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Accused Killer Remembered
3/11/10
<snipped>
Bipolar disorder. Sexual molestation by a male family member. Anger management issues that frequently got him in trouble with teachers. Wacky, unpredictable behavior. These are among the ingredients in the background of John Albert Gardner III, the 1997 Rim High School graduate charged with the capital murder of Poway high school student Chelsea King and with assaulting a female jogger.
Insights into Gardner's troubled past were provided to The Mountain News this week by Jennifer Maylone Brandt, a Rim classmate of Gardner's who was in his inner circle of friends for three years after their high school graduation. Brandt, who now lives in Indianapolis, Ind., contacted the newspaper after hearing of Gardner's arrest in a text message sent by another classmate, who now lives in San Bernardino.
Though she was aware of Gardner while both were still students, Brandt said she didn't really get to know him until the year after they graduated. Then, from 1998 into 2000, Brandt (then known as Jennifer Maylone) and a handful of Gardner's buddies would hang out, going rock climbing in Cedar Glen, watching TV at Maylone's grandparents' home in Crestline or eating fast food together, she said.
FRIENDSHIP ENDS
For Brandt and the others, that friendship ended in 2000 when Gardner was convicted of committing a lewd act on a 13-year-old girl.
MOOD SWINGS
Brandt said Gardner had admitted to her that he had bipolar disorder, a condition in which moods can swing from manic to depressive. His bipolarity, she said, may have contributed to his "getting into things like stealing from grocery stores."
Brandt said she recalls Gardner telling her his mother, a single, working mom, as she recollects, worked at Patton State Hospital. On one occasion, he told her, she'd gotten him committed for some reason. "He proudly claimed, like Houdini, that he could work his way out of a straitjacket," she said. "He was quite proud of himself for that."
SEXUAL ABUSE
Something Gardner shared with Brandt might have been another significant impact on his developing personality. He once confided in her, she said, that he had been sexually abused by a male family member on repeated occasions. Though she said she knows how they were related, she declined to identify that relationship.
When not displaying anger, Brandt said, Gardner had impressed her as "soft spoken, but nothing feminine."
'STUPID KIDS'
"We rallied around him on his day in court," she said. "We were 19, 20 at the time. We were stupid kids. He'd never done anything like that before; why would he do it now? It was so not like him."
*Much More At Link!
Article:
http://www.crestlinecourier-news.com/articles/2010/03/11/news/news1.txt
3/11/10
<snipped>
Bipolar disorder. Sexual molestation by a male family member. Anger management issues that frequently got him in trouble with teachers. Wacky, unpredictable behavior. These are among the ingredients in the background of John Albert Gardner III, the 1997 Rim High School graduate charged with the capital murder of Poway high school student Chelsea King and with assaulting a female jogger.
Insights into Gardner's troubled past were provided to The Mountain News this week by Jennifer Maylone Brandt, a Rim classmate of Gardner's who was in his inner circle of friends for three years after their high school graduation. Brandt, who now lives in Indianapolis, Ind., contacted the newspaper after hearing of Gardner's arrest in a text message sent by another classmate, who now lives in San Bernardino.
Though she was aware of Gardner while both were still students, Brandt said she didn't really get to know him until the year after they graduated. Then, from 1998 into 2000, Brandt (then known as Jennifer Maylone) and a handful of Gardner's buddies would hang out, going rock climbing in Cedar Glen, watching TV at Maylone's grandparents' home in Crestline or eating fast food together, she said.
FRIENDSHIP ENDS
For Brandt and the others, that friendship ended in 2000 when Gardner was convicted of committing a lewd act on a 13-year-old girl.
MOOD SWINGS
Brandt said Gardner had admitted to her that he had bipolar disorder, a condition in which moods can swing from manic to depressive. His bipolarity, she said, may have contributed to his "getting into things like stealing from grocery stores."
Brandt said she recalls Gardner telling her his mother, a single, working mom, as she recollects, worked at Patton State Hospital. On one occasion, he told her, she'd gotten him committed for some reason. "He proudly claimed, like Houdini, that he could work his way out of a straitjacket," she said. "He was quite proud of himself for that."
SEXUAL ABUSE
Something Gardner shared with Brandt might have been another significant impact on his developing personality. He once confided in her, she said, that he had been sexually abused by a male family member on repeated occasions. Though she said she knows how they were related, she declined to identify that relationship.
When not displaying anger, Brandt said, Gardner had impressed her as "soft spoken, but nothing feminine."
'STUPID KIDS'
"We rallied around him on his day in court," she said. "We were 19, 20 at the time. We were stupid kids. He'd never done anything like that before; why would he do it now? It was so not like him."
*Much More At Link!
Article:
http://www.crestlinecourier-news.com/articles/2010/03/11/news/news1.txt
