A man who harbours a disturbing obsession with mass shootings has been arrested for leaving animal corpses on a memorial to the victims of the Parkland massacre.
Robert Mondragon, a 29-year-old from Broward County, Florida, is accused of dumping a mutilated duck, a dead raccoon and an opossum corpse on the bench at the MSD Memorial Garden – the memorial site outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 students and staff were murdered in the 2018 mass shooting.
Police said that a school crossing guard first found a dead duck with its chest cavity cut open left on the bench back on 20 July. The following day, the same guard then discovered a dead raccoon on the bench.
Ten days later, on 31 July, an officer spotted the corpse of an opossum left in the same place.
The net closed in on Mr Mondragon after a man driving a white Nissan with all black rims or tires and no hubcaps was captured on surveillance footage at the memorial site.
Investigators said that the footage shows the car driving to the memorial at around 11pm on 30 July. There, the man gets out of the car and enters the memorial area, spending a few minutes there before driving away.
The following night, a law enforcement officer spotted a vehicle matching that description driving along a nearby road and pulled the car over.
Inside, the officer found blood and bird feathers and Mr Mondragon behind the wheel.
When asked why he had a dead bird in his car, Mr Mondragon allegedly told the officer that he “likes the metal and blood smell that emit from the dead animal”.
A search of Mr Mondragon’s phone later uncovered chilling photos of him holding a mutilated dead duck and of a dead raccoon on the floorboard of his vehicle, investigators said.
He was arrested and charged with three counts of removing or disfiguring a tomb or monument, five counts of violating his probation for battery and indecent exposure and one count of violating of a risk protection order.
Following his arrest, Broward Sheriff’s Office said that other chilling details have come to light, revealing that Mr Mondragon has a disturbing fascination with “both real and fictional” school shooters.
Investigators found text messages about school shootings and his online search history showed he had been researching school shooters, mass shooting pipe bombs, how to break into steel doors and killing police officers.
Then, just two weeks before the 2021/2022 school year ended, Mr Mondragon allegedly reconstructed Nikolas Cruz’s steps in the aftermath of the shooting.
After carrying out the massacre, Cruz blended among students fleeing the high school and walked to a nearby Walmart. Police said Mr Mondragon made that same journey.
Investigators also believe Mr Mondragon, who has a heavily-tattooed face, modelled his tattoo choices on a fictional mass shooter in the series American Horror Story.
In a press conference on Friday, Broward Sheriff’s Gregory Tony said the investigation shows the suspect has a “desire to create an active shooter event in our school system”.
“He fits every classification that it’s coming. We’ve been lucky and luck is not a strategy,” he said, adding that Mr Mondragon is the “most severe individual we’ve been able to apprehend and take off the streets”.
News of Mr Mondrogan’s arrest comes as the man responsible for carrying out the massacre at Marjory Stoneman is on trial in Broward County.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Valentine’s Day 2018 attack.
Cruz, then 19, stalked the school corridors with an AR-15 gunning down victims.
Jurors will now decide whether he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or to death.
