require any treatment aside from cleaning but it was problematic it was concerning because he was hurting [00:28:12] Speaker 2: himself on purpose um from your review of the records and your interviews with him did you notice a difference in him when he was on meditation when he walked [00:28:27] Speaker 1: in terms of just normal day-to-day interaction i would say not particularly he seemed pretty depressed and anxious most of the time when i was talking to him he said that the medication helped some with the paranoia but he was still talking about being worried about people but his presentation was always kind of similar i mean his affect doesn't vary a whole lot he's kind of flat when you speak with [00:28:53] Speaker 2: him um so that didn't really change very much um the medical records commented on a transition plan can you tell us your understanding of the transition plan well i think they were transferring him from one [00:29:08] Speaker 1: facility to another one and so what they did was kind of did a summary of the all of the mental health interventions that had been done all of the times he had been on you know close observations or some other kind of observation due to you know risk of self-harm or risk of being victimized um there was also a problem list and um you know the diagnosis and also a mention of his uh medications so it's pretty in one page there was a ton of information kind of about what they had done uh and that was for the benefit of the receiving facility so that they were aware of what had been happening without having i think it was like 450 pages of records um you could get the gist of it by looking at the the transfer [00:29:49] Speaker 2: summary and did they make any changes to his treatment man with a transfer not that i'm aware of i think he stayed on the same medications so so today would you anticipate that there's still [00:30:01] Speaker 1: so lingering is basically exaggerating or or faking a symptom uh and it's a specific way because in malingering it's you're faking to avoid some other kind of um consequence or to get some kind of secondary gain so you're doing it for a reason um and what uh in forensic contexts that's something we're always kind of have our ears perked up for um because people who are facing serious criminal charges sometimes have the motivation to try and manage that in a way that's dysfunctional um i know that there was some question about whether colt was malingering his psychotic symptoms and i actually [00:30:56] Speaker 2: was concerned about that as well and do you know the specific steps that were taken to treat his ptsd [00:31:04] Speaker 1: specific steps i'm not aware i mean he was given his aloft um i think he was in uh some group psychotherapies i think they had him in a dialectal behavior therapy i don't think they had him in a one of the empirically supported um ptsd treatments but i could be mistaken about that i know they were [00:31:21] Speaker 2: aware and addressing it um so and would um trauma and form therapy be beneficial to somebody with ptsd yes [00:31:32] Speaker 1: do we know if that was a collateral bill obviously i'm not i can't say definitively honestly [00:31:41] Speaker 2: okay when you were doing your assessments did you run any tests with regard to his color function talking to other psychosocial [00:31:53] Speaker 1: workers um i gave an iq test and i also uh did a personality test called the minnesota multi-phasic that's spelled m-u-l-t-i-p-h-a-s-i-c personality inventory the adolescent version that's been restructured so it's the mmpi-a-rf and then also another one called the trauma symptom checklist for children what we call the tscc and that's a uh a measure that it gets it specifically [00:32:23] Speaker 2: at sequelae of trauma in kids and adolescents now following those tests uh did you come up with your [00:32:32] Speaker 1: um you know i don't think i gave them a specific diagnosis what i talked about mostly were kind of the phenomenology the things i was observing because a specific diagnosis isn't as helpful as kind of describing what you're seeing in forensic evaluations at least i did want to rule out whether there was any kind of intellectual functioning deficit and there's not his iq is average when i did the personality testing um the first time it was invalid because he was what we call over reporting uh meaning he was just kind of endorsing everything willy-nilly and then i went back and gave it to him again and instructed him to be more careful and thoughtful and to not just endorse everything and to really think about what was going on with him on the second time there was still some level of reporting but not to the point that it invalidated the testing and it was pretty consistent where he was telling me there was indications of mood problems anxiety problems problems with thinking paranoia persecutory ideas suicidal ideation uh you know psychological tests are not like x-rays or blood tests you know what they usually do is help us develop interpretive hypotheses for understanding people and sometimes they help us corroborate things that we're observing or seeing on interview and that's pretty much what the mmpi did um colt ever really talked about trauma ptsd symptoms with me as ptsd symptoms i would kind of ask him about you know traumatic experiencing was he having flashbacks was he having dreams and he said he had dreams about the school sometimes and sometimes dreams about things that happened when he was younger but the dreams about the school were not didn't involve the shooting incident it was just him alone in school wandering around but he never really talked about the the kind of you know when you talk with people with ptsd they talk about having flashbacks and dreams and traumatic re-experience and they talk about trying to avoid things that uh remind them of the uh of the trauma and changes in their emotional functioning it is the diagnostic criteria are pretty complicated um he didn't talk about that but on the tsc he endorsed a lot of uh trauma-related symptomatology um and it didn't appear as though there's validity checks in that test as well didn't appear as though he was manufacturing them which i thought was kind of odd because when i tried to talk to him about it i wasn't getting much but he was responding to it on the testing and clearly the uh rdc docs felt he had ptsd as well he did talk about that excuse me sorry like i said when i first met with him that was the first thing we talked about um he asked if he could pull his arms inside of his sweatshirt and kind of hold his arms around because he said he felt more comfortable talking that way um he talked a lot about having issues with noises with um particularly with textures uh kind of sensory things um you know when i talked to his mom she talked about this as well she said when he was little even like people touching him bathing him washing his hair was a challenge getting my hair cut was a challenge uh noises seemed to bother him and i think that persisted you know he had specific kinds of sheets and towels that he liked he had little rituals that he did when he got out of the shower uh like things laid out a certain way um and so [00:36:03] Speaker 2: that was the kind of thing that he related to me did uh any of that give you an invitation to any other [00:36:11] Speaker 1: kind of spectrum disorders it made me wonder whether there was you know an element of an autism spectrum disorder um you know because those kinds of sensory integration issues are common in people that have autism spectrum disorders um and his interpersonal behavior was was kind of odd uh you know so it got me wandering or thinking about it was something i considered as i continued to talk to him [00:36:33] Speaker 2: would that be something perhaps that would be good as a blue outcome [00:36:39] Speaker 1: i suspect if he wanted to do a specific evaluation for an autism spectrum disorder that would probably not be a bad idea in the end i didn't feel like based on what i got from him and what i got from his mom i felt like there was some elements he certainly has some elements particularly sensory type elements um and you know some interpersonal stuff but in talking to his mom you know she said that you know when he would interact he was capable of interacting he didn't have the kind of interactive patterns that we see particularly with people that have autism spectrum disorders but you know his interpersonal behavior was odd and we don't have a great sample of it because most of it was online so i mean to do an evaluation for that might be worthwhile i i ultimately didn't believe that he met diagnostic criteria and that's what i put in my report so that stands for adverse childhood experiences um years ago the kaiser foundation and the um i guess it was health and human services did a big cdc did a big um study um and they looked at was it between 1995 and 97 they looked at 17 000 people um and what they identified were a set of adverse childhood experiences things that people could experience when they were in their developmental period that tended to be correlated with adverse outcomes when they got older and some of the these were psychological psychiatric there was increased levels of depression anxiety uh you know ptsd substance abuse um in people that had uh experienced these adverse experiences as children but what they also found interesting was that there was kind of what we call a dose response um characteristic meaning the more of them there were the worse the outcomes tended um to be they also studied a lot of kind of physical well-being outcomes but you know when i look at these i'm thinking more about the psychological ones and certainly um he was exposed to a lot of these things in the the manifestations that he has psychologically in terms of his interpersonal function his anxiety and depression and so forth it's not really surprising i mean they're not the only reason but certainly not surprising growing up in a an environment where he was exposed to a lot of adverse things that he would you know develop depression you know develop depression anxiety and you know struggle interpersonly [00:39:02] Speaker 2: what is the concept called response it just means that the more of them there are the worse the outcomes are likely to be and i think you said the experience most of them at one time or another [00:39:16] Speaker 1: yeah the last one i think is an incarcerated parent that's only been recently that was always growing up [00:39:22] Speaker 2: how does all of this relate to his overall functioning around the climate well i think he was you know [00:39:29] Speaker 1: basically he was a he was he's a lonely dysfunctional kid who was anxious um paranoid um depressed and you know immersed in this highly dysfunctional world with these people that were obsessed with folks who had done school shootings so his interpersonal behavior um was was very dysfunctional and kind of layered on with the psychological issues you know he had just kind of disappeared into discord and disappeared into the true crime community where he wasn't really having interactions or relationships with real people on the outside i mean there were real people online but not real people on the outside [00:40:09] Speaker 2: and with the things that he went through well what would you know was a treatment if somebody received [00:40:14] Speaker 1: treatment well it would depend on the specific you know kind of uh manifestations i think with him certainly symptomatically you would try and address the depression anxiety you know any low paranoia you would want to try and do that to get some symptom relief with medication but then you know kind of intensive therapy there are therapies that have been empirically derived to to deal with those specific kinds of things um so doing that to try and work through those things or or disentangle them kind of really with a young person um would be the way that we go kind of do the symptom address the symptoms and then work on the interpersonal behavior work on the coping skills work on the ability to kind of have a normal life in the outside world uh would be the things that would will be the targets in treatment [00:40:57] Speaker 2: do you have any interactions with him with therapy to help him [00:41:01] Speaker 1: i think so yeah i mean you know anytime a kid is struggling with the psychological psychiatric problems and you've got someone whose brain isn't fully developed whose personality isn't very developed who's doesn't really know very much about the world at 14 who hasn't developed you know a mature set of coping skills uh and then you kind of turn them loose in this dysfunctional environment with these things going on and and coming from home where there was a lot of neglect neglect and probably some abuse and not really any kind of normal interpersonal contacts um you know it's not surprising that he kind of ended up the way that he did and having had some kind of psychiatric psychological uh intervention uh well before he was this this happened the shooting happened would have absolutely been beneficial [00:41:47] Speaker 2: and you're talking about the development of 14 year old teenagers growing up some of them without psychological burdens that he had would they develop in a way that they could make more normal decisions [00:41:59] Speaker 1: i think you know it's kind of you think of it as you know all teenagers adolescents young adults the brains are still developing and particularly the frontal lobe is developing the fellow is important because that's kind of where uh that controls decision making impulse control anticipating consequences uh you know making good decisions planning courses of action considering alternatives all of that kind of stuff lives in the frontal lobes and those don't those keep developing into the 20s is what we know now there was a big study done a number of years ago uh where it found kind of what we clinicians have known for years is that is that kind of cognitive development um lags behind uh chronological development and so you know you take somebody who's a normal 14 year old they're still going to have all these issues you know it's it's kind of the reason we see adolescents and kids and young adults do more dumb things than adults do uh part of that is because of the way that their brains are underdeveloped and i think if you pile on uh you know depression anxiety you know neglect some abuse uh you know some paranoia that it's just going to exacerbate the situation but even under the best of circumstances you know the brain and the personality and the character are certainly not developed they're not in any anywhere near a final [00:43:14] Speaker 2: format at age 14. during your conversations with him did you speak directly about shooting events yes did he ever try to deny that he did no what was his response that you and you were talking about the [00:43:31] Speaker 1: victims and what were their implications when he said he felt terrible about the victims um and and it was interesting you know when he was uh interviewing with investigator smith they talked quite a bit about that as well and i think he even wrote some apology letters um you know i focused more on his his own kind of functioning trying to disentangle kind of what was going on with him at the time but he certainly talked about the victims and he talked about in the this he sees this true crime community also that one of the things he was interested in was not only the perpetrators but the victims you know he said with the parkland i think i think nicholas cruz killed 17 people something like that and and he said he was you know was interested in their stories and what they were doing with their lives um but you know obviously more obsessed with the shooter himself [00:44:23] Speaker 2: and would you say that he's apologetic about pardon me was he apologetic about yes well he certainly [00:44:31] Speaker 1: was when he was talking to investigator smith um i didn't try to elicit anything like that from him i mean i asked him how he felt about the thing and he said he felt terrible he felt terrible for what [00:44:39] Speaker 2: he did he knew he you know screwed up a lot of lives based on the investigation in your interview with him understanding all the issues he's facing out psychologically would he be able to improve what he continued therapies medications treatment yeah i think so you [00:44:59] Speaker 1: know again you know you're not talking about somebody who who did this in their you know their mid-20s late 20s or as an adult when you know there could be characterological issues underlying that are kind of well developed the personality is finished the brain is finished and sometimes if you end up in a situation with an older person where there's characterological issues that drive them to do things that are anti-social there's sometimes not a lot you can do about that i think when you're dealing with kids and adolescents there's still some room uh before things are consolidated before they're finished you know before they're finished developing you know you can intervene in a meaningful way to try and help them develop you know more healthy developing skills or address some of those symptoms so yeah sure [00:45:41] Speaker 2: you have indicated mr kraft asked you to do this before in conjunction with they know this is alabama factors for a sentence of you right did you reach any conclusions well there's not that [00:45:54] Speaker 1: incorrigibility and you know irredeemable depravity and i certainly didn't find evidence of that you know he didn't appear to be on a really anti-social kind of vector he wasn't a kid who was getting in trouble a lot he wasn't a kid that had contacts with pjj i mean he's doing all this weird stuff on the internet but it wasn't uh you know anti-social stuff it wasn't kind of comic disordered stuff and so what i saw mostly with him were things that developmentally were you know his his interpersonal skills were poorly developed his you know his mood issues his anxiety issues um you know and then the subsequent paranoia um were all things that i think were manifestations of things that had happened with him when he was younger developing you know