(Possible Fundie?) Family Murders in Tulsa

[bubblekitty]

The younger boy (Michael) was stated to be compliant and I've now seen his mugshot... it does seem neutral but to me something about the eyebrows makes me think there's some tension there.

Since he's just been arrested for murdering his family this seems likely.

[lawfulevil]

IF it turns out that this kid had anti-social traits (technically called "conduct disorder" in kids under 18), then personally I do not think that it is fair to blame the parents for the kid's behavior.

Child mental health services are NOT easy to obtain in many places - especially if you are in a small community. Unless you've had to obtain psychiatric services for your own child, you probably are seriously underestimating how difficult it can be to find someone who is willing to see children, let alone a good provider.

And a lot of more reputable providers are leery of diagnosing cluster b disorders in children anyway- honestly, usually for good reason. Empathy varies quite a lot from kid to kid, as anyone who got beaten up in middle school could tell you. Most of the people who bullied me when we were kids grew up to be at least seemingly-normal adults, and most of them have apologized and seem to regret what happened. In turn I was a total little asshole to a least a handful of people and I cringe every time I think about it.

Rather than derail the thread I'll post my anecdote to my ask me wank thread.

[FundieFarmer]

There's a post up on Homeschoolers Anonymous about this answering the "homeschooling isn't always like this" debate. You could just share that! It's really good, and addresses what to do if concerned, too.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Or they could not have been abused at all. I know it's human nature to try to find a way that horrific , unimaginably awful things could only happen to people " for a reason" . And to try to find a reason that makes it utterly impossible to happen to anyone like us. But , at least so far, there's absolutely zero reason to assume these kids were abused.

And there's just NO remotely plausible reason or explanation for two teenagers to kill their parents AND almost all their siblings. Nothing. Even if there were horror show levels of abuse -- why kill a 5 year old? Even if one of them was just completely deranged and they were the nicest family in the world - why did the other brother join in? If it was a drug fueled psychosis - why both, and why the creepy smile and plot to kill others and shipment of ammo? No explanation, no reason, makes any coherent sense at all.

I find it kind of disturbing some people are saying things like " well he should have had the opportunity to go to public school to see if he'd get into Harvard" as a possible trigger ( not saying they excused it - saying a trigger ) . How many 18 year olds complain bitterly about some failing of their parents ? It goes with the territory . That first article, the way I read it, didn't say they helped out with Christmas decorations for several years and then abruptly stopped - I read it as they happened to help out when the neighbor was decorating several years ago - that's not the same thing.

They could have both been seriously disturbed and the parents had them in some sort of treatment with professionals. They also could have been seriously disturbed and hidden it well enough that the parents just thought they were normal, video game obsessed, sulky teens. The oldest brother could have joined some weird online cult / fanaticism and been drawing the younger one in and hidden it from the family. Again, I think we all WANT, desperately, to think it could never, ever happen to us- so we look for ways it couldn't.

As far as the higher education/ working - if he just graduated, and it's July, I don't find that unusual - he could have been planning on college or work in the fall.

Sure there's some probably creepy things here, but I think if you took most families and put them under a sudden microscope - you'd find weird bits here and there. Many of their weird bits, like the particular church and their level of involvement and their beliefs, don't even seem to be confirmed - and hardly go with family viewing nights of Sons of Anarchy :shock: .

I just don't like the sort of blaming the victims that seems to be going on. Particularly without any proof of anything more dysfunctional, so far, than not liking to hang out with the neighbors and having a teen who complains.

The first bolded is exactly it for me. Whenever something horrific happens in the news, especially if it involves people around the ages of my kids or resonates as familiar in some other way, my brain desperately wants it to stem from something so removed from my life that I can feel protected from it happening to us. I would love nothing more than to have a list of rules to follow which would assure me that if I do X, Y, and Z and never A, B, or C nothing bad will happen. I know we can't possibly control for every variable in life, but damn...I want to. It's absolutely a primal fear response and something need to be more aware of in speculating.

