This is one of the more sensible explanations for Columbine I’ve heard in a long time.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a killing rage at Columbine High School in 1999 because they were abruptly denied access to their computers, an Oregon psychiatrist says in a published study.
The two young men relied on the virtual world of computer games to express their rage and to spend time, and cutting them off in 1998 sent them into crisis, said Jerald Block, a researcher and psychiatrist in Portland.
“Very soon thereafter – a couple of days – they started to plan the actual attack,” Block said.
Block published his research in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, a peer- reviewed journal.
The paper is likely to generate debate, said Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Block sifted through thousands of pages of documents released by Columbine investigators and said he believes both Harris’ and Klebold’s parents banned them from their computers after the two were caught breaking into an electrician’s van in 1998.
Harris and Klebold had each previously been temporarily kept off computers at school or at home, and after each incident, Block said, the boys’ writings or behavior became more violent.
Block said he worries about people immersing themselves so deeply and also about cutting them off cold-turkey.
“How do you pull them out, without triggering homicidal or suicidal behavior?” he asked.
Personally, I don’t think that was the only reason, but it very may well have been a major one. However, those two cowardly scumbags were so selfish and spoiled that Dr. Block may be on to something.
Can we finally drop the whole “roid rage” issue? No. Ok, if you won’t listen to me, how about some expert professionals?
Domestic violence experts downplay the possible role of steroids in the Chris Benoit killings, saying the tragedy was more about Benoit’s anger over control issues at home.
Steroid usage has been linked to angry outbursts called “roid rage,” and depression when usage stops.
But in the case of Benoit, who apparently killed his wife and 7-year-old son during the weekend of June 24 before committing suicide, “that was a premeditated act and that’s not rage,” said Dr. Gary Wadler of New York, who studies the use of drugs in sports.
“I would wonder whether there was some underlying psychiatric abnormality that was unmasked by being on steroids,” he said.
“It’s sort of counterintuitive that he’s raging for three days straight,” said Nancy Grigsby, executive director of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “Unfortunately, it looks like a garden variety domestic violence incident to me. It’s a decision, and they’re actually typically quite calm when they give themselves permission to do what they want to do.”
The killings at the Benoit home occurred over an entire weekend, which does not point to rage, experts said.
Penn State University epidemiologist Charles Yesalis, who has studied steroids for 30 years, said “anabolic steroid rage is a spontaneous behavior. From what I’ve read, the death of Benoit and his family wasn’t spontaneous. I don’t see steroids had much, if anything, to do with this.”
I’m sorry, but this is idiotic and sensationalist at best.
This is a picture of Chris Benoit applying the Crippler Crossface.
His hands are clearly around the face of his opponent, not the throat. The crossface is designed to injure the opponent’s neck and back, not the throat.
District Attorney Scott Ballard says, “A choke hold was used, rather than hands. There’s no bruising consistent with strangulation by hands.”
The crossface is not a chokehold, hence the word crossface.
Wrestling writer Dave Meltzer adds, “There was bruising consistent with the Crippler Crossface on one arm and Daniel’s face. There were no bruises on his neck.
No offense to Dave Meltzer, but you’re a wrestling writer, not a forensics expert. Consistent does not mean conclusive.
“But police don’t believe, because of the size difference, that the hold was applied exactly as in a wrestling match.”
Somebody wake me up when that comes from a legitimate news source and not a gossip rag or a dirt sheet.
Due to Daniel’s size, I doubt Benoit could have locked his son’s arm between his legs. In my opinion, he used the stereotypical chokehold, using one arm around the throat and using the free arm to apply pressure on the occupied arm.
A source having access to certain of Daniel’s medical reports reviewed those reports, and they do not mention any pre-existing mental or physical impairment. Reports from Daniel’s educators likewise contradict the claims that Daniel was physically undersized.
Uh-huh. A source, you say? That source better watch his ass because if that information is true, leaking that information to the press without the permission of law enforcement violates a number of federal privacy laws whether the patient is deceased or not.
And again I say wake me when this comes from a legitimate news source.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am in no way excusing what Benoit did. I have dubbed him the Canadian Coward, and I stand by that. However, just because pro-wrestling is involved, let’s not turn this into some conspiracy theory, over-sensationalized crapfest in order to see who can be the first to break a detail about the case whether it’s true or not.
David Leonard, the sex offender from Connecticut with at least a dozen arrests…no, not that one, the other one…has been sentenced to only 20 years behind bars. He pleaded no contest to multiple sexual assault charges.
The article states that he’s expected to enter other pleas to other charges. Hopefully, he’ll receive more sentences because 20 years for everything he’s done is a joke.
