Maybe NJ or other psychological people can answer this: What was the dynamic between the 2 (most probably)? Leader and follower, equal partners. Folie a deux implies that one wouldn't have done it without the other. Wouldn't a psychopath pose a threat to another psychopath? Could it be a psychopath teams up with a sociopath (the less together, less organized one).
Well the report said the police thought it was an equal partnership. And I think for the most part it was. I think all of their decisions were ultimately made mutually.
However I do think that in every friendship or relationship, there's naturally a more dominant person. And I think Kam was the more dominant person historically due to having more social and economic capital. Like, Bryer always went to his house, never the other way around. There are also signs that he was the more dominant person during the killings and escape. All the resources for the trip came from his family, he had the gun license (which most of us predicted), he was the only one who could drive, he did most of the talking to people they encountered...and of course he was the person who killed Bryer.
On the other hand though, it is possible that Kam took more of the lead on the road, while Bryer took more of the lead in the woods because he was more into the survivalist stuff. It seems like Bryer did most of the talking on the videos, from the description, although who knows.
I think basically their motive was rage, like it is for most killings of this type -- no cooling-off period (as we now know was the case due to the attempted attack on the 17th) and with the perpetrators having no previous history of violence. I think that this was an "extinction burst" of nonspecific rage at the world. And that's why their targets were random -- because it was the entire world they were targeting.
I also think for sure there was some weird militia thing going on. Like these guys really thought they were in some kind of militia of two fighting against the entire planet. But yeah clearly they had some kind of extremely codependent, "us vs. the world" dynamic. Even to the point of one killing the other in a suicide pact...the ultimate expression of codependency.
I guess we can't really determine whether there was some kind of shared delusional belief going on without seeing the videos. Because the "marching to Hudson Bay, stealing a boat, and going to Europe or Africa" thing sounds pretty delusional to me. But we don't really know how serious they were about that, or if they were just being dramatic or joking. From the way it was written in the report though, it sounds like the investigators thought it was serious? Plus a lot of their decisions in how they conducted this whole thing seem to be...extremely irrational and divorced from reality. Like, thinking they could go back and kill more people while there was a huge manhunt underway for them. But again, how serious was that statement, or was it more of a dramatic or expressing anger thing? Who knows.
As for the psychological profile, like the whole genetics vs. environment thing or whatever...I'm not sure we can conclusively determine that at this time. Clearly they must have had some kind of sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies going on. Which I think we all knew already. I mean you don't go around killing random people otherwise. But the question of whether they were "born evil" or if it happened over time or whatever...who knows. I think we definitely see some environmental factors that could have been an influence in turning them down the wrong path.
But if they were "born evil," it does seem weird that it's been two months and no information has come out about any previous history of violent or criminal behavior. Like, some people thought all sorts of dirt on them would come out in the report, even previous crimes. But the police said they haven't been able to find
anything. In fact I haven't seen a single person say anything bad or even just non- effusively positive about Kam at all, either in MSM or elsewhere. That to me is interesting and, to me, indicates more of a thing where they "snapped."
The only thing is that one friend who reported them, which I think was probably one of their other three close friends. But since police said they found no evidence of planning or motive at all, I actually don't think that they leaked their plans to that guy beforehand, whether in the abstract or not. I think it's entirely possible that between the murders, they contacted this friend and maybe other friends and maybe made vague, weird references to doing something messed up. In fact we speculated before on whether the tip that led the police to consider them as suspects was something along those lines.
Generally in these kinds of killings though, where the person has no history of violence and there is no cooling-off period, there is some sort of crisis point that leads up to it. Like a confluence of factors that pushes the person over the edge from non-violent to violent ("grasshopper to locust transformation" as I've called it). I have my theories on what those were. I wonder if we will ever know.
My feeling on it though is that in many ways, they were psychologically similar to the Columbine shooters (Bryer being more of an Eric and Kam being more of a Dylan -- except in this case Kam seemed to be the more dominant one), which is why I keep referencing it. Of course they were way dumber than the Columbine shooters though. But anyway, sort of a weird combination of psychopathic tendencies, severe depression, rage due to feeling wronged by the entire world, and delusions of grandeur. Except the Columbine shooters planned their shooting (and failed bombing) for a long time and had a ton of leakage of their plans, and I don't think these guys did.
I wonder how planned this even was. I think it's entirely possible they only planned to do it a couple of days before they set out, because of how abrupt this trip was, how there was no evidence of pre-planning (I find it difficult to believe these guys would have left no signs if they had been planning this for a long time), how they didn't even get one of the guns until the day they left, and how poorly planned the whole thing seemed. Like it was probably something they were fantasizing about for years, but they only decided to make it a reality maybe a day or two before they set out, after they gave up on life. That's what I think anyway.