Unreasonable

For people steeped in mystery novels and police procedural shows, there is nothing more maddening than murder without motive.  A month after Robert Findlay Smith allegedly killed three people at a potluck supper at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, nobody knows why.  He apparently used to call police regularly to complain of "suspicious persons" or request extra patrol, but no one thought this was strange behavior for a seventy-year-old gun dealer with a houseful of weapons.  Alcohol may have been an issue.

Who now remembers Ethan Crumbley?  Several school shootings ago the fifteen-year-old killed four other students at Oxford High School in Michigan.  His parents were also arrested for involuntary manslaughter after apparently making a run for the Canadian border, not to mention ignoring repeated statements from their son like "The thoughts won't stop.  Help me."  They also bought him the gun.  I can't find out anything more, but the son's lawyer entered an insanity defense.

Give me a murder with a clear explanation.  Give me Larry Sanders of Oklahoma, who strangled his friend Jimmy Knighten while they were fishing near Ada.  Sanders told the sheriff that Knighten had summoned Bigfoot to kill him so he had to act first.  See?  Was that so hard?  We know Bigfoot is a problem in Oklahoma because state Rep. Justin Humphrey introduced a bill to create a Bigfoot hunting season, with licenses and a $25,000 bounty for trapping him.  He's a Republican.  (Humphrey, not Bigfoot, as far as we know.)

There was no reason for James Lambert to be beaten to death by a group of Philadelphia teenagers, none of them old enough to vote.  Some things happen only to reinforce belief in evil.