a lot of support lack of treatment um i think they could have been addressed earlier um and and i think there's still room you know was he 16 now you know he's still an adolescent his personality is still not done his character is still not done his brain is still developing so there's i think room to intervene at this point uh to make some headway uh you know [00:46:54] Speaker 2: to undo some of that stuff that's all i have a touch at this time i'd like to move one into evidence with what they're being here i'm still mr smith in rejection [00:47:06] Speaker 3: is that the report it's the report all right it's admitted your position all right we'll um file that under seal why don't we take a short rest room break before for us all right we'll be in recess for 10 minutes or so Yeah. [00:48:02] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:59:32] Speaker 4: Thank you. [01:00:02] Speaker 3: Thank you. [01:00:32] Speaker 5: I'm Brad Smith, I'm Brad Smith, I'm the district attorney's office. [01:00:34] Speaker 1: Good morning. [01:00:35] Speaker 5: I'm Brad Smith, I'm the district attorney's office. [01:00:38] Speaker ?: Good morning. [01:00:39] Speaker 5: So the resources you relied on were Colt's medical records, law enforcement files, video footage of the shooting, and then various interviews with Colt, Colin, Marcy and other people. [01:00:55] Speaker 1: that correct that was the bulk of it i mean i had a like i said i had a hard drive with a lot of [01:01:00] Speaker 5: stuff on it but i think those were the highlights yeah how much time and energy did you put into [01:01:05] Speaker 1: each of those things i i couldn't tell you i couldn't break it down that way okay to be honest [01:01:10] Speaker 5: with you but would it be safe to say that most of the information you had came from either colt or [01:01:17] Speaker 1: marcy in terms of information i gathered myself yes you know it was from him um and his mom is a [01:01:27] Speaker 5: collateral and even like a lot of secondary sources with interviews and stuff from law enforcement is what they are telling law enforcement of course and like even the discord records are is cole saying stuff on this court that's correct now marcy a colt's mother you would consider her an unreliable source i would say she is reliable to an extent okay she certainly has an angle yeah and you were aware that she had in the few years leading up to this incident she had limited contact with cole yes i was aware of that okay in fact in november 2nd of 2022 marcy leaves the house that colt lives in and goes down to fitzgerald right okay and it wasn't until august 11 2023 almost a year later that colt goes down to stay with her from august 11 23 to august october 4th of 23. that sounds about right so about two months that they lived together yeah they didn't have a lot of contact and then then he leaves in october because marcy tested positive for drugs and she comes up to stay with him the next year july 6 2024 to august 16th of 2024. that sounds about [01:02:55] Speaker 1: right it's about one month yeah okay she said it was about five weeks so in the in the two years [01:03:01] Speaker 5: leading up to the shooting she was with him about three months yeah not very much time okay and during that time she had serious intoxication issues she did tested positive for drugs she did that was a lot of the reason that people removed from her and she left yes she was in rehab for about six months with no contact was she i believe you're right okay and she had her own criminal justice issues she did okay and she had psychiatric issues on top of the intoxication yes okay um were you also aware that colt and her even when they were separate did not speak to each other very much it didn't seem like you had a lot of [01:03:44] Speaker 1: contact with her there was a you know a brief period of time not long before the shooting when she was living up there and winder but for a lot of the time before that especially when her issues with the drugs and so forth happened um the contact was really limited okay in fact they mostly just texted with [01:04:00] Speaker 5: each other i think that's a fair characterization okay now your first interview with colt was may 16th of 2025. that sounds right okay and that was eight months after the shooting right okay i want to go into colt a little bit um were you noticing that colt likes to mimic other people and especially like the other [01:04:29] Speaker 1: shooters and things of that like that there was um some stuff like some photographs that he took of himself and i think the dying his hair orange was a manifestation of that um there were some things that i had in the records where um it would be i think one of them was james holmes there was another one i i think was christian dale from a movie where he was making a particular face and and he would mimic those things and and i guess post them they were in his um they were in the materials that i got [01:04:57] Speaker 5: and when you were reviewing his discord that's when he's talking to members of this tcc community correct did you notice in his interactions with these people that he was very quick to yeah me too they would say i do this or i experienced this and he'd be like yeah me too yeah i think so you know there's there was an element of that certainly did you notice where he would even within the conversation say one thing and then change it to accommodate and be more like the person he was talking to [01:05:31] Speaker 1: i i can remember the times when that happened sure what i'm going to show you a couple of them to go [01:05:36] Speaker 5: sure first one's on discord tv live is it going to pop up here yes yes sir it should okay i got it okay so this is him talking to the mandy right and mandy's in the light green can you tell the color difference on your monitor i can yeah i can tell them and also has their names and colt is occasional earner right um and he is in the blue and this is august 29th of 2024 so a few days before the shooting um and they're talking about nicholas cruz and their obsession with nicholas cruz correct that was what they talked mostly about okay and mandy asked him have you put a cookie in your sub yet and he writes back cookie in my sub question mark okay okay so this isn't them talking this is them [01:06:31] Speaker 1: writing and reading each other's writing correct yeah i think that's what it most i don't know if they ever actually talked i think it was all these text messages on discord so when he types in cookie in [01:06:43] Speaker 5: my sub question mark he doesn't know what she's talking about does he he doesn't know or didn't [01:06:49] Speaker 1: remember i mean clearly he asked her for clarification okay and then she says he would put a chocolate [01:06:57] Speaker 5: chip cookie in his sub sandwiches referring to nicholas cruz right and then colt immediately says oh yeah multiple times i see that and then him kind of like he personally doesn't even know what she's talking about but they know yeah i do that all the time yeah i think there were probably times that he did that [01:07:17] Speaker 1: i mean again i said i reviewed between caitlin and mandy like 50 000 messages so i mean there were [01:07:23] Speaker 5: times when he did that's an example of colt changing his answers about things to fit in with these people [01:07:34] Speaker 1: i think that's that's not an unfair characterization i think he was very invested in trying to to fit in with this on this unusual community um so i mean there were seemed like he had plenty of his own independent information but certainly this is an example of a time where he accommodated based on what [01:07:52] Speaker 5: somebody else said and if let's say for example you know putting cookies on your sub sandwich was a sign of psychosis this would be him kind of malingering exaggerating that's something yeah i mean i don't [01:08:07] Speaker 1: think it is but all right yeah i mean but um yeah i mean it could be that you know it is i mean it's hard to know because we're looking again at a small sample um but certainly i would agree with you that he was interested in being perceived as somebody that did this same thing that nicholas cruz did if he actually [01:08:27] Speaker 5: puts cookies in his subs let's put another example that's a little more pertinent sure this is also this is not uh so can i ask are these um is there an exhibit number your honor this i don't need a little indulgement our next witness is going to put all of these in i believe the discord was in it was um entered earlier i would say the one i showed earlier was page 13 okay um of the occasional burner account there's an occasional burner account and there's an f palm account in the page 59 of the occasional burner account and the exhibit number i'm sorry i missed that [01:09:18] Speaker 6: okay so get this right [01:09:26] Speaker 3: get this right [01:09:39] Speaker 5: and this one genderless black hole at the very top there says i'm i'm on six different meds and they really don't do anything but make me stoned asf um i took this all up before i hope it actually works for you and then he says they did the same for me like it made the room spin now now she's talking about six different meds and he says they did the same for me but he was never on six different meds or multiple meds he was only on so that's the only one i'm aware of yeah it was just as often as mom was giving them so so that they to try and make it sound like more he's trying to again fit in with this genderless black hole he's changing the amount or types of medicine he's taking yeah you could read it that way i mean he could be [01:10:32] Speaker 1: referring to meds as a day but the only one he was on is zoloft that's true okay he wasn't on six [01:10:38] Speaker 5: different meds he skipped down a little bit um into the middle of the green there um genderless black hole says the worst side effects i've had were with hallucinations but that wasn't on zoloft thankfully and then she says still give you hallucinations somewhat though and then he says mine are auditory correct yes and that means he hears voices right that would be hearing things that aren't really there and then he says although maybe schizophrenia who knows right and then she says oh my god same twinsies i have visible ones too and he says same right so when they talk about hallucinations he first says i have auditory hallucinations full stop right and it's not until she says well i also i have visible ones and then he changes it instead of saying yeah i agree in changing talking about his mental state what he says his mental state is he changes it to fit in with this group right he he adds onto it okay and then let's go to page 61 in this case you have them talking about drinking a lot this is another person he's talking to i do not know the gender of this person um but they're talking to and they're talking about getting blackout drunk right and colt is talking about how often he gets blackout drunk it looks like it okay and then the very bottom the next the last one colt says i literally just steal it from my dad i see that okay did you listen to um collins interview about his home life a long time ago do you remember him saying that he didn't drink and he didn't allow alcohol in the house at all that rings a bell yeah okay and do you remember um marcy's interview where she says the same thing right okay yeah so he says literally i steal it from my dad that's not true no it's not what he told me either okay and then he says sometimes i ask some random dude to walk in and get me some again i never followed colt around i'm sure you did but based on your understanding of how often he actually got outside his house does that sound like something he would do seems unlikely that's what i was thinking okay um and then we move to page 62 and same person that he's talking to now they're moved on man just do some dxm bro um colt says real and i'll ask you to drop the method whenever i'm up to it he says do you even know what that is he says yeah it's over-the-counter stuff they're talking about benadryl right next one i think that's on the next call out yes i mean he says benadryl colt does right and then he comes down a little bit it says you just got to pull through the tiredness after that it's pretty much schizophrenia simulator i see that so colt saying that when he takes benadryl to access he'll get schizophrenia simulator colt talks about a lot about schizophrenia doesn't he he does okay and then pk waffle fest says that's not the worst part it's the anxiety and the dread and seeing spiders i'm terrified of bugs so he's the one that first talks about hallucinations when he's on this and refers to bugs right and then he says in the next one the highest go back up the first one sorry all right so then pk waffle fest says the highest i've ever gone is 450 milligrams and colt says 725 here appears he's trying to one up pk waffle fest looks like it okay again exaggerating yeah for attention to fit in yeah to fit in no i agree okay and then the last one pk waffle fest asking what kind of hallucinations do you experience cole says knocking beating on walls it's weird and then plugs right which is exactly the same hallucination [01:15:32] Speaker 1: that pk waffle fest had right he was just talking about spiders so yeah same thing [01:15:38] Speaker 5: so now this now colt is changing his hallucinations to fit this other person's hallucinations right okay because colt buys a lot to get attention on discord doesn't he yeah he does he created an entire other [01:15:55] Speaker 1: personas lied about his age name location so and colt studies and emulates prior mass shooters i think we talked about earlier yeah he was kind of obsessed with that group of folks i think the main one timeline [01:16:11] Speaker 5: wise was adam lanza and that was the sandy hook elevator shooter that was the first one um that he [01:16:18] Speaker 1: identified becoming obsessed quote unquote but then said that he wasn't so interested because there wasn't that much information to find about him it in my my perception was that nichols cruz was the one he got most focused on and then also um i think it's james holmes um the aurora colorado those were the two that he was most focused on although there had been a period of time and and the the young woman caitlin um he was speaking with she was an adam lanza person that was her obsession so they talked about [01:16:52] Speaker 5: that when he was talking to her well i want to pull up the other discord this would have been the f-bomb um 703 when your honor this is going to be page nine of that exhibit that stan will get you the number four um 266 266 your honor thank you and then this one you know the f-bomb is now colt um this was back in 2023 two years before the shooting um are you familiar with the date of may 18th and the significance of that date not the specific date but that time frame middle of may i mean my my guess is that this [01:17:39] Speaker 1: was the other threat that he made right yeah the one is from 2023 so you may not remember but you did [01:17:46] Speaker 5: look at the the things when they came out that would have been may 21st that sounds about right so [01:17:52] Speaker 1: this is right right right before they came out to right i think discord flagged this and when they figured out who it was and then they went and talked to colt right and then he says god i spent hours [01:18:03] Speaker 5: researching adam that's the third line now right okay and that would that would track i think it was [01:18:09] Speaker 1: around 22 23 when he got and then he said adam wenzel was the first one so i i would i would guess [01:18:16] Speaker 5: about that time he was focused more on him and then at the bottom he's asking what the other person's target would be to commit a mass shooting he says i'll probably kill my dad if you go to my local elementary school but i might move to connecticut and shoot up the new one for laughs right and then on page 12 he says i already have an outfit for if i commit a mass shooting he got adam's exact outfit same shoes same path even has a vest i see that in the very bottom it says apparently adam even wore sunglasses [01:19:02] Speaker 1: during the shooting yeah i don't know if that's true or not but i mean that's that's the kind of [01:19:08] Speaker 5: micro detail that these folks were interested in yeah they get down into every little thing about that shooter how they dressed um what they said what they did yeah it seemed like it was so deep it was [01:19:24] Speaker 1: like any piece of information they could find and and put out there was kind of what they were after it and and even like i said you know colt said his frustration about adam lons is there wasn't enough information there wasn't enough to find out about him but clearly there was you know some things so [01:19:41] Speaker 5: um now colt destroyed the hard drive of his computer morning of the shooting yeah he's he said they the [01:19:51] Speaker 1: way he described it to me is they were more like sd card storage units it wasn't like a like a physical hard drive or a solid state drive they were little sd cards so he didn't tell you that he destroyed the actual hard drive the morning of he did say that he destroyed a hard drive and then i asked him and he talked about the sd drives and it sounded one i think when he talked to investigator smith that's what he said but there's also photographs of him disassembling his computer it's like in in pieces in the house and it appeared i'm not a computer expert but it appeared as though you know it could have been that he removed the drive and he certainly did refer to it as that in the messages and colt told [01:20:30] Speaker 5: you that he did this because he was being surveilled by a government agency by somebody he said it might [01:20:36] Speaker 1: be the government but he thought he was infiltrated and then he got this idea that they were government agents driving by the house and um this is what he told me [01:20:51] Speaker 5: yeah i think he reported colt reported he believed everything watched or followed both in person and online he said he believed he had seen large black vehicles passing by