Respectfully, this is a hormone raging 12 year old. His brain is barely fully formed enough to tell the difference between a video game and real life. He probably gave up on Santa just a year or two ago. He is a child. I guess I would completely expect overkill in a child because something very powerful was driving him-dont tell me you havent had a tween go off a cliff on you? There was no an adult present and who knows if he was on any kind of stimulant for any reason.
He may be very broken or he may be an impulsive tween who made a choice he cant take back. There is a lot more info that needs to come out before I am convinced he is a lost cause. Kids kill kids, absolutely. It remains to be seen if he was hard wired this way.
Respectfully, I sometimes think thinking like this is dangerous. Which crimes do we explain away with raging hormones? The reason why these crimes are SO incredibly rare (when you take into account how often they happen vs. the population of teens,) is because it's not normal. OK, lets say it's raging hormones. When does that stop, and something else very scary take over? The second stab? The third? The fourth? The fifth? The 21st? What about Jessica Ridgeway's killer? He was a teenager. Can him raping and killing be blamed on hormones? What about all the serial killers who confess to starting raping or killing in their teens? Was that hormones, too? What about teenagers who molest very young children? Is that hormones? Columbine...hormones? It's such a very slippery slope. I seriously hope raging hormones can never be used in any kind of defense. The crimes are outrageous and devastating, because they can't be explained by typical explanations. In my opinion, of course...and respectively so.
I can see impulse being hitting, yelling, throwing, etc. Stabbing 21 times? I just don't understand how that can be explained by hormones and impulse. I wish my mind would let it, to be very honest.