Teen Killers

Does this picture look like the face of a killer? What does the face of a killer look like? This picture of is of an 18 year old boy named David Ludwig who allegedly brutally murdered a husband and wife in a town called Lititz about 60 miles outside of Philadelphia. He allegedly killed them by shooting them both in the head following a verbal altercation he had with them over their 14 year old daughter, Sara who he is reported to have been dating secretly. After allegedly killing her parents, he took Sara and fled from Pennsylvania in his parents' car and was found shortly thereafter in a small town in Indiana. It was unclear as to whether or not Sara was kidnapped or willingly went with him, but she was not physically hurt in the process.

Over the past few days, the police and crime investigators have been trying to get a clearer picture of who this young man is and what would make him commit a crime of this magnitude. Earlier in the week they found a total of 54 guns in his home. Not one, not two, three or four, but 54! They also found a Blog that he had created where he bragged about being an expert at getting in trouble. Further investigation found that he and a friend had created a video, which was found on Ludwig's laptop computer. In the video they were shown with guns and were talking about their plans to commit armed robbery and kill the family members they were going to rob.

Luckily, and not only for the family they were planning to kill, but for all of us, David Ludwig has been jailed and is being held without bail. The profile of this 18 year old boy is quite disturbing and raises major concerns over the increasingly sociopathic nature of our society. The fact that he hasn't even completed puberty yet, is barely old enough to buy cigarettes in a store, is just old enough to begin voting, but yet has managed to accumulate a massive number of fire arms in which he used one of them to violently murder two people, makes me scared for all of us. It also raises questions about where his parent's were in all this? How can your son have 54 guns in your home and you not know it? Granted some of these guns could have belonged to the parent's, but no home needs to have 54 guns in it. Did they not have a clue that their son was this deeply sociopathic? He created videos where he was brandishing a gun and talking about murdering people. Was David Ludwig a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde type? Sweet rural boy to his parents by day, cold blooded gun toting sociopath by night, lurking in the depths of the darkness with peers plotting out criminal activities? It's hard for me to believe that his parents had no idea of how disturbed their son was.

This is only one example of the deep rooted sociopathic nature that is becoming all too common in our society, especially among our young. It also underscores the importance of parents being involved in their children's lives and providing them with healthy values. I don't know that his parent's didn't attempt to do this and I don't know what happened to this young man that would lead him to create such a heinous crime. This kind of activity doesn't just pop up out of nowhere, there had to have been clues to Ludwig's sociopathic tendencies. Maybe his parent's were involved with their son, but if so, it seems they would have had some clues and it shouldn't take Angela Lansbury or Matlock to find them.

As a country we have got to begin to reinvest in our young and teach them other ways to express their anger other than violence. We have got to let them know they are loved and cherished. We have to have an open door policy with them so they know they can come to us at any time of the day or night and share what's going on with them and they know we'll listen. When we know our kids are out there bullying other kids and being bad asses, we need to do all we can to nip it in the bud because your bad assed kid may be driving another's to the brink of self destruction or destroying someone else.

The only way things will change is if we put a renewed focus on developing morally conscious kids, who value not only their life, but the lives of others. Of course the picture is more complex than this. We have to take into account the impact of racism and poverty, among others and how they impact the behaviors that people engage in. None the less, giving our young the basic assets they need to feel valued is a start. Indeed the philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., (though originally used in a different context) of "turn the other cheek" is quickly being replaced with "if you disrespect me, I'll fuck you up". How do we change this? We have to for the survival of our society.