"I was just furious and heartbroken. Absolutely just heartbroken. Devastated," Kimberly said. "I still can't process it, what he's done. Because this wasn't the person that we knew, not at all."
James said their own son was at the school when a S.W.A.T. officer called James, trying to locate Cruz.
"I got in touch with my son, who was fleeing the scene at that point," he said. "A description came out, and we put two and two together, me and my son."
James said that his son and Cruz had been friends, and that Cruz had texted the son earlier in the day to say he was going to the movies and that he sent a vague message about having something to tell him.
Cruz was twice orphaned - his adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, died of pneumonia Nov. 1, and her husband died of a heart attack years ago, according to those close to the family. The Cruzes had adopted Nikolas as an infant.
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Without any living parents, Nikolas was taken in by the Sneads after Lynda's death.
The Sneads said they knew that Cruz owned the AR-15 but made him keep it locked up in a fun safe. James said on GMA that he believed he, James, had the only key to the gun safe.
During the three months Cruz lived there, he was respectful and quiet but also sad over his mother's death, the lawyer told the Associated Press.
"Everything everybody seems to know [about Cruz] we didn't know," James said on GMA. "We had rules, and he followed every rule to the T."
Kimberly said they are having trouble processing the events of last Wednesday.
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"We feel betrayed, as well, and just shocked. It's crushed everybody," she said.
Though they don't plan on seeing him again, the Sneads said they crossed paths with Nikolas at the police station after the shooting.
"I really wanted to strangle him, more than anything. Everything I wanted to say -- I tried to reserve myself," Kimberly said. "He said he was sorry, but I didn't hear that."
The couple said that Cruz would never had been in their home if they had known information him that others knew. To the families of the victims, they said they are very sorry.
"Nothing I can say will heal them," James said. "We hurt for them deeply."
Editor's note: The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News and this station.