Mass shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz’s adoptive mother reportedly paid $50,000 to adopt him when he was only three days old, according to a new report.

A former friend of Lynda Cruz reportedly told Radar Online that Lynda adopted Nikolas from a drug-addict mother when he was an infant.

“Nik’s biological mother was just a complete screw-up, drug addict and thief,” Trish Duvaney, who was reportedly Lynda’s neighbor at the time, told the news outlet.

Duvaney said that Lynda and her husband Roger Cruz had wanted to adopt a child, but were having difficulty due to Lynda’s age — she was reportedly around 50 at the time.

“So she went to a lawyer and did it to where you pay the biological mother’s expenses,” she said. “You’re not directly giving money to the birth mother.”

Lynda reportedly paid $50,000 to adopt Nikolas, and another $15,000 two years later when she learned that Nikolas’s mother was pregnant again.

“I even said to Lynda: ‘You don’t know the mother’s background.’ Both children were born after one-night stands. The birth mother, she didn’t even really know who the two biological fathers were.”

The friend didn’t specify how Lynda found the biological mother or how she learned she was pregnant for a second time — reportedly, while she was in prison.

“She was happy with Nikolas and wasn’t going to try for another one, but when she found out he would have a biological brother, she decided right away to take him, and her husband was on board,” Duvaney told RadarOnline.

Duvaney also said that Nikolas displayed disturbing behavior from a very young age.

“He threw my 4-month-old into the pool. My son was crawling on the back patio and he threw my son into the pool. And Nikolas was only 2 then,” she told the news outlet, also claiming that “everyone dropped the ball on him.”

As CrimeOnline previously reported, police responded to dozens of calls about Nikolas and his brother Zachary in the years leading up to the fatal shooting.

[Feature image: Nikolas and Zachary Cruz/Facebook]