He killed TWO other humans before Seaworld.
That’s why he was sold as a “breeder only” with no human contact allowed.
The second was some poor demented soul who decided he was gonna go for a swim with the nice orcas after closing time, after the beast had arrived at Seaworld.
I'm not saying this diminishes the creepiness of it, to the contrary I'm saying that having killed once should have been cause to just load him up and dump him back in the ocean - or send him to those Japanese dudes, either way works for me.
It's amazing the way that otherwise sane, rational adults can undertake such denial about the danger of messing with wild beasts. As you've pointed out, this is old news in a way. Here in my part of the world, northeastern Oklahoma, we had a psychotic dude running a "refuge" for lions and tigers and stuff complete with a billboard at one time that said "Come play with the tigers!"
Not long after that a lady (employee of said psychopath) had her arm torn off and eaten by a tiger inside its cage while she bled to death watching. The critter was being kept in a "regular" cage, while the industry standard calls for a cage with a double fence. Predictably, the psychotic dude tried to say it was the deceased lady's fault for making the mistake of sticking her hand thru the cage.
The difference that I see is this woman at Seaworld was no doubt a nice lady who had been fed, and accepted, some mistaken notions about how safe her job was. Unlike this stupid psychopath here in my hometown, there are gonna be some MBA types, highly educated dudes who can't plead stupidity, having some 'splainin to do in court.
Considering that one of his offspring was also involved in an incident, I submit that allowing him to breed was a bad idea. Only proven human-friendly orcas should breed for show animals. Think of it as evolution in action.