The mind of Paul Merhige: Trying to unravel a mental mystery
Now that he has been captured and cuffed and paraded for the cameras, all the attorneys, moralists and armchair puzzlers can begin to try to fathom the strange synapses of Paul Michael Merhige’s mind.
Was he insane or a sociopath? Did he ever feel remorse?
What thoughts wound through him in his last days of freedom in a Keys hotel, a mattress against the door, apparent suicide devices in a closet?
However the tangled, knotty mass of Merhige’s brain functioned, it appeared to harbor a penchant for violent gestures from an early age.
After an argument in his childhood home in a Miami suburb, a teenage Merhige pulled out a loaded gun and pointed it at terrified family members, a person close to the family said. He was maybe 13 at the time.
Merhige never fired a shot, and it’s unclear how he acquired the gun, but the incident was a chilling foreshadowing of the fourfold massacre to come more than 20 years later, at Thanksgiving dinner in his cousin’s Jupiter home.
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He was by no means a functioning member of society. After studying at the University of Miami, he had never held a job and was supported his whole life by his parents. He once shot himself in a supposed suicide attempt and allegedly threatened years ago to cut the throat of one of his sisters.
He was said to be obsessive*-compulsive. An old family acquaintance said he feared germs. At the Keys hotel where he hid out, the owner said Merhige left his room only to wash his clothes.
As authorities scoured South Florida, U.S. marshals knew the suspect would be in pants. Merhige, for unknown reasons, refused to wear shorts.
'Spoon-fed … his whole life’
But was he insane? It may be a jury that ultimately decides whether he meets the state’s legal definition, but various experts say he likely does not.
Veteran criminal profilers point out that his behavior appeared more akin to that of a sociopath than the clinically insane: He knew that killing people was wrong; he just didn’t care.
“You could make the case that this wasn’t some delusional act,” said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI criminal profiler. “(His escape) indicates he appreciated the wrongfulness of what he was doing. He did it and then he fled.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/the-mind-of-paul-merhige-trying-to-unravel-171565.html
Now that he has been captured and cuffed and paraded for the cameras, all the attorneys, moralists and armchair puzzlers can begin to try to fathom the strange synapses of Paul Michael Merhige’s mind.
Was he insane or a sociopath? Did he ever feel remorse?
What thoughts wound through him in his last days of freedom in a Keys hotel, a mattress against the door, apparent suicide devices in a closet?
However the tangled, knotty mass of Merhige’s brain functioned, it appeared to harbor a penchant for violent gestures from an early age.
After an argument in his childhood home in a Miami suburb, a teenage Merhige pulled out a loaded gun and pointed it at terrified family members, a person close to the family said. He was maybe 13 at the time.
Merhige never fired a shot, and it’s unclear how he acquired the gun, but the incident was a chilling foreshadowing of the fourfold massacre to come more than 20 years later, at Thanksgiving dinner in his cousin’s Jupiter home.
~~~~~~~~
He was by no means a functioning member of society. After studying at the University of Miami, he had never held a job and was supported his whole life by his parents. He once shot himself in a supposed suicide attempt and allegedly threatened years ago to cut the throat of one of his sisters.
He was said to be obsessive*-compulsive. An old family acquaintance said he feared germs. At the Keys hotel where he hid out, the owner said Merhige left his room only to wash his clothes.
As authorities scoured South Florida, U.S. marshals knew the suspect would be in pants. Merhige, for unknown reasons, refused to wear shorts.
'Spoon-fed … his whole life’
But was he insane? It may be a jury that ultimately decides whether he meets the state’s legal definition, but various experts say he likely does not.
Veteran criminal profilers point out that his behavior appeared more akin to that of a sociopath than the clinically insane: He knew that killing people was wrong; he just didn’t care.
“You could make the case that this wasn’t some delusional act,” said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI criminal profiler. “(His escape) indicates he appreciated the wrongfulness of what he was doing. He did it and then he fled.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/the-mind-of-paul-merhige-trying-to-unravel-171565.html
