Parkland school shooter’s sister wants to testify in his trial. But she’s in jail, too

As Nikolas Cruz enters the third week of his sentencing trial for the Parkland school massacre, his biological sister sits in a Miami-Dade jail on a carjacking charge — and her upcoming trial may now be complicated by his.

Miami attorneys for Danielle Woodard, 35, have asked a judge to let them withdraw from her case, saying they don’t agree with her wishes to testify on her brother’s defense.

“We don’t think it will be helpful in her case,” Miami defense lawyer Fred Moldovan, who is representing her with Richard Mirsky, told the Herald on Monday.

Woodard’s trial in Miami-Dade is scheduled for Aug. 22. No hearing date has been set for Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ramiro Areces to consider the request, which was filed to the court on Sunday.

Cruz’s defense team in Broward County is expected to start its case later this month. The extent of the relationship between brother and sister isn’t clear — the Herald reported in 2018 that Cruz, who was adopted as a baby, grew up with no contact with his birth mother or sister, who was in prison at the time of the Parkland massacre.

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The timing and details of her potential testimony in Broward County circuit court also remain unclear. Although she didn’t grow up with Cruz, Woodard could tell jurors about their mother’s substance abuse. Cruz’s defense team has signaled that it will argue that while in the womb, he suffered brain damage from her drugs and alcohol. It’s possible that the defense attorneys would point to Woodard’s own long history of criminal trouble to bolster that argument.

The Daily Mail reported that Cruz’s biological mother, Brenda Woodard, died of cancer last year but did agree to reconnect with her son on a video chat before her death.

Cruz, 23, has already pleaded guilty to murdering 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018. He also pleaded guilty to wounding 17 others.

Testimony in the “penalty phase” of his trial began on July 18. The 12-person jury will be deciding whether Cruz is executed for the murders, or whether he will serve life in prison.

Broward prosecutors are expected to finish their case in chief this week. Hoping to sway jurors to vote against death, his defense team will be presenting “mitigating” evidence, chronicling Cruz’s tumultuous upbringing, mental-health disorders and brain damage caused by his biological mother’s alcohol and drug use.

Like her mother, Danielle Woodard spent years cycling in and out of jails. At the time of the massacre, she was in a Florida prison, serving an eight-year sentence for a series of felonies, including attempted felony murder, fleeing and eluding, credit-card fraud and resisting arrest with violence. It was her second stint in prison; she’d earlier served a five-year stint for a separate set of felonies.

Woodard — first listed as a possible defense witness in December, according to court filings — left a Florida prison in August 2019, state records show. But just a few months later, in January 2020, she was arrested again in Miami-Dade.

This time, police said, she carjacked an elderly woman who was trying to donate goods at a Goodwill in Miami Gardens. According to an arrest report, Woodard jumped in the car and tried to drive away, hurling the woman from the car, causing injuries to her arm and head. A man who was with the victim also tried stopping the car, hanging on to the car, hurting himself in falling away.

Woodard crashed the stolen car and was arrested, the report said. She’s been in a Miami-Dade jail, awaiting trial ever since.

Her Miami lawyers, in a request to the court, cited the pending Parkland shooting trial, saying they “are not in agreement as to [Woodard’s] actions and desires as related to her brother’s case.”

Moldovan said he believed her testifying could hurt her legal case because Broward prosecutors could then publicly ask her about the pending carjacking case.

“I don’t think [her testimony] is going to make or break the Nikolas Cruz verdict,” Moldovan said. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

In their motion to the court, her lawyers cited “irreconcilable difference” and a difficulty “communicating with each other.” They also said Woodard hasn’t been paying them, and doesn’t want them on the case.