In re the second bolded: if that's the criteria for dysfunctional then my family would have gone off the rails years ago. It's a long running joke in my family of origin that if we were ever accused of anything horrible people would come out of the woodwork to talk about how we were loners and they suspected we were up to no good. Fortunately I married a friendly chatty guy so we are always known as "GoodGuyGreg* and that woman with the resting bitch face who is seen only by fleeting glimpse through a car window."

*not actually Greg.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I've been looking at a lot of different things about this case, then some things you guys linked... what I've gathered doesn't necessarily indicate a fundamentalist religious belief. They do seem to have some religious upbringing, the father went to Oral Roberts University and the mother and 13-year-old daughter's facebook pages discuss god/jesus occasionally. However, the daughter has more posts about Taylor Swift than religion (publicly, anyway, who knows what their security filters were) and also has Vampire Diaries and the actors in the show on her 'likes'. That alone indicates they didn't swear away pop culture and weren't so fundie as to think that vampires are anything more than a myth and symbolic character type, not something that will corrupt people toward the occult as many fundies seem to with fictional magic.

However, everything seems to indicate they were intensely isolated. Not just the children, but a lot of the comments I saw on the mother's facebook were things like 'I know we don't really know each other, but your kids are beautiful!' etc. I also noticed that the photos were almost exclusively of the girl children, in particular the baby. There may have been some level of emotional neglect going on in the family that the children were responding to. I also read that although the children were homeschooled, none of the local homeschooling communities knew the families - they were not active in homeschool networking, which is so important for families that choose to go that route. I see nothing wrong with homeschooling your kids, but you absolutely have to make sure they have the opportunity to make friends outside of the family. If they weren't taking part in any of the known homeschooling communities, any homeschool friends they have would likely be living elsewhere and not part of their everyday lives, which is not a good sign for the social development of the kids. But the children were apparently allowed to have jobs outside the house... one person commented that he'd been Robert's friend, and mentioned that he wasn't allowed to accept a ride home from work. So he had a job, but they controlled his ability to socialize with friends from work.

The mugshots of Robert are disturbing to me because he seems to be smiling in both of them. I think he obviously has some serious mental/emotional issues going on, particularly with the comments of the officers that did the arrests saying he was smug and without remorse, and claimed he had a whole list of people he'd planned to kill. The younger boy (Michael) was stated to be compliant and I've now seen his mugshot... it does seem neutral but to me something about the eyebrows makes me think there's some tension there. Good or bad, I don't know, but he certainly doesn't seem as pleased with himself as Robert does. If the boys shared resentment or anger or violent feelings toward their parents, it may have been easier for the older one to convince the younger to take part in the murders. Them working together doesn't necessarily mean that the whole thing was planned out in advance, that they had planned to kill the siblings, too, or anticipated any kind of emotional response to those killings. They're so young that I can imagine one or both of them imagining the killings as being something that would relieve the emotional distress they may have been experiencing, but just looking at their faces I'd say only Robert seems to be feeling anything positive at the moment. I think it's plausible that if Robert discovered some sort of thrill in the killing, the crime could have progressed in an unplanned manner to include the younger siblings simply because they were in proximity. (And I recognize that this is all guessing, but I know that sometimes with kids of this age, what may have been seen as mild crime or 'righteous' crime can sometimes get out of hand very quickly, and the kids involved don't always know how to prevent or respond to escalation from the 'leader'. It's very unusual for two children of a family to go into a crime like this, and I find it much more believable that they may have initially planned to only kill one or both of the parents than that they were both ready to murder the entire family.)

The younger siblings were not confined/controlled or apparently monitored in any strict manner (which indicates a lot of chaos at the time of the crime), which allowed one of the younger kids to call the police and (likely) save the injured 13 year old and 2 year old child's lives. The 13 year old had immediate surgery, so she probably would have died if the crime hadn't been interrupted by the police arrival, and the 2 year old probably would have been killed too. I think she may be able to explain the behavior of the brothers during the attack when she's recovered from the attacks, but it's also not something I think the media should push for. It's not fair to put that kind of public eye on a 13 year old child recovering from attempted murder.

