(Possible Fundie?) Family Murders in Tulsa

[zadie]

In addition to wondering about physical abuse I keep coming back to ties to a church which puts exorcism and demon possession front and center. Im trying to imagine the mindfuck if I was raised to believe that bad behavior and evil acts can stem not just from a persons conscious choices but from demons acting through people. I'd think it would be hard to know when your own accountability ends and loss of control to an evil entity begins. I'd also think it could lead to some level of dehumanizing others if you think that they may not be who you think they are and instead are possessed.

We don't know anything about the specific beliefs of this family so it may not apply, but I just know when I read that part of the website I got a chill as it could lead to a very dangerous mindset. I can't imagine trying to raise healthy children with accountability and a sense of their own agency in a culture which teaches that people may or may be acting of their own volition or may be a host to a demon. I am a world class control freak and I can't imagine a more terrifying mindset.

The braggart stuff in and of itself is par for the course for a lot of kids during late teens. There is an old saying that teenagers should run the world while they still know everything. Insecurity mixed with utter confidence is part of being a kid, I'd die of embarrassment if my journals from that age ever saw the light of day...it was ridiculous how accomplished I was sure I would be. 18 year old me would be very disappointed in current me. No Clio award, no rock star husband, and no mansion. What the hell happened? Now I'm disappointed in me, too. :)

Edited because I do too know how to spell Clio.

Even if he couldn't get into Harvard, he deserved the opportunity to find out himself. I can't blame him for being pissed that his parents controlled his whole life and "ruined" it. I'm not even mad right now, just sad. Something clearly went very wrong in that house. Right now the most logical theory for me about him stabbing is siblings was possibly out of mercy of their lives not being ruined like his.

It is possible this kid has always been sick and hateful and finally fulfilled his dreams, but it's not likely so I'm not entertaining that until we have more proof.

[DaffyDill]

I haven't seen anything with a timeline, but the neighbor talked about the fact that they used to help decorate the subdivision for Christmas and stopped a few years ago, so definitely not new comers.

Conflicting reports on the isolation now, some saying they kept only to themselves and other neighbors talking about how they weren't cloistered, just not participants in neighborhood events.

It is strange with the initial reports saying they were so cloistered, then further reports from neighbours saying they weren't so cloistered after all, and on the mum's Facebook page, there are photos of the kids with Santa from Christmas 2014, so seven months ago. If they are supposedly fundies, do fundies really DO Santa and the whole Christmas thing? Maybe they were just a homeschooling Christian family.

None of that of course, explains why the boys went off the way they did. I can't imagine what causes someone, or even more strangely, two someones, to snap they way they did and kill their own family members.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Just read through her reddit posts and the mom seems so normal. like really normal - friendly, super into nail polish and Christmas, one comment about the importance of using an accredited homeschool program which is recognized by colleges/employers.

Small snapshot but not a whiff of fundy here. She did reddit secret Santa. :shock:

So chilling to read her talking about her two eldest sons, and how they just got her into watching The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy. The eldest graduated from the home school program at 18 but the younger just finished his at 16. She joked how her 18 year old hates it when she reminds him how much he loved nail polish when he was little, but her girls love the sparkly colors while she favors the darker reds.

So much that would send a fundy running to the prayer closet.

[zadie]

Just read through her reddit posts and the mom seems so normal. like really normal - friendly, super into nail polish and Christmas, one comment about the importance of using an accredited homeschool program which is recognized by colleges/employers.

Small snapshot but not a whiff of fundy here. She did reddit secret Santa. :shock:

So chilling to read her talking about her two eldest sons, and how they just got her into watching The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy. The eldest graduated from the home school program at 18 but the younger just finished his at 16. She joked how her 18 year old hates it when she reminds him how much he loved nail polish when he was little, but her girls love the sparkly colors while she favors the darker reds.

So much that would send a fundy running to the prayer closet.

Well you don't have to be a funny to be abusive. Also it could be a bit of an exaggeration. People like to use the Internet as an escape. She might have enjoyed writing about the good things she could remember about her son.

Alternatively, the father could have been conducting most of the abuse.

Unfortunately there's nothing to do right now but speculate.

[Mitz_]

It is strange with the initial reports saying they were so cloistered, then further reports from neighbours saying they weren't so cloistered after all, and on the mum's Facebook page, there are photos of the kids with Santa from Christmas 2014, so seven months ago. If they are supposedly fundies, do fundies really DO Santa and the whole Christmas thing? Maybe they were just a homeschooling Christian family.

None of that of course, explains why the boys went off the way they did. I can't imagine what causes someone, or even more strangely, two someones, to snap they way they did and kill their own family members.

The oldest one said on FB that he graduated from homeschool in 2011, so that doesn't match with his mother's account that he graduated when he was 18 but maybe he continued advanced education.