Speaking of jokes, look what his lawyer had to say.
Leonard’s lawyer, special public defender Jeffrey C. Kestenband, said he “grudgingly” endorsed the plea bargain. He said Leonard is a considerate and intelligent person who is committed to addressing his problems.
Yesterday, Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood rejected the motion for the Campbell County High School shooter, Kenny Bartley Jr., to withdraw his guilty plea.
When the Judge Blackwood announced his decision, the courtroom filled with applause.
That says a lot, doesn’t it? Not only that, but the lawyer who helped him reach the deal testified against Bartley.
Mike Hatmaker, Bartley’s former attorney who helped broker the plea deal testified the 15-year old knew what he was getting into.
“He wanted to do this. Absolutely,” says Hatmaker.
District Attorney General Paul Phillips asked during Monday’s proceeding, “Any question in your mind?”
“No,” replied Hatmaker.
Now a question that makes no sense from his new attorney…
According to his new defense attorney, Bruce Poston, the teen didn’t completely understand them before taking the offer.
Poston says, “On March 25th you turned down a deal that was 25 years for second degree murder and 10 years and 10 years for attempted second degree murder.”
Bartley replied, “Yes sir.”
“On April 10th you said I’ll take the deal. Why?,” asked Poston.
Bartley answered, “I was scared cause I was looking at two life sentences.”
It sounds like he understood exactly what he was doing. That’s why people take pleas, to avoid longer sentences.
Bartley has 30 days to appeal. I’m sure there will be an appeal, and I’m sure that one will be rejected too.
Chris Benoit’s former wife, Martina Benoit, said the star wrestler “was the most loving person anyone could imagine. I love him.”
Reached at her home in Ardrossan, Alberta, Canada, Benoit called reporting of the killings in Fayette County “crap.” She did not elaborate before ending the call.
Maybe to her and their kids, he was, but obviously, he wasn’t to Nancy and Daniel.
But in the wake of the lurid events that played out in suburban Atlanta last weekend, the Daily News has learned that another drug may have been part of a deadly cocktail that could have caused Benoit to snap. According to sources familiar with his drug regimen, Benoit was a known abuser of the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate – or GHB, also known as the “date-rape drug.”
GHB can also be used as a performance-enhancing drug along with steroids. Again, I don’t think Benoit was on the so-called “roid rage”. What he did was methodical. While maybe not in his right mind, I believe he knew what he was doing.
Someone interviewed for the article offers a unique theory.
Trinka Porrata, a retired Los Angeles police detective who is president of the non-profit Project GHB, adds that it is not uncommon for GHB users to add methamphetamine into the mix, and that meth abuse often contributes to bizarre acts involving religion.
“The question everybody asks is, ‘How in the hell could you kill your son?’ Well, in a meth psychosis, your son could be the devil. That can happen quite easily,” says Porrata.
I guess we’ll find out if he’s right when the tox reports come in.
US authorities have dropped an investigation into anonymous Wikipedia entries from America and Australia that posted news of wrestler Chris Benoit’s wife’s murder 14 hours before her body was discovered.
Fayette County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lieutenant Tommy Pope said he could no longer see “any relevance” in investigating the Wikipedia entries.
Clackamas County authorities are seeking the public’s help in identifying possible victims of a rape suspect who allegedly befriended teenage girls on MySpace.com.
Kyle James Green, 20, who lived alone in an apartment complex next to Wilsonville High School, is charged with multiple counts of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for alleged assaults on two girls between 15 and 17 years old, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office reported.
Green is accused of befriending underage girls at public libraries and by meeting them through friends and on the MySpace Web site. Investigators reported Sunday that other young girls have provided them information about Green and that more charges are expected to be filed against him.
Detectives encouraged potential victims to come forward. They said Green was unemployed at the time of his arrest, lived in the Boulder Creek Apartments, once lived in Oregon City and drove an older model red Jeep Cherokee.
Anyone with information about Green is asked to contact sheriff’s Detective Christie Fryett at 503-557-2876 and reference case number 07-20778.
I found a MySpace that may have once belonged to Kyle Green. All it has now is his mugshot and a link to his Clackamas County inmate information. Possibly, a girlfriend who was unaware of his alleged dalliances?
The parents of Nancy Benoit are saying that their grandson, Daniel Benoit, not only did not have Fragile X Syndrome but didn’t have any kind of medical problem.
The parents of Nancy Benoit were contesting a widely-reported aspect of the case — that Daniel Benoit had an inherted genetic developmental disability.
On Friday, Nancy Benoit’s parents said through their attorney that they were unaware that their grandson had a rare medical condition called Fragile X Syndrome, an inherited form of mental retardation often accompanied by autism.