his residence that he believed were from a government agency right he stated he was unsure why this type of surveillance would have been happening but took actions to protect himself including data destroying data storage items from his computer and changing usernames frequently to avoid being tracked or followed right and you thought that [01:21:17] Speaker 1: was significant for colt i thought the idea that he was paranoid and felt like somebody was paying attention to him um was significant and i thought the fact that he followed through and did something in in response to that belief i think this some of the story about government agents and suvs i i don't know about that i mean i think he was paranoid i think he felt somebody was watching him i think some of the [01:21:42] Speaker 5: other stuff was embellished a bit so you you believed it was signs of like delusional thinking i think it was [01:21:49] Speaker 1: signs of paranoia you know again it's when you're trying to decide whether something is delusional one of the things you can think about is whether somebody will change their behavior in response to it so if you're paranoid that you think somebody is looking at you online and then you destroy media storage you know that's doing a behavior in response to kind of a paranoid idea again the elaboration with the suvs and the guys with sunglasses and stuff i don't know about all that but i think there was a there was some level of paranoia i think some of the specific stuff was probably embellished a bit okay [01:22:26] Speaker 5: and that was based on destroying the sd drug you know again it was the the idea that he was paranoid [01:22:32] Speaker 1: you know i again i don't think he has a schizophrenia spectrum disorder i don't think he's you know but i do think he had paranoia that was part of his mood disorder that was impacting his thinking but didn't in [01:22:44] Speaker 5: may of 2023 didn't he do something on his computer that caused the fbi to call the sheriff's office to come to his house yes they did and that would be a logical reason if you're going to continue doing those things on your computer to destroy your sd cards sure that would be another way to explain it and that wouldn't be delusional or paranoia would it no that would be reality-based did you know did you do any research yourself on any of these other school shooters that [01:23:18] Speaker 1: colt had no i mean i maybe looked at wikipedia just to orient myself okay you know but i didn't go down the rabbit hole or anything i was just kind of making sure i understood who we were talking about [01:23:31] Speaker 5: actually i kept waiting for the fbi to show up with my door from all my searches yeah i don't know yeah did you know that adam lanza destroyed the hard drive of his computer uh i didn't know that okay did you know he also did it on the morning before he went into the shooting uh no i was i i mean no i remember i wasn't aware of that did you know that he left it in the middle of his bedroom floor [01:23:58] Speaker 1: exactly like colt did no i like i said i don't know but i did see the photo that colt did that would [01:24:06] Speaker 5: it surprise you to know that colt did know that no not at all okay were you given his phone calls that he made after he was arrested from the rlybc i i did receive some i will i did not listen to all [01:24:25] Speaker 1: of them okay but um i listened to a couple i'm going to bring your attention to a phone call made on [01:24:33] Speaker 5: october 12th 2024 okay at 11 38 a.m in the morning i guess that's what am means um in your honor this is not in evidence yet i asked for some indulgence that was our next witness is going to be introducing these into evidence um and we have to take this doctor out of order i understand um [01:24:58] Speaker 6: what exhibit number will it be that's a good question so the jail calls are being introduced as exhibit 267 through 335 and they are labeled by date so on the thumb drive that will give you um it will be within that range and it will have the date of october 12th all right thank you so this [01:25:23] Speaker 5: is going to be october 12th 11 38 in the morning it's a phone call between colton and his mother marcy gray and we're going to play the clip part from eight minutes 34 seconds to eight minutes and 53 seconds okay [01:25:40] Speaker 7: next comment how could anyone look at this kid twice and think that he was just like lanza in [01:25:47] Speaker 5: quotes i guess i guess so what they're doing is they're looking through posts on the internet and people on the internet are um comparing coals to adam lanza i got you that's what they're talking [01:26:00] Speaker 7: okay okay thanks [01:26:13] Speaker 5: so she says that people on the internet and this is just a month after the shooting right people on the internet are comparing them to adam lanza and he says wait till my room pictures get released and they see the computer on the floor right that's a lot of forethought on his part oh yeah i'm not surprised at all i mean [01:26:36] Speaker 1: again there was a lot of forethought so before the shooting he's anticipating the crime scene photos [01:26:46] Speaker 5: being released onto the internet that's what it sounds like okay did you know that colt didn't just destroy his computer like adam lanza did that he staged it to look exactly like adam lanza's looked [01:27:01] Speaker 1: i was not aware of that i don't find that surprising [01:27:06] Speaker 5: but you had interpreted it as paranoid delusions again i think it's important to note that i [01:27:15] Speaker 1: believe he was paranoid and anxious at the time but i didn't believe that he and i believe he thought that there was some people talking about him but at the end of the day i don't believe that's why he did what he did so what i'm saying is that those things were coexisting and impacting his his insight and his judgment but i don't think he was driven by hallucinations or delusions to do what he did i think he planned it out and the kind of stuff that you're telling me [01:27:46] Speaker 5: that i don't find it surprising at all yeah so this is more him destroying his computers not so much a sign of delusions or paranoia it's actually like an easter egg for other adam lanza fans to discover [01:28:00] Speaker 1: i think it could be both but i can see where it would i mean particularly like staging the computer like that certainly would be uh an example of that okay let's go to nicholas cruz that was now [01:28:12] Speaker 5: we've moved on the summer of 2024 um he's moved on from adam lanza now he's now he's fixating on nicholas cruz right right um i want to show this is discord your honor this is back to the occasional burner it's going to be on page 18. and he says there nick's bad by the way um the image there if you click on it is just an image of nicholas cruz um and it makes and it colt posts the image of nicholas cruz and it says nick's bad by the way um the way he says holy while being arrested it's so funny okay so he has watched nicholas cruz's arrest based on this correct i'm sure he has okay and he thinks it's funny that nick cruz said holy when he was arrested right that's what he says here he and mandy were both pretty obsessed with nicholas cruz yeah and then mandy brings up that he nicholas cruz mentioned voices right and then colt says and he mentioned demons demons man yeah yeah yeah i'm tracking i'm following you and then voices words of noises and then wth and then where the where th am i holy what happened right okay so he's making fun of nick's arrest thinks it's funny and he knows that he knows that when nick was arrested he heard voices right or he said he heard voices right he knows that when nick was arrested he said he saw hallucinations these demons and he knows that nick claimed that he had blacked out during that holy shit where am i what happened right okay now you listened to colt's interview right correct okay and he said basically the same things that he didn't when i was arrested yeah that he didn't really remember that he heard voices hallucinations and he didn't remember right so basically exactly what nick cruz said when he was arrested that colt knows about colt said the same thing when he was arrested right okay now did you watch the nicholas cruz trial or did you look into that at all no okay and you do know that there was a doctor that looked at it and cruz similar to what you did with colt [01:30:53] Speaker 1: i mean i'm sure there was but i didn't i didn't want to go down that rabbit hole and it was dr charles [01:30:58] Speaker 5: scott you ever heard of him or knew him i don't think i know him yeah um but you do know he testified in that trial pardon me he testified in that trial okay yeah i'm following and colt has seen all of that [01:31:11] Speaker 1: trial has been yeah he said he used to fall asleep watching it he's watched it numerous times i think he told you he watched it three times at least three yeah i mean he did he said he used like [01:31:22] Speaker 5: he said he said he used to fall asleep watching it and during colt's interview with law enforcement the day of the shooting he told them that nick was notorious for faking his schizophrenia in his interrogation yes he did so he's watched that and he knows that he does okay now when colt's talking to you at y'all's interview right next year um he tells you that the reason he watched the nick cruz trial was because he was felt terrible for the victims and you wanted to know their stories yeah he did say that okay he said a lot of his looking up stuff with nick told you was because he wanted to know more about the victims because he felt bad for him he did say that i mean clearly there's way more to it but he did say that and he told investigators the same thing that day right now did you corroborate that statement with colt's discord at the time the statement about about that he was looking into nick and watched the trial of nick because he was he was feeling bad for the victims and wanted to know more about the victims um nick's victims no but i mean i didn't think that was the only reason he watched it okay so well let's go to the occasional burner discord account this is on page nine okay and this is manny she's talking about when i watched the impact statements i had so many panic attacks because like why do they feel the need to be so hateful so these are the victims that they prove this thing getting their victim impact statements right sort of like our victims did in this case i don't think you weren't here no i wasn't here for that but i mean i'm sure that happened and then colt says it wasn't for nick i would have burned my brains out months ago and then he responds to her i know right so inhumane talking about the victims talking mean to nick that sentence in here she says like begging for him to get raped and killed um and he says and people say nick's the monster right so that doesn't sound like he's identifying with the victims it sounds like he's identifying to nick and he's mad at the victims for meeting me to nick yeah like i said you [01:33:56] Speaker 1: know he i was reporting what he told me it was clear if you read the messages with vandy there was way more to it i mean it was a whole deep intense obsessed even sexual thing and the idea that he may have looked at the research the victims was always part of the kind of the tcc thing i don't want to give the impression that i think that's all he was doing [01:34:20] Speaker 5: no i'm just saying this this is what i'm showing you is complete [01:34:25] Speaker 1: opposite of what he told you right but not surprising based on his obsession [01:34:28] Speaker 5: and in fact continuing on with the same conversation this is just the next thing down okay she says some made me sad that to be honest i had like nick so i just had a hard time with empathy i only feel real empathy towards nick and then he says god i hated the black-haired bitch sam i think did you know he's referring to samantha fuentes one of the victims that survived the shooting department um no but that sounds right testified that she had um still had a shroud on her arm right okay and then he goes on to say nick should have blown your brains out sam it's okay though 4chan leaked her this is the exact opposite he's telling you the remorseful he's telling you that i was just looking at this stuff because the victim i cared about the victim and then he's actually saying this stuff [01:35:33] Speaker 1: right well i read these messages as well and again you know i don't want to get the impression that i thought that's all he was doing the obsession was clearly way beyond that but in this tcc kind of researching the shooter and researching the victims is part of the thing but yeah this is all pretty [01:35:50] Speaker 5: hateful okay and then the next page the next line on page 10 let's jumper again now i want to go to page 16 that was just one of the victims okay in the very bottom okay okay he says one of the teachers across from scott mentioned she locked eyes with nick before he shot scott and injured her now he's referring to stacy little she was one of the teachers that was standing outside with um scott beagle they were both teachers scott beagle was shot by nicholas cruz while he was standing next to stacy little okay she testified to this and he says lmao which you understand me is like laughing my ass off that's my understanding as well [01:36:49] Speaker 1: so not syntactic there no no i mean again i'm agreeing with you you know this is you know in addition there was a lot of really bizarre distressing stuff that was going on in this tcc uh in all of those messages [01:37:06] Speaker 5: that's not right yeah let's go to page 31 now you click on the first image an obituary will come up okay and that is michael's schoolman it was his his obituary that colt has found on the internet i remember seeing that okay so colt went looking for this found this man's obituary and he is the adoptive father of parkland victim scott beagle scott beagle scott beagle is the teacher we just talked about yeah gotcha okay he's passed away so right he puts that image into the discord and mandy says is that him and clicks a video attaches a video now that video is michael schumann testifying at nick cruz's sentence right okay and colt says yup and then she says i hate that guy and colt posts the video did you click on that to see what that video was i don't know because what is it that is the school surveillance video of colt shooting that man's son of cruz of cruz i'm sorry yes cruz shooting that man's son there was a whole puts the obituary of mr michael schoolman right who's the father scott beagle right right and then post the video of nicholas [01:38:58] Speaker 1: cruz shooting his son scott beagle i saw several videos that appeared to be of nick cruz in the school and shooting but i i couldn't tell who he was shooting at but there certainly were if that's what it was then i'm sure i saw it because there were a number of videos of him in the school with the weapon and in some of them he had fired he was firing the weapon but i couldn't tell he was who he was shooting at so [01:39:22] Speaker 5: he had no sympathy for scott beagle or his father michael no again you know no i'm clearly not here no no and then he goes on down every time i watch this the way i want to pin him down and stick a blade in his chest multiple times right and then he says same for that gorgeous guy right do you know who he's referring to there uh you know that was anthony gorgeous he was also a victim who survived okay fucking nick should have come back around to double tap him now mandy actually according to mandy i don't know if she's telling the truth but mandy says she lives in that area of parkland i think yeah knows gorgeous okay okay and then she's like i can't believe i was friends with him um i swear he had to crush me when i was 13 and he called says dox him and the bottom says i'll kill him for you right so when colt tells you this that he has sympathy the reason he was looking for this because he has [01:40:34] Speaker 1: sympathy for the victims he is lying to you if i believe that was the only reason yeah but no that's clearly awesome yeah i'm asking what he said that is what he said yeah and that is him lying to [01:40:49] Speaker 5: you he would appear so okay now let's move on to james holmes that's the that's the aurora theater shooter the batman movie yeah yeah and went to the batman screen um colt researched him and started idolizing well he researched it for a long time but he started idolizing him almost right up to the shooting and then even after the shooting that sounds right his cold shooting no i knew what you meant yeah um now for james holmes he was um the people in your position for him were dr jeffrey messner and dr william reed do you know either of them i'm not sure yeah um but they they were the ones that evaluated james holmes and testified at the trial right and did you know that with the dr william reed they actually tinkered video of holmes's psychiatric evaluation evidence that wasn't really yeah so where like when you met with colt and did all your stuff with colt right they actually videotaped it okay when dr reed did it and that tape was put in the trial okay okay tracking did you know that colt watched all of it not surprised okay did you know it was 15 episodes [01:42:07] Speaker 1: long eight hours each according to him yeah and again it's consistent with this obsessive fixation um so yeah i'm not surprised that he would have done that okay in fact he talked about that with his [01:42:22] Speaker 5: mom on the jail calls your honor this is on november 16th 2024 at 11 23 a.m this is from the 1005 [01:42:31] Speaker 7: minute mark to the 11 18 minute thank you so so uh okay you know obviously the usual you know all of you stuff like that and uh i decided to develop on the patient response to me i prefer to that and that i've really been dictated on the drink phones and i think but i just find a lot that's cool to me you know okay i don't know anything really about him oh yeah okay i'll reach up on i wonder i wonder if there's a documentary on there's some um that a really good watch that is 15 and