Still haven't figured it out, but his mother died sometime around 1976, when he was 12 and went to live with his father's parents in Hamilton, AL.
That (paternal) grandfather died in 1978, but his wife was alive until 1997 - she died 2-3 months after JonBenet was killed. She apparently had gone to live with her son, JMK's father, in Atlanta before that.
When JMK was 17, in 1982, and wanting to go to college the next school year after that, his father said they didn't have enough money to send him. He didn't graduate from the HS where people knew him in Hamilton - he only attended 6 weeks of his senior year, then skipped out. Where, I don't know - but maybe back to Atlanta.
His father owns several properties in Lynn, Mass, and I'm thinking maybe it was his wife's family's stuff, since she had died. Don't know - that's just a guess. Can't even find for sure her death record - maiden name may have been Sharlow - also not sure, but that's brother Nate's middle name and the older brother has his paternal grandfather's first name as his middle name.
Lots of blanks still to be filled in.
Would the grandparents illness/deaths have triggered an emotional stress to "put him over the edge"?