More on the mass murderer in VA.

[raccoon]

Man is charged with murder in 8 Appomattox shootings
Italicized comments my own.

By Fredrick Kunkle and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, January 21, 2010

APPOMATTOX, VA. -- Christopher Bryan Speight described himself in court papers as a dependable, hardworking person who was not quick to anger, and he showed pride in his ability to "find ways to get out of problems without using force or violence."

Words fail me.

But something happened in recent years that changed Speight, friends say.

It started when his mother died in 2006. "He said he had a 'zinging' in his ears. I can't explain it the way he explained it," said David Anderson, 54, who worked with Speight and became friendly with him. Anderson said Speight told him that he began seeing a therapist but that it didn't help much. He had grown worse recently, a change that Anderson and other co-workers attributed to tensions in his house on Snapps Mill Road. "He had gotten quieter in the past six months," Anderson said.

Something must have been building, Anderson said. On Tuesday, Speight, 39, allegedly shot his sister, his brother-in-law and their two children, along with four family friends, in a rampage that left eight dead. It was the worst mass slaying in Virginia since a single shooter killed 33 people at Virginia Tech in 2007.

And of course, the usual “he was a nice, regular guy” comment:

“He seemed like a regular guy, pretty laid back, cool," Henderson (a friend) said of Speight. "I played video games with him. He was fun.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/01/20/ST2010012000922.html?sid=ST2010012000922

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. This type of thing hardly makes news headlines anymore.

Sad.

[atreides1]

2. Maybe he was a nice guy!

The rest of us only know of his existence because of the horrible crime that he committed.