This is only about a half hour away from me. I was glad to see I didn't recognize any of the names. Apparently the 14-year-old grandson was being raised by the grandparents, and he shot them both while they were lying in bed, most likely sleeping. He stayed in the home with the bodies for a couple of days before the murders were discovered, after school authorities investigated why he was truant. I saw in another article that he's being called Autistic. I'm interested to hear more about the case, and learn what medications he was taking, if any.
Jeez, he must have some very serious issues. Why was he living with his grandparents? Don't have enough info except to say this is happening too often and when I think of my own grandsons, it's like a different world..thankfully they are all normal...so far. I hope they stay the happy healthy children they are. I just can't wrap my head around a 14 yr old calming shooting his grandparents unless something major was going on and that should have been obvious already.
There have been two kids 15 boy and girl convicted of stabbing a mother and daughter to death in the UK. They too stayed in the home of the victims. Such a senseless crime. I can never fathom what goes through their minds. Horrible.
My husband has an autistic nephew who is now 25 and living in California. I had seen him grow up, his tantrums and his good side. Truly he is not normal and admittedly there are times he is irritating. But to commit murder? Let me continue later... my phone is dying.
Autism is a wide spectrum, which includes those who are diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder. Untreated, children with reactive attachment disorder can become sociopaths as adults. It stems from physical or emotional trauma at a very early age, generally before a child becomes verbal. Often, this is the result of abuse, but it can also be the result of neglect or what is perceived by the non-verbal child to be abuse or neglect. For example, children who are not held, rocked and spoken to at an early age, such as might occur in overcrowded children's homes or orphanages. There is a high incidence of RAD in adopted children, and particularly those adopted from China or from Russia or that general area. Babies who were born with serious medical problems are also at risk because the non-verbal infant doesn't know the difference between trauma that is inflicted from that which was congenital, and babies who spend their first days or weeks in NICU rather than being held by their mothers may develop reactive attachment disorder. Many children with reactive attachment disorder will grow to become productive adults even if not treated but they are likely to have trouble maintaining lasting relationships. On the other end of the scale, most serial killers are people who likely suffered from reactive attachment disorder as children because the greatest danger of this disorder is difficulty in developing a conscience. Some of these kids, like the serial killer, Ted Bundy, is said to have done, will spend hours in front of a mirror learning to fake emotions because the only emotion they truly understand is anger.
Please bear with my posts for the meantime. I am having difficulty in using my phone. Back to autism, I understand that an autistic boy can do harm to other people but on a limited scale so I agree that the medication given to the boy should be investigated. It is an effect of the drug and not of the mindset. On a brighter note, this case of killing can be a test case on the drugs being administered by doctors.
Reactive Attachment Disorder is a separate disorder from those existing on the Autism Spectrum, but there are plenty who have both, and also shared characteristics, such as the detachment and seeming inability to form emotional bonds. After all, our bonds are in many cases what make us care about others and without them, people may be more prone to acting out. There are some scary kids/people in both categories, for sure. I've worked with kids on both ends of the spectrum, and the lower functioning can be violent. They will sometimes be docile and easy to get along with, then suddenly shift. I don't know if this boy has the correct diagnosis or not, because there are plenty that are lumped on the Autism Spectrum because without that designation, they won't get services that may help them. Some with one or both of the diagnoses can be very scary, and even if the child is with family, they tend to be moved around because they can be hard to manage, and the caregivers get overwhelmed and relinquish them to other family members or to the foster care system. None of the articles I've seen on this incident explain why he's living with his grandparents, but that's not uncommon these days. In many cases it's because the parents are into drugs or in prison, and in those cases, it's often a question of whether any of the behaviors are inherited or a result of drug or alcohol use on the part of the parents. Many people these days are using chemicals that haven't even been legally determined to be drugs, and there's no research to show what effects they may or may not have on DNA. These people with potentially damaged DNA are then going on to procreate, and I think that is part of the reason we're seeing such an increase in these types of disorders. It does seem as if this type of crime is becoming more common.
The world does seem crazier, I don't know if it's because we have access to all of it and see so much more of these things because of the internet and/or drugs are causing changes but I'm glad I was born when I was. I don't think I'd want to be a baby born today. I grew up in an Ozzie and Harriet world and I'm glad I did. My mom was Like Beaver's mom on " Leave it to Beaver". I'm sure bad things happened in the 50's also but not as frequently.
I think about that a lot @Chrissy Page. Things were starting to go downhill when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, but they seem to have snowballed from there. I think lack of discipline and boundaries causes some of the problems as well, but a big part of the problem in my opinion is that values are not being taught. However, a lot of these kids in the news are far too damaged for those things to have made much of a difference. A lot of these kids are living in the equivalent of war zones. Look at Chicago and parts of LA, New York, and other large cities. It would be difficult to not be affected by the goings on when living in those types of areas, particularly if you don't have good solid role models.
That's true and it's hard for me to even imagine people living like that, my frame of reference is so different. Maybe that's why I can't understand some of these things, but I don't think that was an issue with this boy...the house his grandparents lived in looked middle class but who knows how and where he grew up and how long he's lived at his grandparent's house. A bigger issue is drugs I think because that affects all social levels.... Values and morals are a biggie and that might also be missing. I've never been dirt poor but my values and morals raising my kids remained the same wether we were doing well or living paycheck to paycheck and that's how I raised my children. My children are very well off but they are raising my grandson with the same morals and values they learned as children...I'm hoping it continues and the only interference in this that I would fear would be drug use in one of my grandsons. That's an unknown at this point, except for the 17 yr old, they are still too young. It's out there though, even in the 17 yr olds world, we've talked about it. He has gotten drunk at a few parties, has tried pot but that's it and thankfully he doesn't care for it. My daughter who can afford to give him a big allowance doesn't to make sure he doesn't have cash available. She pays for his gas and everything with her CC. She knows that if he wanted to he could get the money but she's not going to make it easy for him. The alcohol in the house is locked up. He is told to call if he's been drinking and ask for a ride, he won't be grounded but if he ever is drinking and driving his car will be taken away. Anyway, starting to ramble and go off track...I talk too much. Need to stop myself....I'm working on it.
Looks to me as they are trying to blame autism as the reason for murder. You are a murderer regardless.