IN NO WAY am I sticking up for this guy...
but it seems life stressors kept building and building, good and bad; he got divorced, lost custody of kids (wonder what type of visitation was granted); had his first book being published; seemed to be getting noticed as an artist; sometimes people feel they are unworthy of happiness/achievements.
I think he might also be a pompous a$$ and he deserves what he has coming to him.
From what little I've read, it seems more like a guy whose life has been in a pretty steady downward spiral. The book, while published (and his work is excellent quality), was self-published. That means he paid for the printed copies and is trying to sell them off his website. As a writer with two other book authors in the family, I can attest that even publishing with a legitimate publisher has unreliable profit nowadays to the author, considering the amount of work put in. The publishing industry has been nose-diving in this Internet age, and coffee-table books with expensive photo printing are NOT selling--to publishers or to the economy-stricken public.
Having also had a family member who was a *advertiser censored* addict, I can tell you that increased stress triggers increased addictive behavior. I sense this could be the scenario with this man's life. In 2002 he's selling off camera equipment, probably to pay for divorce lawyers in 2003; in 2004 his business is declaring bankruptcy; in 2009 he's going through a second divorce and losing his kids while still trying to finish up his self-published book with his divorcing wife so he can fund that divorce; in 2010 a close cousin dies...a sorry downward spiral that doesn't excuse his horrific choices, but perhaps hints at his state of mind.
Crimes like this tend to really bother us--because I think we'd like to believe we can prevent evil from touching our lives if we only were to take enough precaution. If we could discover the 'trigger' or the 'cause' that could explain the reliably jolting recurrence of evil in our world, maybe we could set things up to prevent it from touching us or our loved ones. And so when the perp is someone so seemingly normal--even gifted, or likeable--someone we might have friended on Facebook or chatted with at coffee breaks, it shakes us up that no one could see the warning signals.
Some things are preventable and foreseeable; but others are not. Evil is here, in every disguise, in every form, and to every degree. It's in the human race...and I'll admit, my own personal brand still lurks in the far reaches of my own human heart (greed, pride, self-centeredness). It seems all we can do is fight it where we can with God's help, but also to try to overcome its inevitable occurrence with the good He would like to see come out of it. I see that amazing little girl in the Cody abduction doing just that.
