Nikolas Cruz is prepared to plead guilty on all counts connected to the 2018 Parkland school shooting massacre in Florida that left 17 people dead and 17 others injured.
The 23-year-old confessed gunman will cop to 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder, according to WSVN in Miami.
The plea deals, which are expected to be announced by lawyers tomorrow, would allow the defendant to circumvent an emotional trial and proceed to the sentencing phase, which would be decided by a jury, the report said.
Cruz would also plead guilty to an assault on a Broward County jail guard which was caught on camera, the station reported.
The suspect’s lawyers had previously said that Cruz would plead guilty if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table, a request the state denied.
Cruz, who loudly sobbed in court last week after officials took away his Pokémon coloring book, allegedly stormed into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High with an assault rifle and opened fire on students and staff.
The deranged GED student, who was 19 at the time of the onslaught, was obsessed with guns and once told a teacher “I’m a bad kid! I want to kill!” according to a book that examines the massacre.
The slaughter remains the deadliest high school shooting in US history.
