Blogging The Second Evil

Watching the news tonight, I couldn't help but be reminded of Joseph Duncan. It was a mix of so many details that tied the two stories together in my mind. A youthful child, with a charming smile; a family shattered; a heinous murder... and a Saturday new cast caught during a random surfing of the 24 news channels. And it's just a few months away from being a year ago that Duncan's cold calculated crimes were discovered.

Jamie Bolin's death could not possibly be more tragic- the thought that for nearly two days her body lay within walking distance of the apartment her family lived in, the gruesome details of the madman's plan to end a life in the most heinous way possible... it's too much to think about even now. So instead I'm going to just focus on the bastard accused of the crime.

Single, white, male, depressed and oddly creepy- Kevin Underwood seems to have spent his life unnoticed by all accounts. Having 20/20 hindsight- one look at his blogger profile sends bright warning signs like a beacon in the night:
Contact Info
SubSpecies23- Yahoo ID
Random Question:
If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?
The skin of last night's main course.
Clicking over to his blog, one can't help but notice that his last two posts are dated March 24th, and then nothing until April 13- the day after Jamie Bolin went missing.

After reading some of his posts- I skipped around a lot, I wouldn't be surprized to see a insanity defense, he's got that "my parents didn't love me enough" thing going on. In one post, he even quotes Marquis de Sade :
Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute
imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point
of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take
me as I am, for I shall not change." (- for those who fall shy of knowing about de Sade, click here.)

Not all of Underwood's writing reads like it has been written by a dangerous monster, in fact over all, it reminds me very little of the previously mentioned Joseph Duncan's blog.

Underwood seems to portray a lack of self confidence, especially when he talks about the very few women in his life, and tends to relay a bit of social phobia in many posts... although I couldn't help but take notice of this one, written in November of 2004:

I need to be more assertive, I let people walk all over me for the most part. I've gotten a little better in recent years, but not much. I used to have a real problem saying no to people. If you asked me to do something for you, chances are good I'd do it for you, no matter how much I didn't want to, or how much it would inconvenience me. I've gotten a lot better at that, now I say no all the time. Almost too much.

The main place I need to be more aggressive is with women. I take the "nice guy" concept to it's extreme. Like I have never in my life just like grabbed a girl's ass, or anything like that. I've never put the moves on anyone. My philosophy when it comes to women has always been, "Let them make the first move." I'll barely look at a woman without her permission. And yes, I ask permission to do things. It's pathetic really. I think that was the main problem with Kristina, was I was just too, well, nice, for her. Even when I know the girl would want me to do something, I still usually don't, just in case there's been a misunderstanding or something. I can also be really naive when it comes to sexual situations or similar things. For example, me and Kristina would be out driving back from the movies or something, and she'd be hinting, quite heavily, that she wanted to go park and have sex, and half the time I wouldn't even realize it, and I'd just keep driving around holding her hand like and idiot. Or even if I did realize it, I'd just be so nervous or something, I'd act like I didn't know what she was getting at.

I need to be much more aggressive when it comes to women. I need to make the first move, and take control occasionally.

There's an occasional reference to vampires, and really less blogging than linking to news, other blogs and such. There's no answers, no explanation of how someone could commit such heinous crimes... nothing that really shouts a warning about the monster behind the blog- unless you already know what he has done.

All of this, and yet I'm left with no real desire to understand how he came to commit the crimes he has... always while reading Duncan's blog, I was overwhelmed with asking myself how it was that the world was so blind to his apparent evil desires, reading Underwoods's blog... well, I'm honestly just left with nothing. I can't keep the words of the DA's press release out of mind long enough to keep searching for that one clue which one would expect to be there, that one hint that a madman lived just doors away from an innocent child.

So he was strange... so many people are. So he was depressed... again, many people are. But it does nothing to explain how someone can be so twisted as to commit this gruesome of a crime.

Perhaps Optymyst has the right idea... perhaps it's better to recall the life of a sweet child, and to let that shine through, rather than to focus on the monster who ended it.

I'm sure that over the next few days, more will be written highlighting the beauty that shined from Jamie, and I hope that you will be reminded by it to hug your own children a bit tighter, and a bit longer.


Categories: bloggers, internet, joseph-duncan, kidnappings, , Misc, murders, predators,