Crazy white people
I've written before about how Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has more than its share of really weird, brutal murders. Everyone remembers the slaughter of the Amish school children by Carl Charles Robert IV in West Nickel Mines on Oct. 2, but that was only the latest in a long string of murders in the county.
The latest is the arrest of 16-year-old Alec Devon Kreider of bucolic-sounding Cobblestone Lane, Manheim, for the knife slayings of three people who lived a half-mile from his own home. Supposedly he went there to kill only his friend, Kevin Haines, but doing a Jack-the-Ripper on the parents, Tom and Lisa Haines, as well. A daughter escaped. Kreider supposedly confessed to his father, who then turned him in to the police. Keep in mind that knife slayings--remember Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman?--are often bloody messes, with repeated stab wounds or slashes.
Lancaster County. Call it the land of crazy white people, I suppose. Michael Moore said in "Bowling for Columbine" that he got more scared when he encountered a white man on a dark street because statistically, they commit most of the serious crime. I don't think there's another rural/suburban county in Pennsylvania with crimes like this on such a frequent basis.
There really ought to be a psychological investigation of the culture of Lancaster County, where conservative religion dominates life, to figure out what factors lead to these murders. I have an idea about why one 16-year-old boy might be driven to kill another 16-year-old boy, a friend no less, but I'm going to keep it to myself for now and see what comes out as the investigation unfolds.