This whole situation is extremely strange. I hope that the 16 year old brother will be able to explain more about what happened and will be willing to seek any help that might be offered to him, because as the younger sibling he may have been more influenced by his older brother than truly interested in murdering his whole family. He can never get back what he chose to destroy but he might still be able to make a positive change for himself. I'm not so sure about Robert, the smiling in his mugshots is really creepy and the released bits of his statements indicate some serious violent impulses.

God, yes. I hope she can shed light on this for law enforcement to help them in their investigation, but the public isn't owed her story unless she wants it out there for her own healing.

I feel like a hypocrite as I will read about any new details that are released because my brain it itchy to know why this happened, so I hope tptb err on the side of protecting her emotional well being over satisfying the curiosity of the public.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Court Date set for the elder son Robert 08/03/2015. Charges are:

• 5 counts 1st degree murder

• 1 count aggravated assault with a deadly weapon

http://www.newson6.com/story/29638425/c ... ple-murder

The 16 year old is being tried as an adult on the same charges, however he will not be eligible for the death penalty since he was under 18 when the crime was committed.

http://www.koco.com/news/broken-arrow-1 ... s/34363910

links not broken because news sites.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

IF it turns out that this kid had anti-social traits (technically called "conduct disorder" in kids under 18), then personally I do not think that it is fair to blame the parents for the kid's behavior.

Child mental health services are NOT easy to obtain in many places - especially if you are in a small community. Unless you've had to obtain psychiatric services for your own child, you probably are seriously underestimating how difficult it can be to find someone who is willing to see children, let alone a good provider.

Also, even if you can get an antisocial person into treatment, treating antisocial people is nothing like treating a depressed person (which actually has a pretty good prognosis even though we all know people who struggle with depression). The current scientific understanding of anti-social people is that they have brain differences that mean they do not experience feelings like empathy and remorse the way normal people do. You can't use pills or therapy to fix that. Some mental health professionals even think therapy actually makes them worse, because it helps them learn how to manipulate people better.

You can't really fix an anti-social person's lack of conscience any more than you can fix the neurological damage of a stroke. At best, you might be able to try to find a way to work around their deficit, but in reality most antisocials with violent tendencies simply end up in prison.

Even if the kid may have benefited from seeing a therapist, though, can you blame a parent for not really believing that their own child had the potential to brutally murder the family? I think very few of us would want to admit to ourselves that our own child is capable of such a horrible crime, even if we saw warning signs. Though for all we know, this may have been an impulsive act that nobody could have seen coming.

Some of you may find this interview with a criminologist who has studied kids who kill their parents interesting: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/qa-why-kids-kill-parents/

Agreed. There was a much-publicized case near me several years ago when a kid in Parkersburg, Iowa shot and killed his football coach, who was a beloved figure in this small town. Later on, the kid's mom came out with an account of the series of court hearings and insurance battles that they had been through in the weeks before the murder, trying unsuccessfully to find a bed in a psych ward. I believe she now does public advocacy on mental health issues. Even run-of-the-mill mental illness can be incredibly difficult to handle in our system, I imagine that the kind of rare and extreme case that might render someone dangerous is even harder to deal with.

[mebeforee]

Since he's just been arrested for murdering his family this seems likely.

My point was more that his reaction is visibly different from his brother's, who doesn't seem remotely tense and is smiling in his pictures.

[salex]

This picture makes me wonder if he was messing around or if there was something wrong with him.

[SamuraiKatz]

I am still trying to wrap my mind around this one. So sad.

