Quote Originally Posted by racecar View Post
Why do you suspect your once close friend decided to tell you? Was it his 'nuclear conscience'?

Interestingly enough (for me) I am currently reading a book The Governor's Prisoner,by Roy E. Young.

"Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays itself." Livy
Interesting consideration, racecar. The quote is chilling.

Of course his motive(s) for divulging the information - which was in effect, tantamount to a confession - can only be speculated... Whereas, from what I could gather of his release of this information, it didn't seem to be any kind of 'purging' of a 'guilty conscience'; it seemed to be more of a boast - as though he was indulging in praising himself.

He deeply resented his (very kindly) stepfather's relationship with his mother... His stepfather also happened to be Native American (Ojibway Chippewa), and the perpetrator in this situation was a devout bigot.

Moreover, he sadistically indulged in tormenting people as a kind of personal 'recreation' - for example, he 'targeted' his youngest son for denigration, with abusive language and 'put downs', and 'gotchaisms'. As a result, having grown up as his father's figurative 'whipping boy', the youngest son was evaluated as 'schizophrenic', and being compensated with SSI disability, and, at age 28, doused himself with gasoline and immolated himself in his mother's North Hollywood kitchen.

There were serious considerations of charging the characteristically antagonistic ('crazymaking') father with involuntary manslaughter, but he had important connections in the community and was not openly questioned.

Indeed, I have quite inevitably given thought to this entire quandary. In retrospect, several qualified individuals have profiled the antagonist as someone without a conscience, for which there is a term I can't presently recall.

Consequently, with this - however limited - information, he does not appear to be in the category of someone who felt a compulsion to 'confess'... He may have thought that I would agree with and hold him in esteem for persecuting his (illiterate) stepfather, who I happened to know and in fact held in high moral and ethical regard.

There is a book by a Dr. Peck, entitled, 'People of the Lie', one of the essential points of which is that there are indeed truly evil people (not merely evil acts, but people who characteristically thrive on carrying them out, routinely). Dr. Peck also authored a book entitled, 'A Path Less Traveled'.