I think we know her why, or can at least piece together a narrative that makes sense to many people toward the empathic end of the spectrum, which I feel Websleuths attracts and is one of the beautiful elements of this site/forum …
I can see it. Like her, I have a career of many years, but I have way more important things. I sit here typing in a house alive with kid energy, beautiful daughters, a healthy and happy partner. I’ve had the great love affair. I’ve had the limerance, the travel, the sense that life was breaking in my favor, the adventure. She had the ex who died of Parkinsons in January (hell to watch), the sunsetting career, the “waddling walk.” She probably met that guy and felt things she never felt, maybe ever. Was he a colossally bad choice? WORST. Can I understand a lonely woman whose only tether to good was her mother? … yea. The day I am perfect, I will cast my first stone at this very sad woman who Thelma & Louised on her way out, doused with adrenaline and dopamine and delusion, and who didn’t shoot at anyone else at the very end.
Credit to the marshals, police, paramedics, nurses and doctors who I believe all acted in good faith to try to keep this woman alive long enough for family to get there, maybe to put organ donation on the table, and because it was the right thing to do. Credit to them.