Sent from my KFARWI using Forum Fiend v1.3.3.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

A little more info on the shipment of ammo being sent to the house, allegedly it was 3,000 rounds of ammunition. Is that something one would be able to order online legitimately at 18? I don't know what the regulations are for that kind of thing.

http://www.newson6.com/story/29644254/s ... in-advance

(links not broken due to news site.)

Quoted from the link:

News On 6 has also learned from sources close to the investigation that 18-year-old Robert Bever and 16-year-old Michael Bever had planned the attack on their family for some time.

Sources said the brothers wanted to kill their family first because they were considered easier targets, then, they planned to attack other people considered to be harder targets.

They also said 3,000 rounds of ammunition were delivered to the home after the murders and the boys planned to use it to kill so many people they would become more famous than the Columbine shooters.

[JesusPony]

Police said it was 12-year-old Daniel who called 911 and told police his brothers were attacking the family before he passed away.

Horrific.

So, yeah, this sounds like a Columbine thing except they didn't go to public school. And they didn't know how to plan ahead.

[FundieFarmer]

In my state (obviously Southern), you can order ammunition at 18. I had my first personal firearm around then, and could easily purchase ammunition without assistance from parents.

[TXGirlInAMaterialWorld]

The smile in that mugshot just gives me the heeby-jeebies! I feel awful for the two surviving sisters.

I think that something was not right in that house. Even if they weren't fundie- the parents may have been super controlling.

[Mama Mia]

I couldn't view the link as it needed me to download an app, so I googled cbs news kids why kids kill parents and got this article - is Kathleen Heide the expert you linked to? If not could you post the name so I can google it as I'm interested in the biology of this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-do-kids ... -to-blame/

A quick google did turn up quite a bit about genetic predisposition and the brain differences in those with antisocial personality disorders, specifically psychopathy and sociopathy, but those all indicated clear differences in the kids which show in early childhood which should be addressed by professionals. There is also a lot of discussion about predisposition but how an abuse/negligence can flip the switch. it appears to be a combo of nature and nurture, but no one seems to know what the combo is and it's probably not the same for everyone.

I know access to mental health treatment is sorely lacking in many areas, but if this were the case in this family when your two eldest kids have these kind of serious issues its a parent's obligation to try to get them whatever help they can while protecting other children in the home. And if you have two severely disturbed eldest children bringing another kid in every few years (once you're aware of the problem) so the ones with the disorder have less and less of your attention and focus is completely negligent, IMO.

I agree most parents cannot believe their kids would be capable of this. It's rare because for most it's unthinkable, so it's understandable if they didn't fully understand the threat level - but I can't see how a kid (or two) being born with these issues could escape notice if the parents are even marginally functional.

In this instance it's all hypothetical as no one knows anything about the kids or family yet, but about the issue in general i think the only time a parent wouldn't be at least partially culpable is if they had diligently sought help for their disturbed child(ren) and did whatever they could to mitigate the risk to others.

Per the confession this was premeditated and just the beginning of their planned killing spree.

This case is strikingly awful and seems beyond explanation because of it being two siblings , how does this happen?

And do they always show clear signs of being dangerously disturbed? I know people talk about things to look for - although some of the signs seem to fit a large number of school age children - and as another poster pointed out, the behavior is often outgrown. Judging children's behavior by adult standards of ethics can be problematic because they just haven't developed that part of their brain yet.

And sometimes there are kids who seem like nice, friendly, well adjusted kids who commit horrible crimes. How can their parents be held responsible for that.

This weekend a little girl was raped and murdered in my area. She had been riding her scooter in her apartment complex, waiting for a friend to come outside for a play date. An extensive search led to her body found in a dumpster the next morning. These are all first reports so maybe, hopefully they are wrong on significant portions of the story --- but basically - She had been raped and strangled and dumped in the small amount of time between when she was supposed to be playing with her friend and the police were called. The alleged culprit? A 15 year old boy who lived in the complex. A boy all of the neighbors are describing as sweet and nice and helpful and an all around good kid. His social media accounts were leaked - they show a silly young boy doing yo- yo tricks and skateboarding with friends and singing with his sister. It's tragic, absolutely tragic. So far no one has mentioned trouble with the law or his family being odd or even the usual " loner kid" . The particular apartment complex is apparently very close knit and supportive of each other. It's an artist live- work space with music and dance and art classes. How can it be explained? What makes some people like this?

