What struck
him as he read the article a second time wasn’t the fact that Dylann Roof was
an obvious racist. He was a racist and would be indicted for hate crimes on top
of the nine murders. But what stood out for Matt was the role he seemed to
share with Adam Lanza as a mass killer. The fact that they were almost the same
age. The fact that they both lived troubled lives. The fact that they didn’t
just kill people, they slaughtered them. And then the final blow. The fact that
when he downloaded their photographs and examined them side by side, they could
have been brothers.
The presence
Roof seemed to share with Lanza was difficult to pin down. It was somewhere in
the photographs. Somewhere between the lines. Not the shapes of their faces,
but their blank expressions. Their attitude. They came from a similar place. A
dark corner. Matt could see the hate showing on their faces, the hopelessness
and rage. But nowhere was the physical match more telling than in their eyes.
Matt took a
sip of coffee and pulled his laptop closer.
Their eyes,
he thought. That’s where it was coming from. Both of them had the eyes of a
predator—ultra-intense, completely riveting, and over-the-top psychotic. It was
almost as if their eyes were no longer a window to their minds and emotions. It
was almost as if the line had been snapped and their souls died off and
vanished.
It seemed so
unbelievable, so unfathomable, even outlandish, that no one looked at these two
kids and didn’t know in an instant that something was incredibly wrong with
both of them.
Dead eyes and
the psychopathic stare. Both Roof and Lanza were a long way past being odd. Why
didn’t anyone see it? Why did anyone have to die before they did see it?
Matt
bookmarked the pages and saved the photographs. As he packed up his laptop, he
wondered if the man he was looking for, the man who killed the Strattons and
the Holloways, might not possess this same look. These same eyes. He wondered
if the killer would show up at the funeral, and if he might not seem familiar
enough to stand out.
– Robert
Ellis, The Love Killings
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