Thanks Spicer and Conductor for reminding us that things are not always so cut and dry. I too have been offended by the quick willingness to dismiss JM as dim, a Lenny, a poor reader, not capable of planning, a mere jock, somehow less than human. And I am a white mom in her sixties! Most people start their lives with a hopeful heart, and when circumstances intervene to turn that course in a destructive direction, that is yet another tragedy among us. Your words humanize both him and our thinking.
To me JM is just another rapist and killer who hides behind the mask like so many others do.
And in every case like this it seems it will be family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors who are caught totally off guard. It just shows how cunning some can be to hide what really exist inside of them.
In just about every heinous case of murder discussed here all the family, friends, and neighbors come out in droves to say they are so shocked and he/she (suspect) was considered to be such a nice person. Example: He/she was always willing to help. He/she was always kind and so forth. Yet when the evidence comes forth in trial then it is learned they were far from being a nice person. Then we learn the exterior which was seen was nothing more than a a façade.
That is even more chilling to me that so many like JM 'appear' normal and it shows no one really knows anyone especially if they don't want them to know their deep dark inner secrets.
That is one of the very reasons they often get away with their viscous crimes for years. They appear one way to those who 'think' they know them and one way to the victims they rape and murder. Hiding in plain sight and always peering from behind the mask.
It is only the victims who sees the truth of who they really are and what they are capable of doing and in a cold unemotional remorseless unattached way.
Those like JM are very manipulative. They will pretend to be 'the good guy/woman' for that is how they hide their true inner selves from the world.
Yet, we now know that this normal appearing man was raping in 2002 and he raped only 9 months later. Even being expelled from one college did not stop his urges to harm and rape others and there was more violence to come and we may never really know how many victims JM has had for over a decade.
It is for certain..........a nice guy ........JM is not. He is a serial predator and a violent victimizer of defenseless women and as dangerous as they come.
IMO