I don't see that much descrepancy in what the neighbors are saying about the family staying to themselves. The family had lived in the house since 2007 and of course they were seen cleaning their yard, a messy yard will have your neighbors attention and invite problems. By all accounts the family was "nice" and polite, one of the neighbors said they helped welcome their new baby and had played with their kids. No one said their kids were friends or that the adults were friends with anyone either. It kind of sounds like their neighbors were beiing kind. Overall it does seem that their outside contacts were limited. A neighbor described the oldest as craving attention and another neighbor said that the youngest was a follower. Hopefully more info will come out about how their lives were on a daily basis and what might have caused the kids to want to kill.i

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Well you don't have to be a funny to be abusive. Also it could be a bit of an exaggeration. People like to use the Internet as an escape. She might have enjoyed writing about the good things she could remember about her son.

Alternatively, the father could have been conducting most of the abuse.

Unfortunately there's nothing to do right now but speculate.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that i thought it meant all was well, I was just struck by how incongruous it was considering what happened.

Fwiw I don't believe anyone is born evil so for two kids in one family to be capable of this I think there was something very sinister going on in that house. Of course it's all speculation, as you mentioned, and we won't know until the facts filter out.

[zadie]

Absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that i thought it meant all was well, I was just struck by how incongruous it was considering what happened.

Fwiw I don't believe anyone is born evil so for two kids in one family to be capable of this I think there was something very sinister going on in that house. Of course it's all speculation, as you mentioned, and we won't know until the facts filter out.

I didn't think you were. I was just mentioning a few different things that information brought to mind.

The only scenario I've been able to think of where it's slightly the kid's fault is if he was born with anti social personality disorder and his parents thought he had demons in him and he just cracked. But that seems unlikely since the other boy followed him.

And, even in that case, the parents are still at fault for not getting their child proper help and protecting the other children. So there's zero scenario where the parents didn't have a hand in this.

Is anyone torn between wanting religion to be involved and not? Part of me wants it because I hope it will make the news and spark more information about how dangerous taking your religion to the extreme can be.

Also it's pretty ironic I typed funny instead of fundie. :lol:

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I didn't think you were. I was just mentioning a few different things that information brought to mind.

The only scenario I've been able to think of where it's slightly the kid's fault is if he was born with anti social personality disorder and his parents thought he had demons in him and he just cracked. But that seems unlikely since the other boy followed him.

And, even in that case, the parents are still at fault for not getting their child proper help and protecting the other children. So there's zero scenario where the parents didn't have a hand in this.

Is anyone torn between wanting religion to be involved and not? Part of me wants it because I hope it will make the news and spark more information about how dangerous taking your religion to the extreme can be.

Also it's pretty ironic I typed funny instead of fundie. :lol:

I dont know how personality disorders are formed but as you said, if that was the case it's on the parents to get them help. No kid has the knowledge or autonomy to pick up the phone and arrange his own psychiatric care just like if they had cancer no one would expect them to contact their own oncologist.

I rather it be contained to one family rather than as a result of a systemic abusive teaching from a religion which could have encouraged who knows how many other families to harm their kids. But if it is based in religion I hope that's splashed on every front page as a wake up call. Probably won't affect the true believers, but can prompt others around them to be more aware.

The dad's brother was briefly interviewed in this article: http://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/bro ... -christian

Link not broken because news site.

From article:

Terry Bever told 2 Works for You that the murders are a complete shock. He said his brother's family was God-fearing.

News organizations should just write a macro for every tragedy where they speak to family ...of course it's a shock, who the hell expects to get that phone call?

And I know it's a common phrase but "God fearing" has always squicked me out.

Edited for riffles

[Coldwinterskies]

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/

[J.O.Y.nomore]

I know this is speculation! ... If Mom and Dad were horribly abusive, I could understand the older boys snapping and killing the parents. And perhaps they thought they were sparing their younger siblings from a life of misery by murdering them to. However, I read the police said they were planning on going after other people. That doesn't fit my scenario. I guess to a certain extent, trying to figure out a motive in such a heinous crime is pointless. :(

[HerNameIsBuffy]

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/

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.

[HereticHick]

If the 18 year old had already graduated homeschool, I'd like to know if he was pursuing any sort of high education, or working. There is no mention of him doing either. That sets off some alarm bells for me.

[Peas n carrots]

If the 18 year old had already graduated homeschool, I'd like to know if he was pursuing any sort of high education, or working. There is no mention of him doing either. That sets off some alarm bells for me.

I hate to say it but this incident has shades of Sandy Hook/Adam Lanza.

[J.O.Y.nomore]

I really hope the two surviving siblings have a loving relative who will take them in. :( Separating them in the foster care system will only compound the trauma.

[zebra #13]

Twenty years ago, someone recommended M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie to me. It's been haunting me since this story surfaced. Especially the story that opens him, as a young resident, to the many shades of evil.

