Nine children among 16 dead after US serviceman attacks villagers

[jmm99]

is the question - still to resolved, but the focus is narrowing.

Agreed:

Most con artists are not murderers but many serial killers are good con men, ie. charming and convincing liars.

I've no first hand knowledge of people convicted of serial or mass murders (one on ones with them); but only second hand knowledge from people who had first hand knowledge. The most recent was local in the 1990s (People vs Goodreau, who is serving life for serial murders; I went to Michigan Tech with a father of one of the victims, continued friendship with him, etc.). The most well-known (and similar mass homicide incident) was Richard Speck, who had a local connection to people who talked to me then:

Speck found work immediately after obtaining a letter of authority, joining the 33-member crew of Inland Steel's Clarence B. Randall, an L6-S-B1 class bulk ore lake freighter, on April 30. Speck's first voyage on the Clarence B. Randall was brief—he was stricken with appendicitis on May 3—and was evacuated by U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to St. Joseph's Hospital in Hancock, Michigan on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where he had an emergency appendectomy.

After he was discharged from the hospital, Speck returned to stay with his sister Martha and her family in Chicago to recuperate. On May 20 he rejoined the crew of the Clarence B. Randall on which he served until June 14 when he got drunk and quarreled with one of the boat's officers and was put ashore on June 15. For the following week, Speck stayed at the St. Elmo, an East Side, Chicago flophouse at E. 99th St. & S. Ewing Ave. Speck then traveled by train to Houghton, Michigan, staying at the Douglas House, to visit Judy Laakaniemi, a 28-year-old nurse's aide going through a divorce, whom he had befriended at St. Joseph's Hospital. On June 27, after Judy gave him $80 to help him until he found work, Speck left to again stay with his sister Martha and her family in Chicago for the next two weeks.

Both Goodreau and Speck fit the con artist profile. I've also had one on ones with two people who went on to bigger things and are now serving life (though for neither serial murders nor mass murders) and who fit the con artist profile.

Thus, I've limited direct experience with serial and mass murderers. Michigan does not have the death penalty which I've already discussed.

A good lead to follow:

... what Slap says above, that this thing was planned out.

But, this is also true:

It [confession by Bales] never will. It is the difference between a young inexperienced hood and one who is older, more experienced and knows not to say anything at all to the cops.

But, the video has the man (on return) saying: "I did it." An announcement that he completed a "plan" known to others ?

Regards

Mike