[Grimalkin]

Horrific.

So, yeah, this sounds like a Columbine thing except they didn't go to public school. And they didn't know how to plan ahead.

So much for being Harvard smart. I guess when you are isolated from most of society, and are homeschooled, its easy to believe you are a genius.

A funny story, my friend's daughter came home from kindergarten all upset because nobody believed she was a princess. After all, she was called that all the time.

[FundieFarmer]

So much for being Harvard smart. I guess when you are isolated from most of society, and are homeschooled, its easy to believe you are a genius.

A funny story, my friend's daughter came home from kindergarten all upset because nobody believed she was a princess. After all, she was called that all the time.

Or feel like nobody understands what you're going through, or that everything that is terrible is normal, or that everyone else is out to get you, or so many other things that could've played a part in this, just because they didn't have an additional frame of reference.

It's an empowering experience as an adult to learn that your suspect feelings about things being not-so-normal-or-right were correct all along. These kids never got that, and it's a shame what that isolation did.

[for_the_Kitties]

This reminds me so much of the movie "we need to talk about Kevin."

just my opinion: Until the public hears more details on their motives or anything from the sister, victim blaming and fantastical stories of the family seem silly. I love a good crazy story, but things must be awful for the 13 year old.

[Howl]

Nobody seems to be mentioning the possibility of adolescent-onset schizophrenia.

I'm thinking back to so many incidents of murders perpetrated by young men who are obviously mentally ill. James Holmes comes to mind as the most recent. It is possible to plan and carry out complex murder schemes and be completely insane.

Completely. Insane.

James Holmes went through a prolonged trial and was convicted of murder, but his insanity was obvious.

Also, when one looks deeper, the parents and family of many of these kids and young men often went to desperate and extraordinary lengths to get psychiatric help or to get them committed.

I just googled and found the WEBMD page called

How to Recognize Schizophrenia in Teens

The very first sentence?

Schizophrenia can be hard to spot in teens. Sometimes in can be tough to see the difference between ordinary teenage moodiness and signs of more serious illness.

Edited to add that I was curious about the price of ammo. It seems that 3000 rounds of rifle ammo would cost between $700 and $1200, depending on caliber. Where did they get that kind of money?

[HerNameIsBuffy]

This case is strikingly awful and seems beyond explanation because of it being two siblings , how does this happen?

And do they always show clear signs of being dangerously disturbed? I know people talk about things to look for - although some of the signs seem to fit a large number of school age children - and as another poster pointed out, the behavior is often outgrown.

This is the big question and while I have no knowledge about young children and antisocial tendencies I know how often people get stuff wrong with the more minor stuff (even with adults) that I would be beyond skeptical of slapping a definitive labels on small children. A couple trivial examples from my own experience - when I was a kid I had problems making eye contact, it made me uncomfortable so I'd roll my eyes upwards starting when I was a toddler. For years my mom worked on this with me because people would alternately assume this meant I was lying, arrogant, disrespectful, etc. She knew that wasn't the case*, but she also knew (from teachers, etc. bringing it up) that people would assign the wrong intent to gestures. As an adult I'm still not a big fan of eye contact, but thanks to my mom teaching me to look someone right in the eyebrows I don't get the stigma anymore. As an adult I startle easily. My job requires intense focus at times so especially if I'm lost in my own head and concentrating I will jump if someone sticks their head in my office. A co-worker "diagnosed" me with PTSD and was on a quest to find out what was in my past to make me so hyper-vigilant and even suggested I get therapy to uncover repressed memories because they were 100% convinced I had been a victim of sexual trauma. I understand that PTSD is one explanation for that response, but it's not the only one. In my case it's just a neurological quirk.

