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Ya know how some comments you hear (news, papers, etc.) just stick in your head due to being "off" or just plain weird? I remember a reporter had talked with neighbors of Jeffrey Dalmer and they said he was sooo nice. He always said hello to them in the mornings and they thought he was a great neighbor.
Aside from news types going after stupid lines of questioning, I've always found my internal radar goes off when someones heinous crimes come to light and you find all the people who knew him either rally behind the guy or claim what a nice guy he was. (I think Jeffrey Dalmer and the Sandusky come to mind)
In regards to the neighbors who maintained this superficial relationship with their neighbors, is it that they were not deep thinkers for not taking in more details about their neighbor that were "off" or is it that we are naive and don't want to believe this could happen near us?
I heard an author on the radio recently and wanted to share a write up on her book: "The man sitting in front of Mary Ellen O’Toole was, she says, a well-mannered guy. “He was low-key. He was nice. He didn’t swear.” He was very proud of his work, which he described in polite, pleasant tones. His name was Gary Ridgway. His other name was the Green River Killer. His work was killing at least 49 women in Washington state throughout the 1980s and 1990s."
What could they do about a "weird" neighbor anyway? Being "weird" isn't a crime.
Besides, you don't REALLY know your neighbors just as you don't REALLY know your co-workers. People put on false fronts all the time.
While her sister's theory could be true, I think this is probably more likely. It's impossible for someone to know more about someone else than that person knows about themselves.
A person can be weird and totally harmless.
A person can be friendly and very dangerous.
Just never really know, unless you are that person.
Most people are not so paranoid (or so nosy) as to second guess the innermost motivations of people they are merely acquainted with. The vast majority of the time, this is both appropriate and well-adapted behavior, because the vast majority of weird people are harmlessly weird and in fact, may not even be all that weird if we really understood where they are coming from.
Besides, people's peccadilloes are generally rather compartmentalized. Dahmer was not some sort of criminal or hillbilly, he was very intelligent and by all accounts was well raised by attentive and loving parents. He simply had some compulsions that were deeply and carefully concealed and which then morphed into a double life. It is tempting to do a postmortem on every spectacular criminal in hopes that we could see some sort of reliable, universal "warning sign" but the truth is that there's no such across the board thing.
What could they do about a "weird" neighbor anyway? Being "weird" isn't a crime.
Besides, you don't REALLY know your neighbors just as you don't REALLY know your co-workers. People put on false fronts all the time.
The biggest problem: we don't really know our neighbors, we don't really know our closest relatives, we don't really know our co-workers, and we will go through most of our lives not really knowing ourselves!
Really knowing ourselves: a journey that never ends!
How many times do you shrink in horror, learning some new aspect of yourself than never surfaced before until the right circumstances came about!!!
Don't you always kinda laugh, when a big crime is committed, and media are there to interview the closest neighbors and? He was the nicest person you could possibly meet! I think they've got the wrong suspect!! I'm so sure of it, I'm willing to write a thousand dollar check to his criminal defense attorney!
Let's not blow things out of proportion. Chances are that the quiet kid next door turns out to be the next Jeffrey Dahmer and kills/eats you are smaller than the chances you'll get out of bed today, trip on the stairs and break your neck. The media has blown up stories of sex offenders and serial killers and made it seem like they're hiding under each and every rock, bush and tree, when the reality is the vast majority of crimes committed each year are economically motivated- but those don't get any attention because robbing a 7-11 store is hardly an exciting crime. When a little white girl goes missing or a classroom of kids gets shot up then yeah, everyone's up in arms.
It's sort of similar to how people are afraid of flying, even though they're much likelier to die in a driving accident; no perspective.
Most people are not so paranoid (or so nosy) as to second guess the innermost motivations of people they are merely acquainted with. The vast majority of the time, this is both appropriate and well-adapted behavior, because the vast majority of weird people are harmlessly weird and in fact, may not even be all that weird if we really understood where they are coming from.
Besides, people's peccadilloes are generally rather compartmentalized. Dahmer was not some sort of criminal or hillbilly, he was very intelligent and by all accounts was well raised by attentive and loving parents. He simply had some compulsions that were deeply and carefully concealed and which then morphed into a double life. It is tempting to do a postmortem on every spectacular criminal in hopes that we could see some sort of reliable, universal "warning sign" but the truth is that there's no such across the board thing.
While I somewhat agree with you about a retrospective analysis the author and link I provided talks about the author and her belief that there are signs that are missed--they are there if you look for them. I just found that intriguing and I plan on getting the book to find out more.
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The book says this aint true
