It is WAY over the top as the first symptom of an emotional disturbance...tells me that he was enormously bottled up....I think he planned this (if it was planned) during moments of extreme frustration, and this latest spanking was likely the trigger to set it in motion.
I would be shocked if this was a sociopath, because I think they are more cunning that this...If the boarder was left alive with the smoking gun in the house, would we even be discussing this child's guilt?
I think this child was emotionally isolated (being an only child entertaining himself primarily with video games) and probably feeling more like an outsider since his father's marriage.
I think he was made to grow up too soon....losing regular maternal contact at an early age, possible witness to domestic disputes, hunting and killing animals at a young age.
Schoolwise, I think there were tremendous expectations of this child that he could not or did not meet.
His dad was hands on but seemed more into getting the son into his hobbies rather than meeting the child at his own very young level (Chuck E Cheese, amusement parks, etc).
I think he knew what he was doing was wrong but couldn't appreciate the consequences of his actions at an adult level. IF he did have fetal alcohol effects, he may have had poor impulse control or may have been poorly grounded in reality.
I agree very much with your first paragraph. I also have trouble accepting hands down that he is a sociopath simply because he is consistantly described as a normal, activce, involved little boy with no school troubles identified.
As the mother of a 6 and 8 year old boys, I have to say that I believe hobbies are a very common and healthy way to be involved with a child that age - I don't think doing games and hobbies with children this age can be rightfully described as "not meeting them at their own level."
I cannot speak to his emotional isolation - he went to a child neighbor's house after the shootings and presumably he had friends at school and in his sports play (else I think we would have heard something to the extent of "he just never really fit in with the kids at school or in the neighborhood"). As we all know, plenty of accomplished sociopaths seem to fit in just fine but really are emotionally isolated. However - would an 8 year old have that ability? I just have a hard time seeing it.
I haven't heard mention of video games and can't speak to that. You may be right.
I definitely think that killing animals from a young age would be a super-dangerous past-time for a child who may already have emotional problems
or an anti-social personality. But again - so far, we haven't heard of him presenting as a child who was obviously emotionally disturbed.
We do agree, I think, that more than anything else - regardless of what label the psych community is going to eventually apply to this child - he is a child who needs and should get help. Some great pressure was building within him and I'm sure the divorce and perhaps feeling that he couldn't measure up in some way played a part in his explosion.
I keep returning to the simple fact that the vast majority of 8 year olds in similar or even "worse" psychological/emotional/spiritual/physical situations do not take a gun and shoot two adults dead. That fact leads me to believe that there is damage within this child beyond the confines of the situation that lead to his crime. And once again, in circular unanswerable fashion, the questions becomes, why didn't anyone notice something?
They look at me as if to say "who in the heck is that woman?" lol