that's so long and they're like eight hours each there's a recording of him and the psychiatrist i think pretty much the one that's a question okay i can probably find some stuff on um youtube yes i will i got rid of them [01:43:47] Speaker 5: okay so this is called talking with his mother marcy and these are the two people you interviewed yeah okay and they're talking about this and this is well months before they met with you this is um october this is november of 2024 yes so it would have been months before correct okay and he is actually watching and asked his mother to watch a psychiatrist ask james holmes questions and james holmes's response to that psychiatrist right wouldn't that kind of taint what you're going to do later on it could potentially yeah sure now holmes was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder did you know that yeah i was aware that he has schizophrenia spectrum disorder and colt told you that's what he had he said that's what they [01:44:40] Speaker 1: diagnosed him with but i didn't find that in the records actually you didn't find that anywhere in the records no they diagnosed him with um psych psychotic symptoms but as part of a mood disorder [01:44:48] Speaker 5: not schizoaffective disorder and colt said that dr singleton was who diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder right he said that but that's clearly wasn't true and did you see any mention of the doctor [01:45:00] Speaker 1: singleton in his reports you know i didn't go through all of them but uh so i don't know if there was a [01:45:07] Speaker 5: dr singleton in there or not so colt is telling you that he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder right the same one james holmes had yeah but according to his medical records that's not true no and i don't [01:45:24] Speaker 1: think he said i don't think he has his effective disorder either so [01:45:32] Speaker 5: did colt tell you that he researched the evaluations and diagnosis of crews and homes i don't remember talking about that okay so he never volunteered to you that he had looked at their diagnosis and [01:45:42] Speaker 1: evaluations and that sort of stuff no but again knowing what i know about the level of obsession it [01:45:49] Speaker 5: wouldn't have surprised me to find that out okay yeah did he tell you he also coordinated those things with marcy no okay well i'm going to play you four more calls um the first one's going to be on 10 25 october 25th so this is just about a month and a half after the shooting okay [01:46:10] Speaker 8: i'm not guilty or there's definitely a good stance but i would at least like to know [01:46:17] Speaker 5: so what's going on here is they just found in the news that colt's original attorney had sent in a waiver of arraignment and guilt uh not guilty um thing so it happened outside of court colt wasn't there didn't know this had happened so he's finding out from his mother it's his attorney that entered a not guilty plea on his behalf got it that's what they're calling okay [01:46:41] Speaker 7: carlin because that's something i mean he needs to keep me updated on that commission i mean i i would i'm i'm supportive of it um but i just need to know what his intentions are i mean if he's gonna claim insanity you know that's really the only way that's on the final way that should be getting that guilty you know sure but how are we now thinking about it yeah i thought i was telling you that was my first thought anyway because if her persons are not guilty that means they're going full on with the insanity which i can definitely stand up for it yep and then um you know when you see this doctor and her the child you want um for medicine for hospital schizophrenia that's just even more to back it up i don't get any medicine for when it's possible it's there [01:47:32] Speaker 5: so that's them talking about using mental illness as a chance to get a not guilty right okay and that a doctor would really help that right and that's on october 25th go to the next day october 26th [01:48:04] Speaker 7: so because we've already got not guilty which which is actually like people are telling me that's like usually when they're going for something along the lines of like insanity and stuff and temporary [01:48:17] Speaker 8: kennedy is also a thing that actually is involved along with them saying like everything putting [01:48:26] Speaker 7: everything on you know dad like you know deterioration and stuff and getting second degree murder and stuff like yeah what i think will be like i generally wonder if they'll like truly see you know like i'll be medicated soon and like i'll be completely changed and out of that call that well that's exactly what i told him and you know what orders that you know like a temporary intensity so we can set on that that's just in the midst of like a psychotic um which is i mean it's the classic description of temporary infinity you know that's the influence of some you know some type of extreme mental distress um and it's just literally that that's in the mania maybe that's the manic state that's forward exactly that's where you have these bursts of manic just and for me it's switched from manic to very feeling very happy and deported like you know just feeling like on top of the world that's just like you know if that plea is accepted by a jury which you know it's likely that it would be um of course [01:50:07] Speaker 5: so that's them talking about the possibility of not guilty by temporary insanity colt seems to know a lot about manic psychosis and psychotic and things of that nature yeah he even talked about that with [01:50:19] Speaker 1: investigator smith right after he was using words like schizophrenia and he's telling his mother [01:50:25] Speaker 5: the symptoms of that right and this is the person you used to corroborate this [01:50:33] Speaker 1: that i used to corroborate some things i never believed he was manic i never believed he had schizophrenia i never believed he was anywhere near the neighborhood for an insanity defense it was never [01:50:44] Speaker 5: on the table these people are talking about it of course they are but and i talked about it with him [01:50:50] Speaker 1: too and told him that was not that that's not was that was not something that was feasible um and never you know i think i even wrote in my report you know they can talk about insanity all they want but my evaluation of him didn't reveal any actual mania and didn't reveal a diagnosis of schizophrenia and didn't reveal sufficient symptoms to warrant an insanity temporary or otherwise finding they're talking about i mean they can talk that until the cows come home but there was no evidence for it okay and then on [01:51:22] Speaker 7: the next month november 24th they talked again the other day um the other day um the other day um is it oh is it a lot i thought you were saying it was like manflix sort of thing is it's a good one um okay okay um uh anytime you come to like it i think you can know this word it's the same kind of thing i always thought that was kind of a very interesting really when that happened [01:53:05] Speaker ?: mm-hmm [01:53:07] Speaker 7: he really is a really smart guy you know like i go in and call him and stuff and then we have to see him so he gets caught up with him you know we haven't dropped out and and i don't know how to do this either when it when it first happened i'm going to talk about it but it's been a long time i feel like i feel like he's like a stereotypical like he's just a prank man with a gun [01:53:29] Speaker 5: yeah exactly okay so here he's now telling his mom to watch videos of james holmes looking for the similarities between cole's mental state and mark and james holmes that's what it appears okay and again the next month on december 5th [01:53:51] Speaker 9: our phone calls are subject to monitoring and recording they have 37.13 thank you for using [01:53:59] Speaker 7: your account we have 37.13 so we walked up we were watching it last night i ended up falling asleep um but i'm going to finish what the part let it stay let me wash it with me no i'm going to put it right it's a birdie's guy seepots the birdie's guy right yes she watched that one um and then like i said after after i'll say i don't know how to re-wash it but did she stay up until like three o'clock in the morning watching all these documentaries about shooters and stuff she watched one on the aurora shooters i mean she watched one on the parkland uh on the cruise uh well i've read a ton about um um especially especially me but i never see the the documentaries i've read a lot of the documentaries and she watched one other one i can't remember what the other one was yeah she literally just got up i mean she's not going to live in college today because she's up the way to watch it up well i honestly i didn't really watch enough i don't feel like to get any additional knowledge other than what i already had but um maybe Mama? Yes? I'll call the big hand, sure, so it's annoying. Well, we didn't put a lot of control in it. I called over there when she found it the documentary. And you said that really, when it was very important, I did teach some things when someone had to talk about it. [01:56:01] Speaker 9: But what did you say to me? Who are my kids? I didn't even write that. [01:56:07] Speaker 7: He said that it was very informative. So it was very informative. So it was very informative. And I thought a few things that were similar to Colt, but not a lot. But that can be. [01:56:23] Speaker 5: Are you aware that man moved his grandmother? That's what I guessed. Now, all of these calls were before any of them talked to you. Right. In fact, you talked to Colt on May 16th. For the first time. For the first time. Of 2025. [01:56:41] Speaker 1: Yeah. [01:56:42] Speaker 5: So, months after the shooting. Right. Okay. And he'd been in ROIs DC the entire time. [01:56:48] Speaker 1: Yes. [01:56:49] Speaker 5: And was being treated by them. [01:56:50] Speaker 1: Yes. [01:56:51] Speaker 5: And Colt is telling you all these symptoms that he has. Right. Psychotic symptoms. Right. And you find out he hasn't told the people that are treating him these things. [01:57:04] Speaker 1: That's what he told me. Yeah. [01:57:06] Speaker 5: Okay. Now, is that telling you one thing, but not having told his treatment providers? Is that a symptom of malingering? [01:57:16] Speaker 1: That's a symptom of malingering. Um, no, because if you're hiding symptoms, that's different than malingering. But, again. [01:57:25] Speaker 5: Well, no, I'm saying malingering to you. Not malingering to them. I'm not saying he's lying to them. [01:57:32] Speaker 1: Let me make sure I understand your question. [01:57:34] Speaker 5: What I'm saying is when he's telling you he's had a psychotic symptom. Right. But he hadn't told anybody treating him for months about it. [01:57:42] Speaker 1: Right. [01:57:43] Speaker 5: Isn't that a symptom that he's malingering to you? [01:57:46] Speaker 1: It's possible. Okay. [01:57:48] Speaker 5: Now, malingering is generally to avoid punishment. Right. [01:57:55] Speaker 1: Or to get something. [01:57:57] Speaker 5: There can be other secondary motivations. Correct. [01:58:01] Speaker ?: Okay. [01:58:02] Speaker 5: And hallucinations and delusions are the most common symptoms to be malingered. Right. Because there's no, like, brain scans for that. [01:58:13] Speaker 1: Right. That's what usually people will try and do. They'll talk about seeing or hearing things or having delusions. [01:58:19] Speaker 5: And were you weary of this possibility? [01:58:22] Speaker 1: Was I weary of it? Oh, yeah. I mean, again, you know, the way that he reported the hallucinations that he said he had was not really consistent with how hallucinations work. Right. And, you know, the idea of schizophrenia or schizoaffective, you never really reported any symptoms consistent with those. And even though Mom used the word mania quite a bit, she never really described a manic episode. So, I mean, they're talking about these things. But this is the thing when people don't really have a particular diagnosis, but then they try and manufacture it, is they don't really know how to do it. Right. You know, and so, you know, I didn't believe that it was hallucinations that caused him to do what he did. I didn't, I believe the paranoia impacted his judgment and his thinking. But again, I didn't, you know, never thought he was even close on insanity. He didn't ever thought he had schizophrenia. I never thought he had bipolar disorder. So if he was trying to convince me he had them, he did a poor job because I didn't see any evidence for it. [01:59:21] Speaker 5: Okay. If that would be the motivation. [01:59:25] Speaker 1: If it would be the motivation. Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, as I said, I think I said in the report that there can be symptoms and exaggeration at the same time. And I think that's what was going on. I think he does exaggerate his symptoms. [01:59:39] Speaker 5: As similar to how he anticipated the crime scene photo of his room getting out, the one where he destroyed his computer like Adam Lanza. Right. He anticipated that getting out. [01:59:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not surprising. Like I said, you know, I'm not saying I think. [01:59:59] Speaker 5: And would it be possible, we talked about that probably being like an Easter egg. Yeah. For other Adam Lanza fans. Sure. Would it be possible that he also anticipated you or someone like you would be testifying at his trial or sentence? [02:00:15] Speaker 1: I'm sure he did. [02:00:16] Speaker 5: And would it be possible that he would like to plant other Easter eggs for people watching on TV and other James Holmes fans to discover? It's possible. [02:00:29] Speaker 1: It's possible. [02:00:30] Speaker ?: Okay. [02:00:33] Speaker 5: Now, you gave him the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Adolescent Division Restructured Form. Correct. And that has validity scales in it. It does. Okay. And the first test, the validity scales test for things like malingering. Yeah. [02:00:49] Speaker 1: Well, they call it under-reporting or over-reporting, but yeah, basically. Okay. [02:00:53] Speaker 5: And the first test suggests a significant over-reporting of symptoms. [02:00:57] Speaker 1: Correct. To the point that it invalidated the test. To the point that it invalidated. Yeah. [02:01:01] Speaker 5: Correct. You're right. And that was on May 16th. You gave him another test nine months later in February of 26th. [02:01:07] Speaker 1: Right. [02:01:08] Speaker 5: And that one still said possible over-reporting. Yep. Which is malingering. [02:01:13] Speaker 1: Not necessarily. The way that we, you know, we talk about malingering is a specific kind of over-reporting. The test can only get to over-reporting. The test doesn't know why you're doing it. [02:01:21] Speaker 5: Okay. So, you look at his psychological or his mental health records from RYDC. Correct. Okay. Now, he was seen for the, his first psychiatrist was Dr. Simone Dupree. That name sounds familiar. [02:01:39] Speaker 1: I don't know her. Okay. I was going to assume it was a woman also, so I'm glad you- [02:01:42] Speaker 5: Yeah, sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I'm glad you did, but it sounds like a woman's name. So, she or Dr. Dupree interviewed or met with Colt on September 10th, 2024. This would have been six days after the shoot. Right. Okay. And she stated that Colt denied suicidal and homicidal ideations as well as psychotic symptoms. Right. And the psychotic symptoms would include hallucinations and delusions. Right. Okay. So, on September 10th, he's denying that. [02:02:18] Speaker 1: Right. Okay. [02:02:20] Speaker 5: And she also puts in her report, patient did not display any remorse for his actions. Okay. [02:02:26] Speaker 3: Okay. [02:02:27] Speaker 5: And he's not put on any medications at that point. [02:02:30] Speaker 3: Right. [02:02:31] Speaker 5: Okay. Now, the next day, September 11th, 2024, he meets with a psychologist, which is Christopher Ackerman. Do you know Christopher Ackerman? [02:02:39] Speaker 1: I don't know him, but that name is familiar. Okay. [02:02:42] Speaker 5: And he says that Colt reports occasional auditory and visual hallucinations. Okay. The last time being three days ago. So, three days prior to September 11th was when he was having auditory and visible hallucinations. Three days ago, but one day ago, he told Dr. Dupree, he has none of those. Right. That's inconsistent, right? Yes, it is. [02:03:11] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:03:12] Speaker ?: Okay. Okay. [02:03:14] Speaker 5: Okay. And then Christopher Ackerman actually puts in his notes that the youth endorses symptoms on malingering screening. And he says malingering of psychosis appears evidence. Okay. Okay. [02:03:30] Speaker ?: Okay. [02:03:31] Speaker 5: Now then, on September 24th of 2024, Dr. Dupree sees him again. And he, she writes that he denied suicidal, homicidal ideations as well as psychotic symptoms. So now he's back to denying them again. Right. I don't see or hear things. And she writes, currently there are no symptoms for me to intervene pharmacologically. Right. Pharmacologically. And gives him no medication. Right. Okay. The next month, he says, Dr. Dupree sees him again. This is October 22nd. I hear, now he's saying, I hear voices telling me to see what you have done. It's all your fault. At times I see black shadows. And she knows that the patient's mother will be contacted regarding symptoms reported. No medication. So, this is on October 22nd. Right. He tells the doctor that he hears voices. This is the first time he's told his doctor that. Sounds like, yeah. And she says, I'm going to contact. Mom and tell them about her about this. That's on October 22nd. Okay. Now, the phone calls between Marcy and Colt were three days later, October 25th and October 26th, discussing not guilty by reason. Right. Right. So, the first time he tells his doctor, I'm hearing voices. I'm seeing things. Three days later, he's on the phone with his mom, talking about getting not guilty by reason of sanity. Right. [02:05:14] Speaker ?: Okay. Okay. Okay. On November 12th. [02:05:18] Speaker 5: So, the next month, Dr. Priest sees him again. He says, something happened yesterday. I felt that everything was muffled. I felt that I was like in a tunnel. Heard whiskers berating me. But he denied psychotic symptoms. And she writes, youth endorses symptoms on malingering screening. What's that last word? Malingering screening. Screening. Oh, screening. I'm sorry. I got a test. [02:05:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't hear a lot of times. [02:05:51] Speaker 5: They gave him a test to test malingering. Yeah. And he indicated they had symptoms of that. Okay. And still don't give him any medication. Okay. [02:05:59] Speaker ?: Okay. Okay. [02:06:01] Speaker 5: Okay. The next month, the next month is December 9th. Dr. Dupree meets with him again. And he tells her, I see frogs in my room, Tuesdays and Wednesdays mostly. I close my eyes and they disappear. They don't come on other days. And she writes, one does not hallucinate on specific days and be free from them on other days. [02:06:34] Speaker ?: Right. [02:06:35] Speaker 1: That's a good example. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good example of someone that doesn't know how hallucinations work. [02:06:42] Speaker 5: Right. So he's lying to Dr. Dupree about hallucinations. [02:06:44] Speaker 1: Sounds like it. Yeah. And again, I feel like I need to be coming back. I was clear in my report. I think he makes things up. Right. I think there's some level of paranoia. But then some of the more outlandish stuff, I never really believed. So, you know, the thing about the, you know, some of the things that he said he was hallucinating and some of the magnitude of the psychotic symptoms, I didn't think were actually genuine. And I didn't think they were the reason that the way that he explained it to investigator Smith, you know, it was because of voices and I never thought that was the reason. [02:07:16] Speaker 5: Now, January 6th, they meet, still no medication. Right. February 4th, they meet, still no medication because he's not telling them things for them to medicate them. Correct? Right. Okay. Well, February 5th, he's actually, of 2025, he's actually transferred back to Christopher Ackerman, the psychologist, because they're not using medication. Okay. Okay. They actually say transferred to him as patient because he's not prescribed meds. And youth is stable, doing well behaviorally and emotionally. [02:07:47] Speaker 6: Right. [02:07:48] Speaker 5: Then on April 11th, Colt claims to Dr. Ackerman that he claims to smell gunpowder and see shadows in his peripheral vision occasionally. And Dr. Ackerman says that the youth endorsed a high number of malingering items on Sears, S-I-R-S, a few months ago. And that's the structured interview of reported symptoms test. Correct. Okay. And that's another test for malingering. [02:08:24] Speaker 1: That is, yeah, that's exactly what that test is for. [02:08:27] Speaker 5: And he, he has no medications. Right. [02:08:31] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:08:32] Speaker 5: And that's on April 11th. You then meet with him on May 16th for your first interview. Yes. [02:08:38] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:08:39] Speaker 5: Twelve days later on May 28th, that's when he goes to Christopher Ackerman and reports increased anxiety would like to be considered for possible med referral. So he, after he's met with you, he then goes like you told him to. Right. Goes to Dr. Ackerman and says that he has increased anxiety. [02:09:03] Speaker ?: Right. [02:09:04] Speaker 1: Right. I think that's something he actually did have. [02:09:07] Speaker 5: Right. But Christopher Ackerman, Dr. Ackerman says that his speech was normal tone rate. His thoughtful process was clear and goal directed. Right. He did not appear visibly distressed. Okay. He put it in his notes. [02:09:20] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:09:21] Speaker 5: No psychomotor agitation effect was neutral, calm. [02:09:25] Speaker 1: Right. [02:09:26] Speaker 5: So he's saying, the child's telling me this anxiety stuff, but I'm not seeing any physical manifestations of it. [02:09:35] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:09:36] Speaker 5: And then he goes on to say, exacerbation of anxiety systems. He believes he needs medication to help cope with since he's overwhelmed. Right. But again, no medications. Okay. [02:09:48] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:09:49] Speaker 5: Then you meet with him again on June 19th for two hours. [02:10:01] Speaker 1: Sounds right. [02:10:02] Speaker 5: Okay. [02:10:03] Speaker ?: Okay. [02:10:04] Speaker 5: So a few weeks after that. Right. And then in July 16th to 25th, he said when he meets with Dr. Ackerman again, and now he says, patient does not appear distressed, but complains of persisting anxiety and recent depression. So again, the doctor's pointing out in his notes that the kid is telling me one thing, but he's not showing manifestations of those things. Yeah. [02:10:34] Speaker 1: I'm not sure what he was looking for. I mean, a lot of people that tell you they're depressed or anxious don't look acutely depressed or anxious when you're speaking with them. Okay. But you know, that is what it is. I mean, the anxiety and depression and things that I think were there, he comes across as kind of, or did with me, at least as kind of flat most of the time anyway. Okay. But that's, you know, okay, that's what, you know, I'm not, I wasn't there. Right. So that's what he observed. [02:10:58] Speaker 5: And then he says in there that the cult endorses delusions but suspect malingering. Right. So again, they don't believe what cult's telling them. Right. [02:11:11] Speaker 3: Right, right, right. [02:11:12] Speaker 5: So now he goes to another psychiatrist. So he leaves Dr. Ackerman, the psychologist, and goes to Dr. James Freeman, who's a psychiatrist. Right. Do you know Dr. Freeman? [02:11:25] Speaker 1: I don't know Dr. Freeman, but I recognize his name from. [02:11:29] Speaker 5: Okay. Okay. And he says youth notes, mood swings, anger issues, some paranoia, but notes. [02:11:37] Speaker ?: FB. [02:11:38] Speaker 5: I don't know what that means. FB slash NM of incident. Flashbacks. [02:11:46] Speaker 1: What's the other one? NM. [02:11:48] Speaker 5: Anyway, of incident that led to his being detained. So now I'm getting flashbacks of the shooting. Some paranoid ideation, possible, maybe anxiety rather than psychosis. And then he writes, there's a history of probable malingering. [02:12:12] Speaker 7: Right. [02:12:13] Speaker 1: Right. [02:12:18] Speaker 5: Then in October of that year, October 1st, he meets with Dr. Freeman again. Patient now states he sees a figure. However, effect is euthymic. Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah. [02:12:31] Speaker 1: Uh, euthymic just means like normal mood. [02:12:33] Speaker 5: Like calm. [02:12:34] Speaker 1: Yeah. People of normal like you and I right now talking to one another. [02:12:38] Speaker 5: So. So he says patient now states he hears and sees a figure. However, he's calm when claiming this. [02:12:45] Speaker 1: Right. [02:12:46] Speaker 5: Okay. Suspect some malingering. [02:12:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think people can be calm and report hallucinations, but I think they were responding more to what the content he was claiming to see because those don't sound like real hallucinations. [02:12:59] Speaker 5: Yeah. And then two weeks later, they meet again October 15th. He says some continued issues, a bit vague on symptoms. And being vague on symptoms is a side of malingering also. It can be. [02:13:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be. Well, um, with. And again, you know, the mistake people make most of the time when they try and malinger is that they don't really know how the disorder they're trying to malinger works. So they don't do it. [02:13:22] Speaker ?: Right. [02:13:22] Speaker 1: So they don't do it. Right. [02:13:24] Speaker ?: Um. Um. [02:13:26] Speaker 5: On December 4th, 2025, Hugh states, he hears and sees his father. Mm-hmm. Some other AV hallucinations as well, though less defined. And then he puts significant degree of embellishing symptoms likely. Yep. In fact, the doctor actually put embellishing symptoms in all caps. Right. [02:14:05] Speaker ?: I saw. [02:14:06] Speaker 1: Well, I saw that a few places in the records. That'd be significant, wouldn't it? [02:14:09] Speaker 5: That they put it some, some words in all caps. I suppose. [02:14:12] Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. [02:14:14] Speaker ?: Yeah. [02:14:15] Speaker 1: I mean, I think he was right. So. [02:14:21] Speaker 5: Again, on December 29th, two weeks later, again, Dr. Freeman likely embellishing annual malingering of psychotic symptoms. Right. Keeps trucking on through the next year. We're now into 2026. Um. Again, now this is March 14th, 2026 with Dr. Freeman. Mm-hmm. Um. At this point, he's, he says when event briefly discussed, so I guess they're talking about the shooting. [02:14:54] Speaker 1: That would be my guess. [02:14:55] Speaker 5: When event briefly discussed, youth did not express remorse or seem emotional. And then he wrote, if 18 would likely meet criteria for anti-social personality disorder. [02:15:12] Speaker ?: Yeah. [02:15:13] Speaker 1: I'm not sure I agree with that. I mean, malingering doesn't make you any social, but, um. [02:15:19] Speaker ?: But okay. [02:15:20] Speaker 5: I don't think he's saying it's because he's malingering. He just said that 18 would likely meet criteria for . Yeah. [02:15:26] Speaker 1: I'm not sure where he's getting that, but okay. [02:15:27] Speaker 5: And I think you touched on it earlier with personality disorders, they're too young at that age to actually diagnose with somebody. [02:15:34] Speaker 1: Right, right, right. Because the personality is not really finished. You know, it's not all the way done yet. [02:15:39] Speaker 5: But apparently Dr. Freeman is seeing signs of that at this age, but can't diagnose him because he's not 18 yet. That's what he's saying. [02:15:45] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what I, that's what I believe he's saying is that he, I think he's saying if he was older, he would diagnose him with that. [02:15:51] Speaker 5: And someone with antisocial personality disorder is also higher risk for malingering, correct? Correct. [02:15:57] Speaker 3: Okay. [02:16:05] Speaker 5: Now, other signs of malingering. So now we have both of your scales say malingering and all three of his treating physicians believe he was malingering. Okay. Other signs of malingering are just inconsistencies and contradictions, correct? Can be. Okay. When you interview, when you watch Colt's interviews from the day of the shooting, did you check them for signs of malingering? [02:16:32] Speaker 1: Did I check them for signs of malingering? Yeah. A lot of the stuff didn't seem, again, I keep coming back to the idea that, you know, I know that's what he said on the day of the shooting, but that didn't, the way he was talking about psychosis and schizophrenia is like not how they work. [02:16:50] Speaker ?: Okay. [02:16:50] Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And so, um, I've never thought he did the shooting because he was hallucinating things. And so if he was telling investigators Smith that, then that was, I don't think that was true. Okay. [02:17:05] Speaker 5: Now, one of the things he said, he tells the investigators that his dad had hid the gun from him. [02:17:18] Speaker 1: Right. Okay. [02:17:20] Speaker 5: Now, this is the interview he gave at the school. Right. And are you aware of the timeframe of that interview through when the actual shooting happened? [02:17:30] Speaker 1: I think the first one happened like in a classroom in a school. And then the next one was, I think it was later that day at CID. Like this is like 30 some odd minutes after the shooting. The first, the one where he was all hysterical. Yeah. That was in a classroom. And my impression was that it actually started. The way it sounded is that it started in the hall and then moved into a classroom. Right. [02:17:52] Speaker 5: But this is after he's been arrested and he's giving that first interview. [02:17:56] Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Like right immediately after everything happened. [02:17:59] Speaker 5: Play a clip from that. Okay. I heard yesterday. Your Honor, this is going to be the clip from the Apalachee at the school. And it's from 6:09 to 6:26. Thank you. [02:18:09] Speaker 10: I told him to hide his guns and he did, but I don't know if I found him. Your dad hid the guns? Yes. I was going to, you already ordered a gun safe. I mean it's one of those situations where like Ethan was like oblivious. [02:18:27] Speaker 5: Now this is 6 minutes into that interview. Right. And a lot of the interviews I'm reading it was right. So this is early on in the what happened. Right, right, right. Okay. And Colt volunteers that my, I told my dad to hide my, hide the guns and he did. [02:18:44] Speaker 1: That's what he said. [02:18:46] Speaker 5: And that's without being questioned on it. Right. He volunteered that. [02:18:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was spontaneous. I don't think anybody understood. [02:18:53] Speaker 5: At the onset. [02:18:54] Speaker 1: Right. [02:18:55] Speaker 5: Sure. In your review of the materials that we sent about the case, were you aware that that's not true? Oh yeah. [02:19:03] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:19:04] Speaker 5: So in the emotion, with him crying, right then and there, he has the ability to make up a complete lie to this officer. [02:19:18] Speaker 1: About where the gun was. Yeah. [02:19:20] Speaker 5: Okay. The father did not hide the guns. Yeah. In fact, he testified at trial and growth that he did not hide the guns. [02:19:26] Speaker 1: No. No, it was in Colt's room. [02:19:28] Speaker 5: In fact, Colt goes into pretty elaborate steps to describe what he went through to get the guns. We'll play a couple more clips. Your Honor, the first one was at 1745 to 1854. Okay. So you said you looked for a while for the gun today? Yes, sir. He hit it. That's what I'm trying to say. [02:19:44] Speaker 11: It wasn't his fault. [02:19:45] Speaker 10: Where did he normally keep it? In his room. Do you know where in his room? I think it was a closet. But when I found it, I think it was in his toolbox. I can't remember. He definitely tried his hardest. I know he did. Okay. But you told your dad. When did you tell your dad to move him? You said it was months ago? It was like a month ago. I definitely was playing this off for so long. I don't remember. I don't remember. When did you tell your dad to move him, you said it was months ago? It was like a month ago. I definitely was playing this off for so long. I think it was a month ago. It was like a month ago. I definitely was playing this off for so long. I think it was a month ago. Oh my God. This is so dramatic. I don't remember. I'm so sorry. And you said you think it was in his toolbox? I think it was, yes. It was somewhere really well hidden. Okay. Where is his toolbox? In his truck. Any of you know like trucks they have? Okay. So you found it in his truck? So it's either a truck in his truck toolbox or a truck toolbox or a truck toolbox. In his truck? [02:20:25] Speaker ?: In his truck? [02:20:25] Speaker 10: In his truck? Yes, sir. When did you get the gun? I got it like right before I left. So he's saying that it was a gun. I think it was a gun. I think it was, yes. It was somewhere really well hidden. Okay. Where is his toolbox? In his truck? In his truck. Any of you know like trucks they have? Okay. So you found it in his truck? It was either a truck in his truck toolbox or some kind of case that he had locked up. In his truck? Yes, sir. When did you get the gun? I got it like right before I left. So he's saying that it was a gun. [02:20:52] Speaker 5: So he's saying that it was in his dad's truck and he got it right before I left. Right. And this is immediately after his first interview. [02:21:04] Speaker 1: Yeah. It seemed like he was trying to protect his dad. [02:21:06] Speaker 5: Yeah. And then, but we know that's not true, right? Right. Because the dad actually left in the truck before a hole came out. [02:21:14] Speaker 1: Right. So that's physically impossible. That wouldn't have worked. That would have worked. It was. [02:21:19] Speaker 5: I mean it wasn't true, so. By the time he gets to the second interview later that day. Right. [02:21:24] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:21:25] Speaker 5: And he gets a different version to them. Right. And this is going to be the interview at the CID, Your Honor. And that's going to be from 3610 to 3753. [02:21:35] Speaker 11: Cool. All right. So we're talking about Graves and Max. The gun was in a box. Yes, sir. Covered in clothes. He had some clothes over it, which I guess was another, like, you know, last resort, like, to hide it. All right. So that's my next question. To you, is that hidden? Or is that somewhere where you know you don't like it? [02:21:55] Speaker 8: No, that's hidden. I looked for it for a good while. Like, that was a really good, like, that's not him just half-assed and like, oh, you know, I'm going to hide this. Like, he knew by, like, you know, at this point, like, something was definitely very often. He was going to get the help that I needed. Does he go to work before you go to school or something? Yes, sir. All right. So when you're going to school, you're alone? Yes, sir. What time did you get up this morning? I didn't get up this morning. I've been away with them. Oh, so you just stayed a while. Okay. It was just, that was, most of that just stemmed from the sheer, like, fight of just trying to fight off this urge and it was bad. So, once your dad left for work, is that when you started looking for the gun? Yes, sir. What other, I guess, preparations did you make? That was pretty much about, I remember, I remember just grabbing that, grabbing whatever thing I saw that could somehow conceal it, you