The case of a depressed fifteen-year-old boy who had a brother who committed suicide with a rifle. His parents gave him his brother's suicide weapon as a Christmas present. When he (Peck) confronts them, they whine that everyone isn't as rich as HE is. . . . Took my breath away then, and does now.

Going to be a long long time before we discover what caused this, if we ever do.

[Mama Mia]

Well you don't have to be a funny to be abusive. Also it could be a bit of an exaggeration. People like to use the Internet as an escape. She might have enjoyed writing about the good things she could remember about her son.

Alternatively, the father could have been conducting most of the abuse.

Unfortunately there's nothing to do right now but speculate.

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.

[zebra #13]

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.

Gosh, I soooooo want to agree with you here. And basically do. At the same time, I know we are a culture of denial to the Nth degree. For instance, we *know* that most child abusers were abused as children themselves. Yet we treat each case as a new thing in the universe, as if there was no reason at all that it happened. . . . If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the wish expressed that the molester be sent to prison and raped dead by other inmates, I could have retired in a great deal more comfort than has been the actual case. What I'm seeing here is what I see all over the "real" world: a jumping too soon at an explanation because living without an explanation is too damned hard. . . .

[Mama Mia]

I believe this is the Mom's twitter:

https://twitter.com/aokiemom7

She seems to have done a lot of looking for freebies, commenting when bloggers had a giveaway of some sort. A lot of them seemed to be answering the "how would you use this product?" question - is that how some of these giveaways work? I really don't read blogs or enter giveaways.

So I'm not sure that which blogs or sites she went to is necessarily relevant for knowing their religious or political bent. Last night, I found one for a Shakespeare study help, on which she said she'd use it to teach Romeo and Juliet, another on which the blogger described herself as a devout Muslim.

The girls wore pants, they visited a Santa for photos in 2014, they visited a great-grandmother, there are pictures in parks. The kids may have been truly isolated, indoctrinated, and abused, but we don't know that yet.

Clearly there was dysfunction, in the oldest boys and/or the whole family, or this would not have happened. But I don't think we know nearly enough yet to label them Christian fundies.

Yeah, people have done a lot of research about a particular church and exorcism and fundamentalism and what the church believes and applied it to the family ---- but the only reason that people are assuming any of this is because one comment by a poster who saw the church mentioned somewhere else ( probably in a comment) . So they could be anywhere from Board President and High Bishop of this church, to regular members, to went there a couple times and left, to went there as a wedding guest --- to never even heard of the place.

And God Forbid the websites I've been to is ever published! I don't comment pretty much anywhere but here -- but , man, I fall down some weird rabbit holes without even knowing how I got there ( often going off tangents from FJ :lol: ) . If I found a recipe and linked it to my Facebook - I probably wouldn't even think to see if it had come from some bizzare site with weird beliefs that I'd ended up on 45 points away from where I'd started :embarrassed: .

[zadie]

Gosh, I soooooo want to agree with you here. And basically do. At the same time, I know we are a culture of denial to the Nth degree. For instance, we *know* that most child abusers were abused as children themselves. Yet we treat each case as a new thing in the universe, as if there was no reason at all that it happened. . . . If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the wish expressed that the molester be sent to prison and raped dead by other inmates, I could have retired in a great deal more comfort than has been the actual case. What I'm seeing here is what I see all over the "real" world: a jumping too soon at an explanation because living without an explanation is too damned hard. . . .

I wasn't saying that the Harvard thing was a trigger. Someone was wondering if he could actually get in and I was just saying he deserved to try.

Sure some things happen for no reason at all, but plenty of times things happen for a reason. Since you're right we don't know all the information, people are all speculating on the reason.

[mebeforee]

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.

[mebeforee]

I've also been looking at one of the son's (Daniel) g+ account. (plus.google.com/108623441772738767471/posts) He talks about learning everything he knows about karate from this youtube guy and trying to convince his mother to let him sign up for classes. He says he's a brown belt, and an article I read indicated that they were allowed to go to local youth stuff because of that claim, but since his post from the day before says he's trying to convince his mother, I wonder if he is self-assessing that he's a brown belt. I think having such an interest in karate and still having to beg for classes means they may have been a lot more isolated than you would guess from their social media accounts, because they all were clearly allowed access to the internet and likely gained a lot of individual interests through it.

ETA: It's really hard to look at a social account like this of someone so young who was murdered by family members. Maybe the weirdest and roughest part for me was watching some of the music videos he posted, Christian rappers and stuff singing about forgiveness. It's just hard to look at the kind of stuff that was forming his personality and his values, which are so malleable at this age. You see the kind of messages he thought were important enough to share, and then have to acknowledge that he was betrayed so horribly by people that he loved.

