"There are killers whom just kill for the fun of it. What is your opinion about them?" - SK, comments

I imagine that there are some people who have learned to associate killing --- or, more commonly, violence --- with some other pleasureable primary stimulus, such as the acquisition of money or drugs. So it seems to them that killing (or violence) is “fun”. But, I suspect that most people who boast of killing for fun are only kidding themselves, and everyone else, in order to avoid having to admit that they are responsible for what they do. This rationalization, which is usually (but certainly not always) buried in the unconscious from years of practice, goes something like this: “If I enjoy it, then I can't be blamed for it because it is my nature.” But, the truth is that they don't really enjoy it; nobody does, not even those who have been conditioned to derive pleasure from it. It is the anticipation of some primary (or other secondary) stimulus that creates the illusion of pleasure. As such, we are no better than Pavlov's salivating dogs receiving “pleasure” from the ringing bell that announces dinner. And I say “we” are no better, because WE are all subject to this same process of complex conditioning. Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, we are all capable of murder, and we are all responsible for it when it happens, whether we can see the blood on our hands or not.

"Did you enjoy molesting, raping, torturing and killing […]? Would you have done it just for the pleasure instead of revenge?" - SK, comments

Yes, I enjoyed “molesting” my victims. But, the rape was harder for me to enjoy, so much that I only actually succeeded in really raping just one of the children I kidnapped and murdered. And I had to concentrate to stay hard enough to do it because I did not enjoy hurting the child I was raping. I only did it because I felt I had to in order to invoke the justice I felt I was entitled to; justice that I thought would restore my own personal sense of “rightness” in the world.

I hated the killing worst of all. And I wouldn't have done any of it, not even the molesting, for pleasure alone. There are too many other things in life I enjoy more than molesting children, both sexual things and non-sexual things, like scuba diving, skiing, or even just riding my mountain bike when I'm in the mood for some exercise. And I don't take pleasure in violence at all. (I)

Notes:

(I) I don't think I'm special or even different than other people who kill, or even those who kill for pleasure. I may be a little more conscious of my motives, but that's all. I killed for the same ultimate reason that we all kill: because I thought that killing was the only solution I had to a critical problem. I was sorely mistaken.

"You once wrote about an encrypted diary more sincere than your original Fifth Nail blog. What did you write about in it? Was it more sincere than this blog?" - SK, comments

The encrypted "diary" that I kept on the laptop that I had with me in the Jeep when I was arrested (in 2005) had (has) a few "pornographic" images of the two children I kidnapped from Idaho that I felt were particularily artful (I deleted all but these few nude images of the children out of respect for Shasta, the lone survivor, knowing how the police tend to exploit such images in ways far more public and harmful than anything a so-called pedophile would even want). Aside from the photos there is a Microsoft Word document that containes detailed descriptions of my thoughts, intentions and actions from the time I left Fargo up until literally just hours before my arrest.

The title of the Word file is, "An American Nightmare". I wrote it hoping that maybe someday someone (not me) would read it with an understanding and insight that might help stop people like me from being psychologically born into this world. I documented mostly my thoughts and reasoning behind my decisions and intentions, but as I recall I made little mention of any actual feelings, which were mostly "shut down" at the time in order for me to be able to do the things I believed needed to be done.

I don't think it was any more sincere than this blog, but it was certainly more candid and forthcoming since I didn't have to worry about censorship, which is the primary limitation that restricts my ability to be completely candid even now. Prison mail censors, Internet media censors, blogspot content restrictions, and social outcry are all things I must consider with every exposition I write for the Fifth Nail. So-called free speech is a relative concept. If I truly could "speak" (or write) freely then I wouldn't have needed to encrypt anything. (I'm not suggesting speech should be completely free, nor that it shouldn't be - I'm only observing the fact that it's not nearly as free as most people pretend or otherwise presume.)

"What might have saved [you as a child] from growing into the criminal you became […]?" --- 'Joan McMillan'

There are an infinite number of ways for a person to become lost; but, there is ever only one real reason. We become lost when we lost our ability to see where we are. So, no matter how we become lost, or how lost we become, we can always be found again by simply restoring our ability to "see". 

Unfortunately, our present culture is one in which our children are taught to follow blindly, hand in hand, the ideological fancies of our ignorant leaders. And when a child, or any person for that matter, for any reason "let's go" of the hand that leads them, either out of fear, doubt, or even just curiousity, they quickly become lost having lost their ability to "see" where they are in the world from never having needed to see where they are going.

Our children never learn to use the "eyes" they were born with. And this, more than anything else, is the reason why so many become so lost, like me.

So, what might have saved me? I'll tell you what DID save me. The light, from a single candle, held in the hand of a child who had not yet learned to ignore what she could plainly see with her own eyes; that I was only a man, forced to wear the costume of a monster. By her light, and through her eyes, I saw plainly for myself not only where I was in the maze, but why I was there as well. I saw myself and my surroundings for the first time clearly since I was a child as well. And I became found again.

I'm referring metaphorically to the epiphany that caused me to throw down the rock that I had meant to kill that same child with. I saw in that moment that I could not kill her. Because I WAS her, and she was me. This is the truth that I was taught to ignore as a child. And, it is the truth that could have saved me as a child, and DID save me, and her, on that day.

"La Minotauromachie" (1935) by Pablo Picasso

[J.D. July 6, 2015]