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We all have our passions in life. Today, I got to talk about mine!

It started with an article about Richard Ramirez; The Nightstalker. Basically, he would go out at night and enter unlocked doors of homes and bludgeon (beat, rape, sodomize) his victims to death. His crimes were horrific, but I think what fascinates people most about him is his little following of girls. Yeah...this guy brutalizes innocent people in the worst way, and yet the girls adored his good looks and mystery so much that they'd flock to all his court appearances.

Anyway, this article was more of a criminology perspective of why he did what he did. Interesting as hell, of course. I took a criminal profiling class (they hate that term, btw) from a retired FBI agent with the Behavioral Science Unit. Basically, I learned that a) people don't just "break". b) the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is that the psychopath is born without empathy and the sociopath is conditioned to lack empathy. c) my husband's ex is literally a sociopath, and it helped on all the tests because I just had to list attributes about her. I'm not kidding.

The article theorizes that Richard Ramirez is a sociopath who suffered alleged physical abuse from his father and had 2 traumatic head injuries - a dresser fell on his head, causing a laceration in infancy, and getting knocked out after being hit by a swing (he suffered seizures from then on). To top it all off, his mother worked in a boot-making factory and was exposed to chemical fumes when pregnant with all her children. All of his siblings suffered defects. And, to me, if a mom would put all of her kids at risk after seeing the damage to the first ones, there was neglect. Or a low IQ. Most devastating, in my opinion, was that he was shown photos of raped and murdered Vietnamese women by his soldier cousin. When he was 13. Developing sexually. They think this made a connection in his brain between sexual arousal and violence. He became aroused by violence.

So fascinating. I still think he should be punished for his heinous crimes, but I also sympathize. Did he really have a chance? A lot of comments (from those who obviously didn't read the article) claimed: "I had a bad childhood and I didn't kill anyone!" or "It's entirely his choice. Doesn't anyone take responsibility anymore?!". Silly. And true. A LOT of people suffer messed up childhoods, and yet don't kill anyone. So we need to examine these guys and figure out what makes them different. What is the tipping point? A gene? A personality trait? Different brain shape or chemistry?

I could go on and on. And I did. I just took poor Stephen on this ride, rambling on about my theories and branching into different crimes. I remember a lot of different crimes. Lots of details. It's a neat party trick.

But I was actually somewhat excited about something. I feel things when I talk about this kind of stuff. I love criminal justice. I really love just how intricate and unique each case is. Justice bends to suit every participant. There is real, raw emotion from all parties involved. Or sometimes a lack of it. All very interesting. All real. It matters. It all matters.

I just wonder if that's why I like the things I like. Because it makes me feel. It saves me from the constant boredom and emptiness. Music, crime, epidemiology and thanatology. It's so stupid, because that's the way everyone works, I think. We all like what we like because it actually gets our attention. We actually find those things important in some way. I don't know. So simple. So obvious.