*not that I wasn't sometimes lying, arrogant, or disrespectful...just that which way my eyes weren't indicative of when that was.

So yes, if a small child is harming animals, others, themselves or has other giant red flags certainly parents should intervene asap and move mountains to get help but the more subtle signs? Checking that out without labeling a kid I would think would be a difficult balancing act.

Judging children's behavior by adult standards of ethics can be problematic because they just haven't developed that part of their brain yet.

This is where I struggle with the concept of trying teens as adults. No one would ever argue that by the time a kid is a teen they don't know murder is wrong. But because I am of the belief that no one is born bad or evil I have to believe that something went very wrong either via abuse or neglect (which is true in many cases), or yes something organically wrong mentally. But if the parents didn't get the kid help either due to neglect or truly not knowing something was amiss...then holding a kid to the same legal standard as an adult with legal agency for their own mental health care isn't logical to me. Otoh zero excuse whatsoever for harming innocent people...so no pass for acting on impulses to kill which they absolutely had the developmental ability to know were beyond wrong.

I guess for me the fact that adults have the legal recourse to make their own life choices regarding environment and to get help and kids that age are at the mercy of adults that it should factor in somehow. But how to do that without endangering others is the question.

And sometimes there are kids who seem like nice, friendly, well adjusted kids who commit horrible crimes. How can their parents be held responsible for that.

This weekend a little girl was raped and murdered in my area. She had been riding her scooter in her apartment complex, waiting for a friend to come outside for a play date. An extensive search led to her body found in a dumpster the next morning. These are all first reports so maybe, hopefully they are wrong on significant portions of the story --- but basically - She had been raped and strangled and dumped in the small amount of time between when she was supposed to be playing with her friend and the police were called. The alleged culprit? A 15 year old boy who lived in the complex. A boy all of the neighbors are describing as sweet and nice and helpful and an all around good kid. His social media accounts were leaked - they show a silly young boy doing yo- yo tricks and skateboarding with friends and singing with his sister. It's tragic, absolutely tragic. So far no one has mentioned trouble with the law or his family being odd or even the usual " loner kid" . The particular apartment complex is apparently very close knit and supportive of each other. It's an artist live- work space with music and dance and art classes. How can it be explained? What makes some people like this?

Maybe I'm cynical, but I believe it's pretty easy for some to hide even extreme levels of dysfunction (either an individual or family) from the neighbors/community. There will always be people/families that look fine and functional superficially but there is all kinds of horror if you turn over the rock. Within the family though, I'm more skeptical. I'm not by any means the perfect parent, but I think I have a pretty good read on my kids over the years. When something was bothering them they didn't want to talk about, when they seemed edgy or down even if you couldn't point to a specific behavior that had changed. I am sure I missed some stuff but overall...I've tried to imagine one of them being capable of a heinous crime and my not knowing something was very wrong. But then it's probably unfair to compare my experience raising kids with typical emotional development to those trying to parent kids they can't understand.

This thread is causing me to examine my own knee-jerk reaction and personal biases on the matter. It's exactly in my comfort zone to believe that behind any kid capable of a heinous crime is an adult monster(s) who made them that way. Factoring in the complexities of a disturbed juvenile brain and the subtleties which can be missed by even the well intentioned is to acknowledge that sometimes shit breaks very bad in this world and the answer can't always be summed up with a neat little checklist. That's terrifying. Even though statistically the vast majority of kids who do this were badly mistreated and had their development derailed (Kathleen Heide's studies bear this out) there is a non-zero number of instances where it's not the case and keeping that in mind will help me refrain from assuming the worst of the adult victims in cases like this before the facts come in.

I responded within the thread in color to try to make it clear which of your points I was responding to.

