Absolutely a lot of maybe’s....But the worst is if this could have been prevented by the timely delivery of the package. And the Prof certainly knew Holmes.
That’s nothing but conjecture at this point. The professor may have known him, directly or in just in passing but then again perhaps he didn’t – university campuses are huge places filled with lots of people and even someone taking advanced classes in the professor’s general area of study, may not have much if any direct contact with him. The real question here is whether Holmes ever saw this professor as a patient.
If Holmes, being a rather bright guy and someone studying neurobiology, someone with more than average or passing knowledge of psychiatric and psychotic disorders, recognized at some point that he was slipping away from reality, exhibiting signs of schizophrenia or a bi-polar disorder, sought out help but didn’t get the help he needed, that might be a different story and an even more tragic one at that.
I recall that Charles Whitman, the infamous Bell Tower shooter of the early ‘60’s, sought help from several psychiatrists, even telling at least one of them of his murderous intents. In that case Whitman’s brain tumor may have been the contributing factor if not the cause of his psychosis. It is sad for Whitman and his victims that he was not properly diagnosed and helped when he sought help. His glioblastoma was going to be eventually fatal to him, but if he’d been properly diagnosed and treated, a lot of innocent people have not needed to die.
OTHO, some schizophrenics (if Holmes is indeed one and I’m not sure or saying he is) are very good a hiding their disease, even hiding their hallucinations and acting fairly normal at least some if not most of the time. And here I’m thinking of John Forbes Nash. In Nash’s case, he was eventually diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic but he managed to function rather normally if not brilliantly before and in between forced hospitalizations and learned to reject and ignore his hallucinations even as he eventually refused medications. Of course among schizophrenics, people like Nash are the rare exception rather than the rule. Nash won a Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences but most schizophrenics don’t turn out so well. But while some schizophrenics are delusional, for some if not many, their delusions are mostly harmless; they believe they are Napoleon or Anastasia for instance. But for some schizophrenics, their delusions take a dangerous and dark turn. But classic schizophrenics can go in and out of reality – they can be very bright and functional one minute and be completely deranged the next but often they live in a world somewhere in between, being both smart and cunning and completely deranged.
Is Holmes a paranoid schizophrenic or just a very good actor? I don’t know. But from everything I’ve read about his life prior to his rather recent bizarre behaviors and seemingly recent disconnect from reality and suddenly failing grades for a formerly very good student and someone who while shy and withdrawn by some accounts, didn’t have any past that we know of that indicates criminal or violent behaviors, it seems very reasonable to me that he had at a minimum some sort of severe psychotic break.
This is just my opinion as someone who has dealt with schizophrenics up close and personal in a former job and who has a close relative with a bi-polar disorder.