WA - 3 children, ages 13, 9 and 7, among 5 killed inside Fall City home, 15 y.o. in custody - 21 October 2024

[ChatteringBirds]

It's too bad we can't hear his own words regarding why he did it.

 

[girlhasnoname]

Yes, the isolation and denial of friends is a known fact and published in msm articles accepted here at WS. Multiple links are posted in the history of this thread.

His grandmother had even made attempts at helping to ease his forced isolation but her efforts were rejected by the boy's mother. She also spoke to this in the aftermath of the massacre and must have been devastated and heartbroken at the outcome.

Its generally unknown how involved the father was in making (or supporting) these socially isolating decisions and computer schooling since he was working outside the home.

Because these are the known facts, they wouldn't be considered "casting aspersions". They're just factors that may or may not have contributed to the boy's *obvious* anger and frustration that culminated in a massacre. Thankfully, not every teen that is deprived of normal socialization commits murder.

But, speaking from my roles as social worker in child protection, as a juvenile justice worker, as a teacher specialist of an "at risk" teenage population and as a mother very involved in parent support organizations, I can very comfortably say that a good assessment of the situation in that home would have pointed out risk factors and recommended changes including counseling for not just the son but also the mother who was struggling with her own issues that were affecting her decisions concerning her teenage son who was developing an identification independent from his parents and wanting to be more out in the world as is natural for *most* healthy well adjusted teenagers. No aspersions; just facts.
Its not "blame", its just attending factors.

While I appreciate your assessment, there are as many ways of parenting as there are parents. Who is society to judge another family's parenting skills and family decisions and whether they are correct or not? (Unless physically, mentally or s e x u a l l y abusive) Just because it might differ from our own based on personal religious, political or socially acceptable ideologies does not mean that different is wrong.

I wonder if any of the other children were having problems as well? To me, this type of severe action seems to show some possible form of mental health and anger management issue(s). That is just a guess, because I also have no firm MSM facts as of yet.

I enjoy discussing all possibilities about these cases, I just don't condone victim blaming, especially when an entire family is murdered by one sibling. (CH would have been dead without quick thinking on her part). It will interesting to see how this all unfolds and I believe he will be tried as an adult. JMO

 

[Sjöberg]

Who is society to judge another family's parenting skills and family decisions and whether they are correct or not? (Unless physically, mentally or s e x u a l l y abusive)

There's a vague and thin line there. Just an example, is denying children religious freedom a form of emotional abuse or not? In some countries it is, in others it is not. Is hitting your own children physical abuse? In some countries it is, in other countries it is not, in some it depends on the exact method of hitting the child.

I think it's very unlikely that the chosen parenting and lifestyle choices alone made the child a killer, however, I also think it is very unlikely that they did not negatively affect the child. Nature vs nurture, the oldest discussion in psychology

 

[OneLove]

I wonder if any of the other children were having problems as well? To me, this type of severe action seems to show some possible form of mental health and anger management issue(s). That is just a guess, because I also have no firm MSM facts as of yet.

Definitely agree on the status of the teens mental health as stressed to the point of being unbalanced.

Most often in social work assessments, we looked at the status, adjustment of all children in a family, and the relationship dynamics, even if only one was reported as concerning, and we looked at all *influencing* factors which we did not react to as blaming.

My best guess, given the information released in WS approved MSM so far by those who knew this family including the surviving sibling, is that this teen boy had more adjustment problems to the isolation than his younger siblings because he was older when that change was made. He remembered a time when he enjoyed school, seeing his friends, socializing everyday at lunch, laughing with others his own age, engaging with multiple teachers ever day, making plans to do fun things with friends, the everydayness of life like that.

The teens are a developmental age when they are developing their individual identity and also their se-x-ual imprint, most are looking ahead to being independent of parents and making their own choices about work, where and how to live, and they mostly imagine the *enjoyable* aspects of young adulthood rather than the mundane "pay the bills take the garbage out".

Its not unlikely THIS boy was the only child in the family experiencing extreme boredom and also sexual frustration without the usual outlets most of his friends he had ALREADY KNOWN were out there enjoying while he was not. The sibling did report his being in trouble for looking at por-n on his computer in the privacy of his bedroom. We do know as a fact that he was not out at the skating rink with a group of friends while he was in his room watching por-n. Thats just a fact. ~~ Did it contribute to his deteriorating mental status is the question. And what else mught have contributed to his deteriorating mental state?~~

We ask these same questions of every case we see here at Websleuths. A man shoots up his place of employment. We discover he was demoted and lost his health insurance at the same time his child needed a bone marrow transplant to survive. We don't call those influencing factors as "blaming the boss" or excusing his massacre. We look at "those" situations quite a bit more dispassionately than this case.

A father recently strangled his 3 young daughters. We discovered his wife divorced him recently. We don't call our discussion of her choice to divorce him "blaming" the wife. We clearly are able to view that as simply an influencing factor that pushed an already mentally stressed man over the edge. I never once saw in that case it said that discussion of the divorce or the mother's choices in regards to parenting were off limits or in any way considered "blaming" OR considered to be excusing his heinous massacre of his own children.

I believe this particular heinous murder sets off a higher level of emotional guardedness and even generates a degree of defensiveness in some people because it involves home schooling and this family's choice to restrict their kids' exposure to outside elements. I largely support home schooling, have close friends and family who have done so very successfully. There are infinite ways to do it and the motivations for doing so are variable also. People can be very defensive and sensitive about the hard choices they make and, among my closest girlfriends anyway, some absolutely agonize over the decisions they've had to make and that can be VERY stressful for them in addition to just the sheer amount of work and focus it takes to do everything each child needs for a good education and life-lessons to produce happy well functioning adults.

I hope no one thinks that discussion of attending factors and what may have *influenced* a seemingly functional teen to murder his whole family is in any way whatsoever excusing his actions OR blaming his parents anymore than we'd blame a boss for firing an employee who then shot his coworkers.

The ultimate goal in parsing these horrendous crimes is to understand what the wholly hell-o happened and why and maybe figure out what might have been different to prevent it. In most cases here at WS, we see in *retrospect* that there were signs that were missed. We really don't have much of an advantage in this case because, other than the father who worked outside the home, they didnt have many outside contacts. We've heard from a grandmother who lived in the area over the lives of the children, a neighbor, and the surviving sibling. Is there anyone else thats been overlooked?

 

[Knox]

I’m one of those you mention who became very defensive, when reading your posts on this thread . I felt you were victim blaming and basing your arguments/opinions on a very narrow scope of limited information available in this case.

However the points you’ve made in this post, make sense to me now. It’s interesting how we can let our emotions rule when posting, but after a period of time, see things differently (speaking for myself).

We have some friends from Church who homeschool their three children. They are very similar to the Humiston family in their homelife. Very little socializing outside of family, close friends and Church. But the kids have never known anything different and are well adjusted, really great kids. The oldest graduated last year and is driving and going to college locally. I saw her downtown last week, she’s really enjoying her independence and going to school. I was thinking of this family when reading your previous posts.

Mark and Sarah were good people and parents, doing what they felt was best for their family according to their personal values. There was no outward sign of danger in what they were doing as parents, unless we hear otherwise at trial.

The points you made about how the decisions affected the older child differently than the younger siblings, are valid but could not have predicted this outcome.

 

[Charlot123]

I'm always all for debating and discussing the FACTS of the cases we follow. We don't have those facts here yet and I think it is presumptuous and wrong to blame the parents at this point.

I agree that we know nothing. My question would be, what were the red flags in AH's behavior that they missed and what is the way to not miss them?