Odd that he would misspell those particular words when other ones which can be harder to spell were correct. So were these written under duress by order of his “captors” with the errors a red flag to his parents about his situation? This is not a guy lacking in intelligence and I’m pretty sure his homeschooling would have covered spelling so the mistakes just stand out to me.
There is no excuse for what he did.
He sent his journal to his friend. His spelling was bad in that, too. He, according to his friend, had a learning disability. He certainly had a spelling disability.