know, which at that point was just horrible because, like, somebody was thinking along those lines, which I, in this case, I'm assuming was paper, from what I, from what I can recall biblically, paper, poster maybe, it was wrapped around it. Where'd you get the poster from? Uh, I think it was just lying around. It had, like, pink stuff on it. Yeah, it's just in my house. I just picked it up. Is it something your sister made? Uh, I don't know. I didn't look at it. I just wrapped it around because the outside was white. Oh, no. I didn't. I didn't look at it. I just wrapped it around because the outside was white. Oh, no. I did. He did that. [02:23:17] Speaker 5: Yeah. So, now he's changing it from, you realize, now it's inside the house. Right. Hidden under clothes. Right. So, the day of the shooting, immediately after, he's not being forthcoming about it. He's lying. Right. [02:23:37] Speaker 1: Like I said, I think he was trying to protect his dad because he never represented anything to me other than that he was always in possession of it. Okay. It was a different story than what he told the investigator. [02:23:47] Speaker 5: Now, Colt told you, we talked about this, um, about the computers, destroying his computer. Right. And he told you that government agencies were surveilling it. [02:24:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what he thought. Okay. Suspective. [02:24:07] Speaker 5: Well, it wasn't all of what he was like, man. Sorry about that. Um, but he told investigators that the teachers had somehow gotten into his computer. [02:24:18] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:24:19] Speaker 5: He made no mention of government agencies. No, he didn't. No. Okay. Um, go ahead and play the clip at the bottom of the page. All right. This is going to be the interview at the, um, investigations 432 to 547. [02:24:42] Speaker 11: You've, uh, you know, in the four or five discord accounts that you've added. Do you have any other social media? [02:24:50] Speaker 8: Uh, nothing I know of. You don't have a Facebook account? No. Like, as far as like chat, social media, no. I've never, I've never used those. Okay. No, Instagram, Snapchat. Any account that I've had previously, it's probably wiped million. Okay. But not recently, no. Why do you, why did you wipe and delete your accounts? Uh, I'm talking like months ago. Like, and honestly, I don't know. I mean, that's just a habit. I mean, that's like, you know, making new emails. Like, thinking. How many different emails do you think you've had? Uh, you can only, it's only limited for a phone number, so like six. Okay. What's your current email address? Um, I have three, I think. You think you know us? Yeah. [02:25:31] Speaker 11: What are your three email addresses? [02:25:34] Speaker 8: Um, they're at Gmail, but I know two of them I can't remember, but I know the other one was more like a burner. Um, I think it was a declivity decentralized, and I can't remember the set of numbers. Okay. Declivity? [02:25:49] Speaker ?: Yeah. [02:25:50] Speaker 9: What does that mean? Declivity? Yeah. [02:25:53] Speaker 8: What does that mean? I don't know. It just goes like really unique words. [02:26:00] Speaker 5: So, you said that Colt told you that the reason he changed his passwords and usernames frequently was because of government surveillance. [02:26:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, or somebody tracking him. Yeah. [02:26:14] Speaker 5: Do you use that as another example of him having delusions? Yeah. [02:26:19] Speaker 1: I think he was paranoid. Yeah. [02:26:21] Speaker 5: But that's not what he told them is why he did it. He told them it's just a habit he does. It's like changing his emails. Okay. In fact, all the time, all his delusions with the investigators was that it was students and teachers out to get him. He never mentions the government at all. [02:26:43] Speaker 1: No, the government, again, was to do with the, again, speculating, because I even asked him, like, why would the government want to track you? And he said he didn't know. And he talked about students and teachers as well. And that's what he talked to Mandy about, and I guess his mom, too. So. [02:26:59] Speaker 5: But in over three hours of interviews with the investigators, he never mentions the government. He always mentions teachers and students. Okay. And it's not until he talks to you that the government comes in. Okay. [02:27:12] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:27:13] Speaker 5: And he told you the FBI was following him? Yeah. Did you know that James Holmes also said the FBI was following him? [02:27:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't believe the FBI was following him, but it doesn't surprise me that James Holmes would say something like that. [02:27:26] Speaker 5: Right. And it was in the video that Cole had watched. Right. [02:27:30] Speaker 1: Yeah. [02:27:31] Speaker 5: So now, with you, the person he anticipates will probably testify. Right. He is saying something similar to what James Holmes said. Right. He's planning another Easter egg. [02:27:43] Speaker ?: I suppose so. [02:27:43] Speaker 5: Now, Cole told investigators he was wearing purple gloves. Right. Okay. [02:27:46] Speaker 1: Are you aware that that's not true? I only saw a little. [02:27:48] Speaker ?: You may not because I don't know. Yeah. [02:27:50] Speaker 5: I only saw a tiny clip, and it was when he was being arrested, so I didn't know whether that [02:27:54] Speaker 1: was true or not. [02:27:55] Speaker ?: Okay. [02:27:56] Speaker 5: Well, let's play the clip. I remember him saying it when he was talking to the investigator, but I didn't have any. [02:28:01] Speaker 1: I didn't have any. [02:28:02] Speaker ?: I didn't know. [02:28:02] Speaker 1: Right. You are. This is from the one at the school, and it's 2447 to 2521. That's literally the bathroom. I guess I would assume I just got ready. [02:28:09] Speaker 5: I don't know. Help me understand how you got ready. [02:28:11] Speaker 1: I only saw a little. I only saw a little. You may not because I don't know. Yeah. [02:28:15] Speaker 5: I only saw a tiny clip, and it was when he was being arrested, so I didn't know whether that was true or not. Okay. Well, let's play the clip. I remember him saying it when he was talking to the investigator, but I didn't have any. I didn't know. [02:28:22] Speaker 10: Right. You are. This is from the one at the school, and it's 2447 to 2521. What if I just got ready? I don't know. [02:28:28] Speaker 11: Help me understand how you got ready. [02:28:31] Speaker 10: I guess just putting gloves on. Okay. [02:28:34] Speaker 11: So you put gloves on. What kind of gloves did you put on? [02:28:36] Speaker 10: I think they're out there. They're, I don't know. I think they're purple. I can't remember. Like the little rubber ones? Like the little thin ones? No, I don't. I think so. Maybe. I think they were purplish, like purplish. They were fully purplish, I know. Okay. So you put gloves on. [02:28:56] Speaker 5: Okay. So Colt tells them four times he uses the word purple. [02:29:01] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. [02:29:02] Speaker 5: Okay. They were actually just the standard yellowish tan work gloves. Okay. Okay. Just your generic work gloves. Okay. [02:29:12] Speaker 1: Yeah. [02:29:13] Speaker 5: Does purple sound distinctive to you? [02:29:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like the gloves that EMTs use. Yeah. [02:29:20] Speaker 5: And he was insistent that it was purple. Right. It was not true. [02:29:24] Speaker 1: Not true. [02:29:25] Speaker 5: Okay. Did you know that Kyle Rittenhouse wore purple gloves? [02:29:31] Speaker 1: Uh, no. Do you know Kyle Rittenhouse is? [02:29:33] Speaker 5: I do. [02:29:34] Speaker 1: That never came up in my conversations, and I didn't see it in any of the discourse, but I'm aware of who that is. You know that Colt also researched Kyle Rittenhouse. [02:29:42] Speaker 5: I did not. Okay. And then when he's telling these investigators something that's not true. Mm-hmm. [02:29:50] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. [02:29:51] Speaker 5: It's another Easter egg for being in the Polynesian house, you see. Eventually, yeah. [02:29:57] Speaker 1: Okay. [02:29:58] Speaker 5: Did you talk to him about last September 4th? [02:30:08] Speaker 7: No. [02:30:09] Speaker 5: Did you hear on his interview why he told the investigators September 4th? [02:30:21] Speaker 1: I don't remember. [02:30:22] Speaker 5: I don't remember. Okay. Do you remember him telling them it was because voices were telling him that the teachers were going to strike on that day or the next? That sounds about right. [02:30:33] Speaker 1: He told me when he went to the school he believed something was going to happen that day. Okay. But it wasn't – he didn't tell it to me the same way he told it to the investigators. He just said he had a feeling something was going to happen. [02:30:45] Speaker 5: So he had to do it that day because he thought something was happening that day? [02:30:50] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, when he talked to me and then when I read the Discord messages, the way he represented it to me was that he believed something was going to happen at the school that day. I was not as clear at how focused he was on the 4th until I saw the messages with Mandy. [02:31:06] Speaker 5: Right. Yeah. So his version, it almost sounded like a preemptive self-defense against these voices that were going to do something. [02:31:15] Speaker 1: Potentially. Although it was clear he was – I mean, it was clear from the messages with Mandy that said he was going to do something on September 4th, but he never said what it was. Okay. [02:31:25] Speaker 5: Yeah. Did you look at the Discord to see what his actual notifications were on September 4th? [02:31:32] Speaker 1: For that specific date? Mm-hmm. I didn't know that there was any specific significance to that date. I mean, I think, again, you know, my formulation for how the whole thing happened was this obsession and getting lost in the true crime community and all of the things that get you cred and get you, you know, noticed in that group and, you know, kind of just disappearing into that subculture where different things are valued. I mean, I never thought it was because of psychosis, but – Okay. [02:32:01] Speaker 5: So let's go to the Discord. This is going to be the occasional burner. Okay. Discord account. This is going to be page 32. Okay. And Colt's occasional burner, Mandy's Mandy, says – Colt says, also said to number 4th, can you be awake like at around 8:30-ish, 9-ish in the morning? Right. Right. Right. And this is August 31st. [02:32:27] Speaker ?: Right. [02:32:28] Speaker 1: I mean, he clearly knows he's going to do something on the 4th. Yeah. I mean, in retrospect now, we could – Five days. Right. [02:32:34] Speaker 5: Five days before. Sure. And she says, what's happening on the 4th? Right. He says, I don't know. Right. Something I have for Nick. [02:32:42] Speaker 3: Right. [02:32:43] Speaker 5: That's not anything about voices, teachers, students out to get me. It is something I have for Nick. Right. [02:32:54] Speaker 1: I think that's – [02:32:55] Speaker 5: That's his motivation. Right. [02:32:57] Speaker 1: Five days before. [02:32:58] Speaker ?: Right. [02:32:59] Speaker 1: Okay. Moving on. I think that's probably right. [02:33:03] Speaker 5: So on the next one, this is going to be page 33, Your Honor. So they're upset because they've made the end. Colt has sent messages to Nick and he's not responding. Yeah. And they're upset about it. Right. So, like, how the fuck are they not responding? Like, that's just a slow-ass company saying how – whatever those words are. Something better to do. Because, like, if I'm in prison, I'm writing back every single one of them. Right. And then the next thing he says is, I'll fix this. All of this. Just give me a few days. Right. How? I'll surprise you. And in the bottom of that page, he says, "Sorry, I've seen distance. I've had to clean up a few things before it is indeed approaching quickly." Right. He's upset that Nick Cruz is not responding to him. Right. And he's upset too. And he says, "I'll fix this." Right. In a couple of days. [02:34:06] Speaker 1: Right. [02:34:07] Speaker 5: And then on page 34, he says, "Again, this is September 2nd, so now we're two days out. Mandy, I can't wait. Three days, Nick is going to be in love with us." Surprise! LMKA, laughing my something ass off. [02:34:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what the K is for. [02:34:38] Speaker 5: So, again, this is so Nick will be in love with him. Right. No mention about people at the school conspiring against them. Teachers are going to give them all that day. It is all to get Nick Cruz's attention. [02:34:53] Speaker 1: Right. You and I have been agreeing about this for about an hour and a half. Yes, sir. Okay. [02:34:58] Speaker 5: I'm just saying. [02:34:59] Speaker 1: I'm just piling on. [02:35:00] Speaker 5: I know. [02:35:01] Speaker 1: You are. I get that. But I'm just saying, you realize we're agreeing over and over and over again. Absolutely. Okay. [02:35:06] Speaker 5: Page 36. My love for Nick has formed into something in which I can find no other resort that can prove my love and affection towards him. I mean, that's pretty much it right there, isn't it? [02:35:21] Speaker 3: Yep. [02:35:22] Speaker ?: But by the 4th. Let's go to page 40. [02:35:23] Speaker 5: Mandy says, also, I don't mean to pry, but why did you pick September 4th to do something? And he says, for Nick chose the 14th. [02:35:33] Speaker ?: Because the shooting department was on February 14th. Okay. I vaguely remember that. And then on page 41. [02:35:33] Speaker 5: he says also i don't mean to pry but why did you pick september 4th to do something and he says four nick chose the 14th because shooting apartment was on february 14th okay i vaguely remember that and then on page 41 he says he showed a clip of it's like running he says me as running away from the police on the 4th and she said he says fun fact september 4th is a wednesday same weekday that was on february 14th right the day nick cruz did it did you remember colt telling investigators that he called a suicide hotline in the bathroom immediately before the shooting i don't remember that you wouldn't know this i don't think you do did you get copied his phone records i don't i don't think i did there was some there was some texts [02:37:02] Speaker 1: that were encrypted and then the discord but i don't know if i have the phone records and even if you did [02:37:09] Speaker 5: those things are so voluminous they're hard to read yeah just to let you know you know that that's a [02:37:15] Speaker 1: lot he never called the suicide hotline yeah he never told me he did so i didn't remember right i never i didn't remember he told investigators that but i have no reason to doubt that he did if you say [02:37:26] Speaker 5: he did did you know that james holmes did that no no he went out to his car right before he came back into the he went into the theater then went back out to his car to get ready and go back in and while he was out there he called a suicide hotline did you know that no okay did you know that colt did know that i'm sure he did just pull up your honor this is not going to be the same discord page 24 so he says he's talking about james holmes dude toward the bottom dude he's like the forgotten mass shooter he called a hotline right before he did it too okay so colt knows that about james holmes yeah that's surprising when colt is being interviewed by the investigators the day of the shooting he has the mental wherewithal to lie tell him tell them he did the same thing james holmes did that he actually didn't do right again another easter egg for fans of james holmes to discover yeah i mean it seems that [02:38:45] Speaker 1: again since i didn't go down that rabbit hole i mean i wouldn't have known these things but um the way that you're framing and characterizing it i mean it makes sense and it makes sense with what you know [02:38:56] Speaker 5: about the tcc community is oh yeah absolutely we'll talk about that a little bit more yeah i'm gonna go through a few more of these things okay um now colt told investigators he blacked out the actual [02:39:06] Speaker 1: shooting right okay did he tell you that i don't recall specifically i mean people do when they do something like that it's not unusual for their memory to be spotty about it but i don't remember him specifically telling me he blacked out okay because you made no mention of it in your report yeah i don't think i put too much detail about what he told me about the actual shooting [02:39:32] Speaker 5: that doesn't seem to be a big deal about if he blacked out or not when you're talking about his mental state [02:39:40] Speaker 1: again i've talked talked to lots of people who've done terrible things and it's not unusual for them to say that they blacked out or don't remember parts of it so if he had told me that i would not find that to be inconsistent or particularly noteworthy okay so you don't think it's not worthy it wouldn't have been it wouldn't have been surprising again because it's not uncommon for people who have done things that are problematic like this to uh not remember pieces of it so if he had said that i wouldn't [02:40:13] Speaker 5: have put too much into it okay now when he describes it he uses some strange words for a 14-year-old right i want to play this is um this is going to be at the school 8 11 to 8 27. okay [02:40:34] Speaker 10: where's the uh where's the bathroom that you your book bag i think it's down there i just like i i completely just became decentralized through all of it i completely just became decentralized through all [02:40:52] Speaker 1: of it yeah that's a strange word it's an odd word to use yeah um did you know he used that word before [02:41:00] Speaker 5: i was not aware of that um in fact he tells investigators that his email is decentralized [02:41:09] Speaker 1: declivity right i didn't remember that yeah or declivity decentralized i think it was the other way around but so they asked