[TXGirlInAMaterialWorld]

This reminds me so much of the movie "we need to talk about Kevin."

just my opinion: Until the public hears more details on their motives or anything from the sister, victim blaming and fantastical stories of the family seem silly. I love a good crazy story, but things must be awful for the 13 year old.

I read that book a couple of years ago but didn't know there was a movie made. Will definitely have to look for it.

[TXGirlInAMaterialWorld]

I think that homeschooling makes it much easier for all sorts of physical, developmental and emotional issues in children to go unnoticed and untreated. I'm not saying that public school catches these issues 100% of the time, but I do think being so isolated is never a good thing.

One (or both) of the sons may have symptoms of emotional issues for years that teachers or other parents would have picked up on if he was in a brick and mortar school or activities. I wonder if the kids were always homeschooled? I do hope more comes out about this story- it's just so sad!

[Grimalkin]

I think that homeschooling makes it much easier for all sorts of physical, developmental and emotional issues in children to go unnoticed and untreated. I'm not saying that public school catches these issues 100% of the time, but I do think being so isolated is never a good thing.

One (or both) of the sons may have symptoms of emotional issues for years that teachers or other parents would have picked up on if he was in a brick and mortar school or activities. I wonder if the kids were always homeschooled? I do hope more comes out about this story- it's just so sad!

Yes. And I am not anti homeschooling at all, and seriously considered it enough to meet up with local homeschoolers. I think it is easy for a parent to not notice signs of other problems. I think they can write it off as quirky behavior. So many people I know noticed things after interacting in a playgroup and seeing their kids behavior. I also knew a mom who had a child whose speech was very difficult to understand. Being her mom she knew exactly what her kid was saying and got incredibly offended when somebody asked about her daughter's speech problems. She asked so casually, and was not rude in any way. It was so obvious to everyone else, we assumed she was getting the help she needed.(our district is really awesome about really childhood intervention, they have an excellent preschool program to address it) Parents may not see these things.

I make these observations based on the comment upthread where somebody mentioned they were not active in the local homeschool groups. I don't know it that was an actual statement or assumption.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I think that homeschooling makes it much easier for all sorts of physical, developmental and emotional issues in children to go unnoticed and untreated. I'm not saying that public school catches these issues 100% of the time, but I do think being so isolated is never a good thing.

One (or both) of the sons may have symptoms of emotional issues for years that teachers or other parents would have picked up on if he was in a brick and mortar school or activities. I wonder if the kids were always home schooled? I do hope more comes out about this story- it's just so sad!

In one of her reddit posts the mom mentioned that she started homeschooling when her eldest was pre-school. There was also something in one of the articles about how a couple of years ago the eldest participated in some kid-government thing with others through (I think?) a home school group. So possibly at some point there was at least some involvement in activities outside of immediate family.

She advised others looking into homeschooling to make sure they were using some kind of accredited program because some homeschooling isn't recognized by colleges or employers and so parents need to make sure the kids can get jobs/go to school.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Nobody seems to be mentioning the possibility of adolescent-onset schizophrenia.

I'm thinking back to so many incidents of murders perpetrated by young men who are obviously mentally ill. James Holmes comes to mind as the most recent. It is possible to plan and carry out complex murder schemes and be completely insane.

Completely. Insane.

James Holmes went through a prolonged trial and was convicted of murder, but his insanity was obvious.

Also, when one looks deeper, the parents and family of many of these kids and young men often went to desperate and extraordinary lengths to get psychiatric help or to get them committed.

I just googled and found the WEBMD page called

How to Recognize Schizophrenia in Teens

The very first sentence?

Schizophrenia can be hard to spot in teens. Sometimes in can be tough to see the difference between ordinary teenage moodiness and signs of more serious illness.

Edited to add that I was curious about the price of ammo. It seems that 3000 rounds of rifle ammo would cost between $700 and $1200, depending on caliber. Where did they get that kind of money?

Since it was planned likely the parent's credit card on the assumption parents wouldn't discover it since it would all be over by the time the bill hit?