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Looking at the "Aha!" Moment: Spot the Obvious Clue to Madness

From a news account: "A longtime neighbor in San Diego, where Holmes grew up, remembers only a 'shy guy ...a loner' from a churchgoing family. In addition to playing soccer at Westview High School, he ran cross country."

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on July 24, 2012 at 4:03pm

Pat, I agree wholeheartedly with all you say. The issue, as I see it, that "good", "Christian" families don't produce bullies, thugs or mass murderers. People often seem surprised when I tell my story and only later do they understand I was dealing with a very respected, admired and "worthy" professional man, a dentist. He rose through the military ranks making the 5% target every promotion. It seemed harder to explain broken bones and bruises from such a professional.

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Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on July 27, 2012 at 2:56pm

No! Pinning it on "theism" at this point is not appropriate. We don't have enough information. You very rightly express care and concern for those who lost loved one, and the parents of this killer live their own private hell that can never be erased. Maybe they had a hand in making this young man do insane things, but the reality is, his body may be overloaded with testosterone, he may have had some shock to his cognitive system, he may have some abnormality in his brain ... we just don't know.

Part of my training was watching interviews of serial killers (Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc.,) as well as interviews with their parents, teachers, physicians, and there is not a single recipe for making an insane person.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Perlman on July 27, 2012 at 12:08pm

To Loren: Hear, hear! The rational mind wants to find, needs to find the triggering event that bifurcated the killer's brain between outward normal behavior and inner madness. If, while blasting away, he'd screamed, "Die and rot in hell, all you unbelievers!"...we might have a clue. For all I know, his PhD hassles drove him over the edge (PhD programs have destroyed more than one life).