Atlanta-based lawyer Richard Decker, who represents Paul and Maureen Toffoloni, told ESPN.com’s Elizabeth Merrill that the grandparents babysat often for Daniel and noticed no medical issues.
“To them, he’s always been a normal, healthy, happy child with no signs of illness,” Decker said. “And that’s not from a distance. That’s from day-to-day contact.
This could just be the words of proud grandparents blinded by grief. As the PWTorch article states in an interview that Chris Jericho did, Jericho said that he didn’t know that Daniel had Fragile X Syndrome but once he heard what the syndrome entailed he said that it fit Daniel to a T.
If Chris Benoit killed his family and himself over Daniel’s alleged Fragile X Syndrome, it not only makes him a coward, it also makes him a quitter.
The search of a drained duck pond at Virginia Tech turned up no clues behind the massacre perpetrated by Cho Seung Hui.
Corinne Geller of the state police says divers worked in shifts from Tuesday to yesterday evening, searching through three feet of muck with a metal detector and their hands. She calls “an exhausting search.”
She said the divers weren’t looking for anything specific, but were doing a more thorough investigation of a student’s report that someone resembling Seung-Hui Cho (sung-wee joh) was near the pond between the time he killed two students in a dormitory and 30 people in a classroom building on April 16th.
The hard drive from Cho’s computer is still among the missing.
While most wrestlers and ex-wrestlers are saying how surprised they were at Chris Benoit’s actions, Bruce Hart, brother to Bret “The Hitman” Hart and son to the late Stu Hart, is saying that Benoit was crazier than a shithouse rat.
Chris Benoit was a “delusional juice freak” who chased the dark side and had trouble distinguishing between his fictional character and reality, says the man who started him out in professional wrestling.
“The last time I saw him he was in pretty rough shape mentally,” said Bruce Hart, son of the legendary Stu Hart. “I didn’t know all the details but I knew it wasn’t good. I was not at all shocked (by what happened).
Hart will not simplify the shocking murder of Benoit’s wife and 7-year-old son or the eventual suicide of the wrestler by attributing it only to steroid usage. But he truly believes that steroid abuse, in combination with delusional behaviour, painkillers and failing health — “almost all the people we started out with (who did steroids) began breaking down around 40,” Hart said — is a deadly cocktail that needs to be further examined.
“I’ve known too many wrestlers who couldn’t separate the character they play on television from their real life,” said Hart, who has wrestled professionally, promoted wrestling and trained wrestlers all his life.
“Wrestlers start believing their press clippings and what is said on television. It’s like an actor leaving the set but still playing the part. There’s a delusional element to this. I’ve seen it over and over again. Some people can’t separate the character from real life, and Chris was one of those people.
“From my experience, that has been quite prevalent with wrestlers and that becomes exacerbated by steroids, drugs, painkillers and failing health.”
Hart did wonder if Benoit had been given an unfavourable medical report, which may been another factor in his violent behaviour. “A lot of the steroid users start getting liver and kidney problems around the age of 40,” Hart said. “There are a lot of wrestlers out there who are dead that you never heard about whose bodies broke down. I’ve known others who had looming health issues and went a little crazy. Maybe this caused him to go off.”
Which leads me, even more, to believe that this wasn’t the case of “roid rage” that everyone has been wailing about. And that’s why I haven’t been posting about the steroid-related parts of this story.
To me, it’s a non-issue. Steroids may have contributed to what happened, but they weren’t the be all and end all to motive. If that was the case, then wrestlers would be killing people every other week.
(Hey everyone. 2025 Trench here. Bruce Hart is known to stretch the truth according to other wrestlers. So, take what he says with a grain of salt.)
Luckily, it was just a coincidence according to the anonymous poster…
Hey everyone. I am here to talk about the wikipedia comment that was left by myself. I just want to say that it was an incredible coincidence. Last weekend, I had heard about Chris Benoit no showing Vengeance because of a family emergency, and I had heard rumors about why that was. I was reading rumors and speculation about this matter online, and one of them included that his wife may have passed away, and I did the wrong thing by posting it on wikipedia to spite there being no evidence. I posted my speculation on the situation at the time and I am deeply sorry about this, and I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life. It is one of those things that just turned into a huge coincidence. That night I found out that what I posted, ended up actually happening, a 1 in 10,000 chance of happening, or so I thought. I was beyond wrong for posting wrongful information, and I am sorry to everyone for this. I just want everyone to know it was stupid of me, and I will never do anything like this again. I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on wikipedia, as it is done all the time.
Those are “winning the lottery” type odds.
Anyway, the poster also admits to being from Stamford, CT but wishes to remain anonymous.