[Mama Mia]

I've also been looking at one of the son's (Daniel) g+ account. (plus.google.com/108623441772738767471/posts) He talks about learning everything he knows about karate from this youtube guy and trying to convince his mother to let him sign up for classes. He says he's a brown belt, and an article I read indicated that they were allowed to go to local youth stuff because of that claim, but since his post from the day before says he's trying to convince his mother, I wonder if he is self-assessing that he's a brown belt. I think having such an interest in karate and still having to beg for classes means they may have been a lot more isolated than you would guess from their social media accounts, because they all were clearly allowed access to the internet and likely gained a lot of individual interests through it.

ETA: It's really hard to look at a social account like this of someone so young who was murdered by family members. Maybe the weirdest and roughest part for me was watching some of the music videos he posted, Christian rappers and stuff singing about forgiveness. It's just hard to look at the kind of stuff that was forming his personality and his values, which are so malleable at this age. You see the kind of messages he thought were important enough to share, and then have to acknowledge that he was betrayed so horribly by people that he loved.

I'm not sure if he's a victim, or the 16 year old who murdered his family. Tragic either way.

[thoughtful]

Michael is the 16-year-old co-defendant.

Daniel was the 12-year-old.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewat ... 351ba.html

[Mama Mia]

Michael is the 16-year-old co-defendant.

Daniel was the 12-year-old.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/crimewat ... 351ba.html

Thanks, I hadn't seen the names released yet.

Oh, that's just heartbreaking. For a twelve year old he had a wide range of musical tastes. And the mix of trying to sound so grown up and knowledgable in his posts - talking about techniques for video games and martial arts, but at the same time trying to talk his mom into taking him to classes -- so typically 12! ......and now I'm picturing this poor baby maybe trying to defend himself or his family with his YouTube karate skills as his brothers - his brothers! - stab them all.

Think I'll go have a drink and watch an escapist comedy now :cry: :cry: :cry:

[mebeforee]

Thanks, I hadn't seen the names released yet.

Oh, that's just heartbreaking. For a twelve year old he had a wide range of musical tastes. And the mix of trying to sound so grown up and knowledgable in his posts - talking about techniques for video games and martial arts, but at the same time trying to talk his mom into taking him to classes -- so typically 12! ......and now I'm picturing this poor baby maybe trying to defend himself or his family with his YouTube karate skills as his brothers - his brothers! - stab them all.

Think I'll go have a drink and watch an escapist comedy now :cry: :cry: :cry:

Yeah, I've been drinking the whole time I've been researching this stuff. It's so hard to think about, but I also think it's important. I was really disappointed that one of the most frequented articles about the issue had turned off the comments. I wanted to respond to so many people about how homeschooling itself is not a problem, but that there are a wide range of quality in homeschool curriculum. And that even the uneducated in the world don't usually become violent, but the lack of socialization of these kids seems much more problematic, since none of the local homeschooling groups seemed to know the family.

Daniel was definitely one of the children killed. The two murderers, Robert and Michael, were 18 and 16. Daniel was 12, Christopher was 7 and Victoria was 5. Crystal was 13, and survived, and Autumn was 2 and wasn't harmed. It seems like luck was all that protected Autumn - one of the children called 911 and the police went to investigate.

It's all so fucking terrible. I just don't know how to react, but I always try to find all the info I can about this stuff. I tried the same thing when Adam Lanza killed all those little children in Sandy Hook, but his 'digital footprint' was so miniscule by the time I heard what had happened that I didn't find anything. And I don't know that researching the perpetrators or their family helps in anyway, it's just my impulse. I have such heartbreak for the kids that were killed here, and two of them have made a little of their personality known.

And although I think the oldest two have done something unforgivably horrible, I do think it's interesting that some of the news sources are saying that only two of the family's children have survived. In reality, four of their children are alive. But people are already distancing the oldest two from their victims. Again, I'm not saying this is inappropriate, but I wonder if the parents or other family members would be so quick to divorce the family from the two that carried out the murders. Those children were ALL raised by the same parents. We shouldn't be too quick to put the parents up on a pedestal when two of their children tried to kill all the other members of their family. Not blaming them for something so horrific does NOT mean that their actions didn't contribute to the violence their sons committed.

I wonder what their motives were, most of all. I do think there are probably a great number of children in the world who would be capable of violent actions, because they are lacking in empathy. But those disaffected people still don't normally kill others.The ones who actually go through with dispassionate murder tend to harbor a lot of secret resentment and anger toward their victims. With two siblings involved, this crime is kind of an outlier in terms of incidents to compare it to. And it's easy for the 'leader' sibling to become more aggressive with the 'follower' sibling unsure how to react. Again, I don't have any evidence that Michael was coerced. It's just so unusual for a crime like this to take place, and Michael sure isn't smiling the way Robert is. I don't know. It's all fucked.