School shooter Nikolas Cruz is receiving lots of fan mail and his commissary account is being flooded with donations.

"There's piles of letters," said Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, whose office is representing Cruz, the Sun Sentinel reports. "In my 40 years as public defender, I've never seen this many letters to a defendant. Everyone now and then gets a few, but nothing like this."

Though the letters and fan mail, some including suggestive comments and photos, keep coming in, officials decided to keep them most of them from Cruz, 19, as he is on suicide watch.

“We read a few religious ones to him that extended wishes for his soul and to come to God,” Finkelstein said, “but we have not and will not read him the fan letters or share the photos of scantily-clad teenage girls.”

Getty Images

Finkelstein told the Sun Sentinelhe is worried “everyday boys and girls are starting to view him in an elevated way, looking up to his fame and notoriety.”

Many of the letters to Cruz dub him as a martyr while others are riddled with enthrallment, the news outlet reports.

RELATED: Awful New Details Revealed About Nikolas Cruz, The Florida School Shooter Who Murdered 17 People

“I’m 18-years-old. I’m a senior in high school. When I saw your picture on the television, something attracted me to you,” one teen wrote in a letter dated Mar. 15.

Another mailed him suggestive photos of herself in a bikini and even some of her cleavage.

Getty Images

The letters of love, support, and attraction are reminiscent of the followers of previous murderers, such as Ted Bundy and Charles Manson, who attracted a large number of admirers and groupies.

"The letters shake me up because they are written by regular, everyday teenage girls from across the nation,” Finkelstein said. “That scares me. It's perverted.”

Story continues

Psychologist Dr. Peggy Mustelier said that the mass murderer’s fans may be too young to recognize the effects their support has.

RELATED: Heartbreaking New Details About The Teen Girl Killed By The Maryland School Shooter Because Of A Recent Breakup

“There are multiple reasons from empathy going to the opposite extreme to people who are disturbed to adolescences,” Mustelier told CBS Miami. “I know a lot are young girls, perhaps a lot of very active fantasy and they are not capable of recognizing the reality of this.”

Steven Dubovsky, the University at Buffalo chair of psychiatry who has studied mass shootings, weighed in on the killer’s fan mail.

Getty Images

"Anybody with real relationships or any firm grasp on reality is not going to engage in this behavior," Dubovsky told USA Today.

Cruz “is a magnet for women who want to save him,” California forensic psychiatrist and author Carole Lieberman told the Sun Sentinel.

“Women who become pen pals and groupies of killers in prison are those who have had a dysfunctional relationship with their dad that has made them feel unloveable,” she said. These fans lack self-esteem and “become imbued with the killer’s power.”

The convicted murderer has also received hundreds of dollars over the past month. His commissary account has been filled with over $800.

Getty Images

Though Cruz has drawn in a lot of mail, there are many advocates against him who have been demanding stricter gun control all over the country.

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas School, where Cruz shot and killed 17 people, organized a nation-wide school walk out as well as the March for Our Lives as a plea for safer schools.

Cruz’s former peers want to ensure something is done to prevent future school shootings, despite Cruz’s fans.

"It’s important that the community understand that as this case continues, the awfulness will continue to spread,” Finkelstein said. “Everything about this case is awful and evil.”

RELATED: Awful New Details About The Sister Of The Charleston Church Shooter Who Was Arrested For Threatening Students Doing A Gun Walkout

Keywords: crime

read more