him what declivity meant and he said he didn't know he's he said he blacked out [02:41:23] Speaker 5: during the shooting he uses the word decentralized right but he had to wear with all of the forethought to before the shooting ever happened to make an email account with that same word in it yes it's almost like he's can predict the future uh and by not i'm not creating the shooting because we know he's playing [02:41:41] Speaker 1: that right predicting the blacking out part potentially you know again um yeah i mean i i don't know if he [02:41:50] Speaker 5: knows what the word means but i think he goes on throughout his interviews and says phrases transformed into a state of psychosis right says that twice yeah um almost a blackout state of mania of psychosis he says that once right that's not a thing then one time he says like so psychosis state of blackout because that's an actual thing that people can have sounds kind of pretty thought out doesn't it [02:42:18] Speaker 1: yeah yeah i mean he's clearly there's no question that he's researched mental disorders but but it [02:42:24] Speaker 5: seems like he already has those things ready to say yeah yeah but again you know whatever the blackout [02:42:32] Speaker 1: mania psychosis i mean that's not a term i would ever use so i'm not sure what he was referring to but but but you're right i mean it seems as though that was teed up yeah and again [02:42:46] Speaker 5: that's the same thing that cruz said when he was arrested we've already shown that discord okay so he's now setting up the blackout man cruz easter egg right to do right after yeah yeah and you know [02:43:02] Speaker 1: again since i didn't go down the rabbit hole with them this is it's interesting to think that i think you're probably right um and again not surprising the way that he was had disappeared into this true crime community it seems like something somebody would do yeah um so you do know the basic synopsis [02:43:23] Speaker 5: of the shooting he's in the bathroom right he comes out of the bathroom goes to the one door it's locked he goes to the next door goes in shoots the room runs back down the hallway shoots people going down the hallway and he's arrested at the end of the hallway right um law enforcement had put together a [02:43:43] Speaker 1: powerpoint okay timelines it was really helpful for me to kind of orient i didn't realize how quickly it all [02:43:49] Speaker 5: went down until i watched that and he tells investigators that he was in the bathroom he blacks out and he comes to he's on the floor in custody right he doesn't remember anything in the middle right that's what describes them right but that's not what he says on jail calls the next month with his mom and this is going to be on october 21st 8 24 p.m from 10 minute 10 seconds 12 minute 14 seconds [02:44:28] Speaker 7: very cool uh from adc news do you want me to read this um in the second incident that unfolded on september 4th cold parade accused the students and two students and two teachers um by the way why the gdi talked about a court-owned state detailing surveillance techniques that revealed great unstuckling tactics as you could feel a long that i would have to do with an approach to review a long time ago uh um the gdi agent recounted that on the morning of this season called gray red to breast with a weapon hidden from deep after arriving at school he was starting to have a notebook on his mask desk that outlined the plans for the shooting just like he said with it including estimated special females and stretching with the classroom layout So apparently they talked about how you lift that notebook out on your desk. So that's crazy when any time you were just putting it out there and everybody was just talking about what you did, do you think? Yeah. And the rest of the stuff in there was just talking about the sitting part. Okay, well that's what I can account for. It's one of the first thing I put me left here. It seems to me he now has pretty clear memory of what happened. [02:46:36] Speaker 5: Right. Okay. There's another call the next month on November 11th. This is 8:25 PM from 8:53 to 9:46. [02:46:45] Speaker 7: You want me to do the post first? Yeah. There's a bunch. Yeah. There's an article, yeah. There's an article. Okay. [02:46:54] Speaker ?: Thank you. [02:46:55] Speaker 7: He's going to do stay again? [02:46:58] Speaker ?: Yeah. [02:46:59] Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Okay. The first one. Do you want to step in? I'll step in here. I'll step in here. I'll come up. it says the Appalachian survivor recounts the moment that shooting suspects came banging strangely on the classroom door. What? Damn, that's bullshit. What? What? Ashlandosa. You know, you heard the word called me Ashland. No, but I did not, I know for sure I didn't bang on that fucking door. That was probably the gunshots in the other room. Got it. [02:47:39] Speaker 5: Again, he does have memory of that. He did not black it. [02:47:47] Speaker 1: Right, he never represented to me that he had blacked out. When we discussed the incident, there was never any indication that he didn't remember. No, he told investigators that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just pointing out that that's not what I got. [02:48:04] Speaker 5: And it's gray for Nick Cruz fans. [02:48:05] Speaker 1: Sure. [02:48:06] Speaker 5: It seems like. [02:48:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. [02:48:08] Speaker 5: So we talked. Let's go into the TCC a little bit. Sure. If you're familiar with it, heard about it from Colt. Can he tell you about it? [02:48:17] Speaker 1: He, I mean, yeah, he told me about his involvement in it. And then I did a little poking around. I was gonna say you also looked into it. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to know something about it. What did you look at? I knew some things online. CNN did a thing about it recently. I watched that. There was actually an article, I think, that the state provided. The one about Peter Smith? Yeah, that one. So that was interesting. And then just kind of poking around online, trying to find out what I could about what this was. [02:48:46] Speaker 5: So it basically helped me help the judge understand it's an internet subculture? [02:48:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a group, mostly teenagers and young adults, who are obsessed with these school shooters to the point that it becomes, I mean, obsessed is the best word, but it becomes kind of all engrossing. Being, you know, even sexualized at times, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty disturbing. [02:49:17] Speaker 5: What are some of the activities that these? [02:49:20] Speaker 1: They do a lot of research. They do a lot of trying to find information and media that have to do, you can obtain a certain level of credibility by having information other people don't have. The people in the community tend to focus on one or another person. Sometimes they'll shift like Colt did. And then, you know, he was speaking with Caitlin. Caitlin was obsessed with Adam Lanza. Mandy was clearly obsessed with Nick Cruz, as was he. And that, that's kind of typical for how it goes. But again, the relationships become, you know, there's a, there's an idealization of the, the, the shooters. There's a minimization of the impact on the community and on the victims. Um, and then there's almost like a, um, I can't think of a good way to describe it, but almost like a wanting to be, wanting to be similar. It's sort of a, a, a joining or wanting to be, uh, you know, with the person or recognized by the person. Um, as I said, even sometimes it became sexualized in some of the texts. Uh, I think I put this in the report between Mandy and Colt. They even talked about doing various sex acts with Nick Cruz, if they ever got there. And, and that's kind of the level of obsession and intensity, um, that you see in, in, in the messages with, um, Caitlin, it was very similar. Um, those were the two sets that I focused on. That's fine. [02:50:36] Speaker 5: And they also, they, um, they create like fan art. Oh yeah. [02:50:40] Speaker 1: They create art. They do, they make, uh, like little clips. Like if, if you look at the attachments in the discord, there's a lot of like short videos. I mean, there's this one of, of Nick Cruz like running into the school that's there over and over again. Um, you know, they, they tend to repeat, but then there's also like memes and fan art and animations and stuff like that, that people will make. Um, including like they'll take a photo that's available in the media and then make a meme out of it. [02:51:09] Speaker 5: Does, on a psychological level, does participating in this community, does it, does it give the people in it like a sense of social connectedness? [02:51:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, it's, it's, it's dysfunctional. Right. But, you know, I think there's, there's a piece of it where people kind of are drawn to it. It's, it's mostly kind of disaffected, damaged people. I mean, I don't think there's any super high functioning people that are spending their time doing this. Um, and the people that are in it are doing it. You know, I think we've called talked about one person he was speaking with where he spent like 30 hours of time online. Um, he said he was up for three days before the incident. Um, talking to Mandy and they were talking about Nick Cruz, you know, and so that level of, um, it almost substitutes. I think one of the things I said in the report is that, is that his entire social world was happening on Discord. It wasn't happening out here with us. It was happening in this internet space where, um, the things that these, the attributes that these school shooters have are, are valued and idolized. And, um, you know, people get these really kind of twisted connections to these people. Um, and sometimes, uh, I think in, in probably in the vast majority of them, because there's hundreds of thousands of people on this and most of them are not doing school shootings. Um, but there are a significant number that have come out of the, the true crime community, um, who have done things and, and there are examples. I think Mr. Smith had some examples in, in his article as well. Um, so it does, it does happen. Um, it is something that happens as a result of the fixation and obsession that these people have, um, that are involved in the true crime community. Okay. [02:52:51] Speaker 5: And there's, um, not only with the emotional appeal, there's an aesthetic appeal, um, that, you know, these things are edgy and cool and that's kind of what appeals people to, young kids do it? [02:53:02] Speaker 1: I, I think sometimes it starts as like, and it's cause you know, there's, there's no shortage of interest in true crime. You know, there's, I think headline news runs forensic files at 24 hours a day. So there's people out there watching this stuff. Um, but there's, there's people that have kind of a, a, a, an interest in it because they're actually interested in kind of how, you know, people's minds work. And then there's people that kind of go next level and get kind of start to identify as opposed to just being interested. Um, you know, someone like myself, I'm in the, in the forensic psychology business. And so I'm interested in why people do things the way that they do, but I don't get obsessed with them or want to emulate them. So there's a difference between people that are out there in the community that are just interested in this, and people that kind of maybe start there, but then kind of go into this online space. And particularly if you're somebody who's already kind of an outcast, already kind of disaffected, already kind of functioning, not at a great level to be drawn into this. And then to be able to, um, you know, kind of become a different person in there, um, and get credibility and get admiration and get friends to talk to. Um, I think there's some value in that. Again, the danger is, and it is danger, is that something like this would happen. Right. So, um, but I think that, you know, I don't claim to be an expert on the TCC, but that's how, you know, I mean, I needed to understand what was going on. [02:54:25] Speaker 5: It's okay, we have Peter Smith's going to testify. Yeah, oh good, okay. Yeah, so you're set. [02:54:28] Speaker 1: Um, no, but I mean, I needed to be able to understand kind of what was going on. It's one of the reasons I tried to get in touch with, I had phone numbers for Mandy and Caitlin, and I tried to reach out to both of them, because I wanted to talk to somebody else that was in there, just to kind of hear what they had to say, but neither one of them talked to me, so. [02:54:43] Speaker 5: Do they, um, members of this community, do they have, like, inside jokes, associated hashtags? Oh, yeah. Do they assign significance to certain numbers, symbols, emojis, things like that? [02:54:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's all kinds of their own sort of modes of communication, hashtags and stuff like that, that they, that they use. [02:55:01] Speaker 5: And these, these obscure symbols and imagery, they're usually only understood by them, not for the outside world. [02:55:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you were to just go and read the messages, there would be some things that you probably wouldn't get, um, and then there'd be, I mean, there's some that's pretty clear, so. [02:55:16] Speaker 5: Um, and is some of the, some of the content, like, it's a dark subject, but is some of it kind of on face, like, cute, like, cute little things that they would do? [02:55:29] Speaker 1: I think, I think that's what they're shooting for, you know, because there are things they referred, cute is a word that Mandy and Cole both used to describe Nick Cruz repeatedly, so. Um, and I guess there are pictures out there of him smiling or, you know, whatever, and those are some of the ones that got memed, so. [02:55:49] Speaker 5: Have you ever heard the phrase, mimetic participatory violence? [02:55:54] Speaker 1: I have, but, um, yeah, I've heard that. I'm blocking on what it means, but. [02:56:04] Speaker 5: Well, we've got this community. Right. And the members research the memes of past shooters. Right, right. Okay. And then they commit, they participate and commit their own shooting. But when they do, they leave behind that same meme content from other shooters. [02:56:23] Speaker 1: Right. Memetic meaning based on, based on memes, which is based on the things that we're going, yeah, it's coming back, so. [02:56:29] Speaker 5: So they're, they research, they find out all this stuff about the people in the, the true crimes community, the TCC. Right. Generate. Right. In the door. Right. When they're using their, doing their own act of violence, they've put these Easter eggs in for the, those members of the community will then see them. [02:56:49] Speaker 3: Right. [02:56:50] Speaker 5: Okay. And by that way, they can gain fame and status within the community. Right. Okay. And I think we've talked about the lingering earlier. Most people talk about the lingering, the primary motivation being to get out of trouble. Um, but we've talked about secondary motivations. [02:57:08] Speaker 1: Right. [02:57:09] Speaker 5: And some of these lies and the lingering, if they're Easter eggs, that would be the secondary motivation to gain status within the TCC community. [02:57:20] Speaker 1: Right. If anyone ever decided to start researching him, they might put those things together. Right. [02:57:25] Speaker 5: Have you, let's go back to Discord. We're going to go back to, this is the F-bomb one from 2023. three. Okay. I'm going to do page 22 and 23. So this is him. He's talking to Sniggles again from earlier. And again, this is two years before. And he called out there, God, I wish we could commit it together. And look next. See what I'm looking for. Hey, there it is. Okay. So God, I wish we could commit it together. God, people making edits of us would be fucking strange. So he's already thinking that. Right. Way back two years before the shooting, he's thinking, do the shooting so that we can get the edits. Seems like. And then on page 23, I want to make history to put it short. I want people to remember the pain I caused and research me for hours. [02:58:40] Speaker 1: Yep. [02:58:43] Speaker 5: So if this is his primary motivation. [02:58:47] Speaker 3: Right. [02:58:49] Speaker 5: Nix, love, fame, research, edits within the TCC community. All right. Fame within them. Sure. Okay. He laid those Easter eggs, a lot of them, the blacking out like Nick, calling the top line like James Holmes, purple gloves, like, house. Thank you. Um, all of these things that he said, there were lies that he said in his interview after the shooting was laying of these Easter eggs. It seems like it seems like. Seems like. So if his ultimate goal is fame within the TCC. The shooting wasn't the final step in that plan. Because he continued the plan after the shooting. [02:59:51] Speaker 1: Oh, I got you. Yeah. It seems like. [02:59:54] Speaker 3: I have further questions. Rearact. I'd like to get the witness done before we take our lunch break. [03:00:04] Speaker 2: Okay. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. [03:00:06] Speaker ?: Can I have just a moment. Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. [03:00:06] Speaker 3: Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. [03:00:07] Speaker ?: Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. Can I have a just a moment? Yes, sir. [03:01:04] Speaker 2: So, obviously, Colt wasn't involved very much in his social media of the discipline of the language. [03:01:12] Speaker 1: Clearly. [03:01:13] Speaker 2: Okay. Um, how does that relate directly to the issues that he's facing and his diagnostic issues, his depressive issues, PTSD? How does interaction in that community relate to his mental health issues? [03:01:28] Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, people that have those kinds of issues, that have the, I guess, could be depression, anxiety, but more like, people that have that kind of history feeling disaffected and isolated, you know, are the exact people that end up in there. And so I think it's not surprising that he ended up in there, you know, given the issues that he had. So, I mean, he – people with those issues don't end up in there sometimes, too, but I think if he wanted to make a connection, it would be because of the way that he was, the way that he was in the world and kind of his prior experiences that had kind of isolated him to this point where he then goes into the computer and then his whole world is in there. And that's what I think happened. [03:02:10] Speaker 2: Do children his age have a tendency to mimic those around him and usually they want to be a part of him? They can, they can, sure. When they're 13, 12, 13, and 14, how easily was it to assume they want to be accepted? Well, I think most people do and I think teenagers and, you know, early adolescents, I think that's a period of time where kids are real sensitive to that kind of thing. But it's fair to say that Colt, for a lot of years, felt as though he wasn't accepted in a part of his family because of the way the troubles and the chaos went. [03:02:52] Speaker 1: I think that's a fair characterization. [03:02:55] Speaker 2: And I believe when you were talking earlier, you said that when you dug down into this community, he kind of put himself in his own world. Right. Can you describe a bit of the world he was creating, from what you've been over with Mr. Smith and what you've interviewed with him and his structure in your analysis from both his mother's information, from his background, his development, and what he has given you in the sort of four meetings that you've had with him. Yeah. Plus, what's been discussed with his interaction with Mr. Smith, can you kind of give us an overview of how long that fits together in his personality and his development? [03:03:43] Speaker ?: I can try. [03:03:44] Speaker 1: I think, again, if you look at somebody's lifespan, if you look at their development, you look at the experiences they've had, and you're trying to get a sense of how somebody came to be where they are at a certain point in time. I think when I started researching – when I started evaluating Colt and started kind of listening to things that he was saying and looking at aspects of his history, looking at his online presence, then eventually – and the thing that was most useful to talk to his mom was – she talked a little bit about his symptoms. I got some of his background history, certainly her slant on it, but it's not surprising because I think people that are maybe kind of disaffected, isolated, with poor supports, not much interaction in the world, in the community, who were a little odd to begin with – and he's been an odd kid – and then developed these kind of depressive and anxiety symptoms. I think to get into a community like that where you're with a bunch of other people that are similarly kind of disaffected, outcasts, kind of lonely people, and you can get a certain amount of cred in there, credibility in there, I think it kind of draws you in because in that world you can be somebody that's not lonely and disaffected and isolated. You can be somebody who's connected and you can be somebody who's got a social world and who has sources of self-esteem. I mean, it's extraordinarily dysfunctional, but it makes sense, quotes added, that somebody of his kind of psychological makeup at his age might end up in that space. [03:05:26] Speaker 2: Is it possible – is it possible that somebody jumping on the band bracket or some – of following through the analysis of school shooters can join in the conversation, can present themselves as being part of this without ever really having a plan to do anything? [03:05:46] Speaker 1: Well, I think, again, there are thousands of people in this and not all of them are doing shootings, so yeah, it's possible. It's not what happened in this case, but certainly not everybody that's involved in the true crime community ends up doing something like this. [03:05:59] Speaker 2: Well, that is a significant period of time from 2023 and 2024. We're looking at it as a separate . In 2023, at that point, when he was in the interchange as . Right. [03:06:18] Speaker 1: Right. [03:06:19] Speaker 2: Was he in a position to actually formulate a plan or, as it's possible, or more probable at that stage that this was more of an answered interaction just being a part of the community? That's the way he characterized it. [03:06:29] Speaker 1: That's the way he characterized it. I mean, I don't know what his capabilities were at that time. I don't know if he had access to weapons or was enrolled in a school or could have reasonably done something like that. Certainly, he was at least fantasizing about it and talking about it and trying to use it to get attention from people in that community. [03:06:49] Speaker 2: He was getting a significant attention response, wasn't it? Seems like. [03:06:53] Speaker 1: Okay. [03:06:54] Speaker ?: Okay. Okay. [03:06:56] Speaker 2: Now, if someone is on the cost of the development of paranoia, we've been discussing with both. Right. Would it be reasonable to assume that once, say, the FBI contacted him? That would heighten his paranoia response. And that's why he would take down accounts, destroy accounts, and do other steps. Not necessarily that he was planning something, but the paranoia was triggering, and he was responding to the circumstances rather. [03:07:31] Speaker 1: It could be an element of it, certainly if you would have an experience with the FBI being worried about having another one. That has a certain realistic aspect to it. I mean, it doesn't mean it can't also be paranoid and unreasonable, but if the FBI has already visited your house, to be concerned that they might visit again if they saw similar material, it's not really delusional. [03:07:52] Speaker 2: Now, you understand that you really didn't believe the delusional comments that you made about the black fans watching everything that happened. [03:08:00] Speaker 1: Right, yeah. [03:08:01] Speaker 2: How does paranoia manifest if it's not in delusional suspicions like that? [03:08:09] Speaker 1: Again, I think he conflates paranoia and anxiety. I think he's anxious. He's an anxious kid who spends a lot of time worrying about things. Some of the time when he was saying paranoia, and I pointed this out a few times in the report, he was really conflating it with anxiety. What he was talking about was not paranoia. I think there were elements of paranoia. I don't think it was the primary thing that was going on with him. I think the anxiety and the depression were the primary things that were going on with him. I think there was some level of paranoia. I don't necessarily think he was hallucinating the way that he's described it. But I think the paranoia, again, you know, could have directed some of his behavior. But again, there was a realistic basis for it as well. [03:08:52] Speaker 2: And the fact that the anxiety related to the FBI visit to his home, that would have impacted the behavior, right? [03:08:59] Speaker 1: Well, one would think it would. You know, one would think it would change one's behavior. But it would also make somebody a little more alert, being aware that people are monitoring, you know, and might be paying attention to what you're actually saying. On Discord, he didn't seem to be – I mean, because these Discord messages are available, he wasn't destroying those. I'm not sure what was on these SD cards that he was destroying, because we have the messages and we have all the stuff that he said on the messages. So he wasn't covering his footprint that well. [03:09:32] Speaker 2: Is it possible he didn't actually destroy it? [03:09:35] Speaker 1: It's possible, yeah. I mean, I didn't see him do it. And I don't believe they found any crushed up SD cards. [03:09:50] Speaker 2: Children, when they're growing up, oftentimes have heroes, don't they? Sure. Is that a normal development in the manifestation? [03:09:59] Speaker 1: Yes. [03:10:00] Speaker 2: And generally, parents are able to guide children as to what kind of heroes they look at and follow that. [03:10:08] Speaker 1: Right. [03:10:09] Speaker 2: Did that happen in this day? No. Did he get guidance from his family? [03:10:13] Speaker 1: Didn't seem like, no. It seemed like he was pretty much on his own – in his own little world from a pretty young age. [03:10:19] Speaker 2: So when he gets into these – this court and the true crime community, is he looking at some way to not only fit in but out here? [03:10:28] Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like, you know, it was at least that, you know, again, because it tipped over into, you know, obsession. But looking up to – I mean, it seems odd that this is who you would pick to look up to. I mean, it makes sense that you would feel a certain kinship with somebody else who was disaffected and lonely. But there's lots of disaffected and lonely people that don't do these things. I think the explanation for getting into the true crime community is it kind of gets merged. I think maybe sometimes people start innocently just really actually being interested. And then they get into this community and then they find this place where they can be accepted. And then they start talking about, you know, fantasizing about these things or glorifying the things. You know, that's a major piece of it is the kind of glorifying and idealizing the shooters and minimizing the impact on the victims and minimizing the aftermath. And then, you know, idolizing them in a way. Again, it probably doesn't make sense to the average person. But I think if you're looking for a way to belong, you can end up in a healthy way to belong or you can end up in an extraordinarily dysfunctional way to belong. And I think that's what happens to the people that get, you know, mired in this true crime community. You know, I think Colt even had an inkling that it was unhealthy because he mentioned two people he used to talk to and he talked about them getting better. You know, he said, well, Caitlin got better. She got therapy and she doesn't do this anymore. And Calvin was the other one, got therapy and got better. And I think Calvin was even trying to get him to quit, you know, being in there, recognizing it was dysfunctional. [03:11:57] Speaker 2: And during your testing and talking to Colt, would you say that he was emotionally appropriately developed for a 14-year-old, 15-year-old when you were talking to him? [03:12:07] Speaker 1: No, he didn't seem to be. You know, I think his emotional development was really problematic. I mean, he was missing a lot of the things that kids get when they're growing up in terms of, you know, attachments and stability and peer relationships and all of those things. And, you know, healthy parents that are nurturing and present and not having a lot of their own issues and not neglecting them and not abusing them. So there was a lot of things that occurred in his childhood that were abnormal or that were not normal, not usual, and stunted his development kind of emotionally and interpersonally. And I think that, you know, kind of, again, when you think of it that way, the idea that he would have found himself kind of immersed in this true crime community and overvaluing these other disaffected people, even though they had done these horrible things, I don't want to say it makes sense, but you can kind of see how one got from point A to point B. [03:13:04] Speaker 2: The similarities to some of the other shooters that Mr. Smith was alluding to, how does that play in his trying to feel a part of the community if that was the goal? Or how does that play in dissatisfying whatever hold he had in him in creating this world? [03:13:27] Speaker 1: Well, again, you know, you've created now kind of a mythology around yourself, you know, because you've done this thing and you've, you know, shown a similarity to these other people. And then, you know, it creates a certain amount of status for you in an, again, extraordinarily dysfunctional way. But again, it's this, you know, I'm going to do something that's going to, you know, stand out, I'm going to do something that people are going to notice, I'm going to do something that Nick's going to notice. As kind of twisted as that is, you know, it is an attempt to belong in an extraordinarily problematic way. [03:14:03] Speaker 2: And it's safe to say that it didn't fill a hole that he's been trying to fill? [03:14:08] Speaker 1: I think so. [03:14:10] Speaker 2: Does that mean that he, is that a point that he can't be treated and brought back to some level of normalcy? [03:14:19] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, as I was saying earlier, you know, when you're talking about kids that are teens and adolescents, you know, even when they get themselves into problematic places, you know, the fact that they're kind of their brains aren't fully developed and their personalities and characters are not fully developed. Clearly, he was immersed in this. Clearly, he was obsessed with this. And clearly, he was guiding a lot of his behavior at getting attention and credibility in this community. But the idea that you could, you know, at age 14, 15, 16, that you would, you know, kind of say there's nothing you can do with somebody whose brain and personality and character are still in a state of flux, are still developing. And also, if they haven't had, you know, kind of a realistic shot at treatment. You know, I think to just say at this age we know it's pointless kind of ignores how development works. [03:15:12] Speaker 2: And if Colt were exposed to something other than this community or taken out of this community, how do you think that would impact his emotional growth going forward? [03:15:21] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if he could really get himself extricated from it and really kind of work on pro-social, you know, personal interactions and learn how to cope with things in a healthy way and learn how to manage the feelings that he has, you know, and process the things that he understands, you know, certainly he could find a different way of relating. [03:15:40] Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit about antisocialism or why you think it may not be out. [03:15:48] Speaker 1: Again, you know, he's doing a lot of things in the aftermath. You know, there's been a lot of lying and, you know, the malingering, but those are not necessarily indicative of an antisocial personality organization. I mean, certainly he does some things that could certainly lead to that. I mean, he's clearly been able to do things that disregard the rights of others. He's clearly been able to do things that had an extremely adverse impact on the lives of others. And, you know, appears maybe remorseful, maybe not. You know, I can see how that would make people think he was on a trajectory like that. But there was not a lot of other kinds of things that you usually see with conduct disorder and so forth kind of developing, you know, forward. I think if you, you know, look at the things that he did in this instance, I don't know that it necessarily captures the entirety of his personality. Again, I can't say, you know, certainly there was a lot of problematic stuff. But to say that there's absolutely nothing you can do or you shouldn't give it a try or, you know, we're just going to give up now. Knowing again what I know about brain and personality and character development seems like, you know, it's certainly one way to go. But it seems like it ignores, you know, what we know about people's ability to make change, particularly at a period, you know, when they're still developing. I mean, if we were talking about somebody that was 27, 28, 29 or older, you know, I would be much less optimistic. [03:17:16] Speaker 2: There's been some comment about his blank effect, the fact that he doesn't seem to be overly emotional and showing remorse. Is it possible that someone who lives not in a normal social environment may not know the wrong world cues to trigger that so others will understand what they're doing? [03:17:39] Speaker 1: I mean, I suppose so. But again, it's, you know, there's a certain amount of social stuff that you get from modeling and there's a certain amount of stuff that's just kind of how you're wired up. You know, if you're not wired up to be a particularly emotional person, then that's the way you're going to come across. I think it's hard to tell with him. I mean, I think there's, you know, again, evidence to suggest that he did know, you know, and when he communicated remorse, maybe he was or was not remorseful and it was hard to tell. You know, I couldn't speculate, to be honest with you. I know I just talked around in circles a bit there, but it's hard to know. [03:18:19] Speaker 2: Were you aware that you wrote the apology notes? [03:18:21] Speaker 1: I did. I saw them. [03:18:22] Speaker 2: At this point, given everything you and Mr. Smith have discussed, do you still maintain your recommendation in your report? [03:18:34] Speaker 1: I still think there's, you know, if you look at him, you know, certainly the exposition from the state and all of the problematic stuff he was doing, I was aware of all the problematic stuff he was doing in the true crime community. I think it would be, you know, clinically, I would want to get him out of that milieu and see if you could address things to kind of maybe restructure his personality in a more healthy, better coping sort of way. You know, it's going to be a big job, but I think it's not something that at age 14, 15, 16, you can say, well, there's no point. [03:19:05] Speaker 2: Thank you. That's all I have there. [03:19:08] Speaker 3: Is there any recourse? Yes, a second, Your Honor. All right. Witness may be excused. Yes, sir. Thank you, Doctor. [03:19:24] Speaker 1: Thank you, Your Honor. [03:19:25] Speaker 3: We'll go ahead and take a lunch recess, 1:45. [03:19:34] Speaker 4: Your Honor, we do have a 2 o'clock table. [03:19:40] Speaker 6: Okay. And if you start to do it, you're ready. [03:19:44] Speaker 3: Is there anything to do between 1:45 and 2? We'll be in recess until 2 o'clock. Thank you. [03:19:54] Speaker ?: Thank you. [03:19:54] Speaker 3: Thank you.