<modsnip - quoted post was snipped> He had/has a girlfriend...and an attractive one at that!
I'm a guy. I will say that tales of a long distance BF are not always convincing. I'm not defending him, just saying that if she kept the apartment for job convenience her BF may not have been there much if at all. This could have given him hope if he had an infatuation. He could have snapped when she showed up with a wedding ring!
As they say in my mother country, let’s separate the jam from the flies.
1) about the relationship with her husband-to-be. It was a long one, but it is not at all relevant for the case. Moreover, when Bryce graduated from his nursing program, Melissa’s relationship was by no means a long-distance one. She and her fiancée started planning the wedding 1.5 years ago. Also, with her husband being deployed in WA, I assume he was hardly an absent figure in Melissa’s life. Rather, the opposite. He was visiting her in Oregon, or she’d likely go to her home state, Washington, where she grew up and her parents lived, on weekends. Either way, if Bryce was unaware of her situation, it just means he didn’t know her at all, that there was no connection save for living across the hall. The whole hospital knew of Melissa’s forthcoming dream wedding, and BS was unaware?
2) nowhere in the scenario do I see this guy, BS, in the cards. Why him? Just because he was a neighbor? Probably a recent one, and chances are, Melissa started planning her wedding when this guy just graduated from his nursing program. Theirs are totally different life tracks that cross over due to the proximity of their doors in these apartments. He got obsessed with her? His problem, not her fault. He had a family, he was earning money, he could have worked through this.
3) in general, it shouldn’t have mattered at all. Imagine that Melissa were single, working in Oregon and having a family in Washington. Would it have given Bryce more right to attack her? He had no right either way. Melissa was not Bryce’s property, she was a married neighbor and I feel horribly sorry for her widower and her family. Her father’s words broke my heart. I am very glad that they have the dignity to stay away from all these insinuations.