My understanding from what I’ve read is that this man was troubled for a very long time. The pics I see of him as a little boy...there is something off about him in all of them. He never smiles or looks at all happy like kids do. And the pic when he was in 5th grade with the dyed blonde hair...that just ain’t right either. His mother seems to have been distant from him in some way which could affect the way he thought of all women...as abandoning. Then again he could be a Mussie seeing his mother is Malaysian or he might have picked up on Mussie things from her. They aren’t known for liking women much either.
His father looks to me like an Old Hippie who still hasn’t grown up. With all of his $$$ he could have done what many parents with lesser means cannot do...force/commit his disturbed son into a good treatment center for the duration (whatever it takes). Yet daddy didn’t do that but bought the kid a new BMW instead.
Having said that I do not believe this man had Aspergers which falls somewhere on the Autism spectrum. As of late we all are being casually labeled as Autistic in exactly the way we were all labeled as having ADD/ADHD 20 years ago. That is NOT to say that some people do not genuinely suffer with Autism. They do.
And while it is important to note that daddy had sonny rooming with 2 or 3 other young men in a special housing unit for troubled (?) young men...that in no way was treatment OR monitoring of a son he knew was very dangerous. That was daddy pushing sonny off on someone else’s watch which was the same behavior daddy repeated in reporting sonny’s video’s to the police.
The police are not qualified to diagnose people for mental problems or are they able to commit people for treatment nor are they able to arrest anyone until that person commits a crime. So reporting sonny’s bizarre videos to the police was a meaningless gesture on daddy’s part. I see it as sort of washing his hands of any responsibility.
Finally this criminal was not IMO mentally ill. Mentally ill denotes things like a break with reality...like hearing voices or seeing hallucinations. This guy had no trouble making videos...strange though they be...even while driving his BMW and he had no trouble formulating and carrying out mass murder and even selected exactly the victims he preferred to kill.
What he was was a long list of just about every and any Personality Disorder available. Certainly he was Narcissistic and Sociopathic (look how he charmed the police). I’d throw in a little Borderline Personality perhaps and possibly some Histrionic behavior...he did seem to like not just attention (Narcissism) but also a lot of emotional drama.
Bottom Line: Mental Illness can be treated, managed, maintained, and sometimes possibly cured with treatment and medication. People suffering from mental illness are generally speaking miserable and desperately want to feel better and are not adverse to treatment.
Personality Disorders cannot be treated because those with the disorders don’t think there’s anything wrong with them and they resist both the label and the treatment. The way he is right now (dead) is about the best outcome possible...at least for the rest of society.