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Depose. Deny. Defend.
According to New York detectives, those three words were etched into the shell casings of the bullets that killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning.
Some killers like to leave notes.
And the police, of course, must carefully parse each clue, desperate to unravel a motive, a personal connection — anything that might reveal the killer’s identity.
But the sad truth is, humans are diverse, cruel, and deviously creative. When you doom-scroll through the annals of criminal history, the tragic theme that emerges is that we slaughter each other for all kinds of reasons, large and small, justifiable and psychotic.
It makes it tricky to pinpoint a motive for any one murder.
Sometimes we kill for fun. Other times it’s to make a larger, sociopolitical point. Or it could simply be vengeance for marital disloyalty; personal betrayals can turn your heart cold. But the three biggest reasons why we murder are robbery, jealousy, and vengeance.
When you factor in mental health issues, it could quite literally be any delusion imaginable. If you were playing amateur detective in 1981, attempting to decipher John Hinckley Jr.’s motives after he tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, it would probably take you a few days before you slapped your head and exclaimed, “Of course! He wanted to impress Jodie Foster!”
People are weird.
It’s not pleasant to think about, but we’re all extraordinarily vulnerable — all of us, from the lowliest bum on the street to the wealthiest king on his throne.
