Have You Ever Wished Someone Was Dead?

• A Frisco teenager told a counselor he was having homicidal thoughts about his father-three months before both his parents were fatally shot in their home.
• A psychiatrist who treated accused Aurora mass murderer James Holmes testified in court recently that he was having thoughts of killing people three to four times a day.
• On March 29, 1966, infamous sniper Charles Whitman told a psychiatrist he was thinking about “going up to the tower with a rifle and shooting people.” Two months later, he shot 49 people, killing 14 strangers, his wife, and his mother.

Time and again, we read stories about troubled individuals who were waving a red flag of warning again and again before they killed. Friends noticed, families worried, and coworkers avoided someone who seemed to be a ticking time bomb. In some cases, they tried to do something about it: In a New York Times review of 100 rampage killings, 34 concerned families or friends desperately had tried to get the person help before the murders but were unable to get professionals to take action.

How could mental-health professionals miss-or minimize-clear markers that signaled impending mayhem?

The Complicated Nature of Homicidal Thoughts