anyone that can list his parents, hitler, and Tom from MySpace in the same category as his most influential people seems a bit disconnected from reality....
Lizzy | 02.03.08 - 5:48 pm | #

A bit.
Steve Huff | Homepage | 02.03.08 - 6:11 pm | #

I looked at this myspace earlier and wondered if it was the right guy. One would think his appearing to be disconnected is only the tip of the iceberg.
Kayline | 02.03.08 - 6:39 pm | #

per the Josh Spearman part of your piece:

I read the whole thing...his my space, his blog, his fiction. I listened to his music that he wanted everyone to hear while we read his death stories and murder stories and lies. Frankly, reading this true crime stuff frequently, I am not too shocked at this guy...his stories, his claims, and his narciscistic manipulation. I am furthermore not surprised that he beat his parents to death.

I AM glad that the female of his fixation WAS not murdered and I am further glad that he did not have to run around 'killing her' over and over and over to the tune of numbers of bodies.

Is that perhaps a sick take on this case? Well....perhaps it is. But, this guy has the Bundy gene....and it was only a matter of time.

So, now we need to make sure that HE DOES NOT GET OUT.....EVER.

~my opinion only...
nursebeeme | 02.03.08 - 7:28 pm | #

as per his reality...

he does not have one that we can understand...ever.

and he was very plugged into the reality where he lived and dreamed.

We can see where he is living but he can never understand the rafters that we live under.
nursebeeme | 02.03.08 - 7:32 pm | #

Spearman was adopted by his parents, who got him from a Romanian orphanage. Former Iron Curtain orphans, especially males, are famous for suffering an extremely high incidence of Emotional Detachment Disorder, which is often cited as the primary root-source of sociopathy.
His obsession with Hitler might stem from personal knowledge of his biolgical background, and the notorious Iron Guard. God only knows.

Strangely, he might share the same disorder as Travis Mullis. Mullis was also an orphan, one who was adopted at age 2 and sexually assaulted by his adoptive father. He later would go on to sexually abuse a 8 year old female relative, then sire 2 children as a teen before relocating to Texas, where he seems to have spent his very brief adulthood running scams and lying to everyone before molesting another 8 year old girl and curb-stomping his infant son to death. There is also some question as to what the biolgical mother (a potato-faced internet junkie fond of showing her tits on line for money in order to earn cash for diapers) may or may not have known re Mullis' intentions towards her child. The whole scenario reeks of White Trash Depravity, the likes of which almost beggar the imagination.
Nancy Collins | 02.03.08 - 8:12 pm | #

"White Trash Depravity" -- wonder if the URL for that is available? Anyway, I'm glad you brought that up about some children adopted from the Eastern Bloc. I thought of it too, but it wouldn't fit in the entry I wrote, since I was touching on several different things. Thanks, Nancy, and thanks for the info about Mullis, both via e-mail and here in the comments.
Steve Huff | Homepage | 02.03.08 - 8:31 pm | #

being adopted myself (although not from an eastern block country under the blood drinking regime of the Cauchescu's) I realize the bonding and attachmet disorders that can be present in adopted children (even those adopted right at birth http://adoption.families.com/blo...opted-children) . It does not take much for an adopted teen...even a well adjusted one like I was....to have certain issues with holes being filled that just cannot be. Those holes can either open up a bright spot and pose a challenge or you can use them as an excuse.

Such holes do not, in my opinion, come just from adoption. They can come from broken biological homes, mixed homes, and just a broken psyche or 'defective mental hard and software" in general.

I know that this kid was not even born yet when Nicolae and his lovely, illiterate, blood~drinking wife were in power. Rather, they were very much dead by that time and the Romanian system was reforming at rapid rates including the orphanages and the mandatory number of children law that Romanians had previosly toiled under (for more data on this I can post more if you want me to).

In 1998 my husband and I almost adopted two children from Romania but we got a last minute call stateside from a birthmommy that had chosen us to parent her child (my beloved son, Joey). Romania was and still remains an improving society...orphanages included (gone are the days of ativan druged kids).

This kid, I think, is just sociopathic. Plain and simple. He may have had several sociopathic diatheses present in his genetic makeup (hidden and unexplained vulnerabilities to any psychiatric disorder) that were activated by a miriade of things such as SAD (seaonal affective disorder), alcoholism or drug abuse, hormonal fluctuations including the onset of puberty, infections, sleep deprivation, stress, etc.

His writing hinted at a distortion of his self, a flight of ideas, and a bouyant and flagrant disregard for thoughts other than his own...the exremes of thought that are also common in borderline pd as well as ultra rapid cycling bipolar disorder.

Either way....an eastern block orphanage....is not the only source of stress significant enough to activate a diathetic predisposition to the kind of depravity he has displayed in his actions (murder) as well as his strange writings on my space.

my opinion only
nursebeeme | 02.03.08 - 9:54 pm | #

I looked at Josh Spearman's pictures on his Myspace profile and he looks almost if not totally of Rom (Gypsy) blood. 18 years ago I remember shows on TV about the horrible conditions in the Romanian orphanages and there were alot of them brought over here by people adopting them out of those conditions. That was right after the Romanian dictator was imprisoned and executed. This story is so sad...people trying to do right by these kids and not realizing the time bomb in their midst. Every day we're hearing of these family murders!! What is going on and how to end it? Will it EVER end??
RaVen | Homepage | 02.03.08 - 9:58 pm | #

Some more webpages for Mullis and his girlfriend (wife?)

http://www.myyearbook.com/?myses...3MDc=& allofem=y

http://www.myyearbook.com/?myses...0OTU=& allofem=y

Curious that the mom (Caren) listed her age as 21 on myspace, but news reports list her age as 27.
Rachel | 02.03.08 - 11:06 pm | #

http://tinyurl.com/bwon3

Nicolu and Elena Ceausescu were executd (and summarily removed from power) 25 December 1989.

If Josh is 18 that means that he was born on or around the year of 1979...which means he possibly could have spent at least ten years in a Romanian orphanage.....under the nasty and hedonistic rule of the Ceausescu's. THIS IS MY BAD. Josh still could have been born to a Romanian family that was DICTATED that they have a minimum of four children; dictated to work the land and sell it; dictated to suffer and enjoy it for the motherland of Romania, and dictated enough that the common folk rose up and shot the smarmy bastards right in the head.

My question....if this adoptee thing has any diatheses at all..is how old was he at adoption, why was he relinquished, and what did his adoption physical state (normally in international adoption there will have to be some abberrant (and also grossly untrue) medical condition that allows a child to be adopted to the us. Usually the physical assessment will read, 'fetal distress', or 'hydrocephals', or 'anoxia at birth', etc... Again, I have much more knowledge on this subject but am not sure what everyone wants to hear.
nursebeeme | 02.04.08 - 1:02 am | #

Actually, if Josh is 18, it means he was born in 1989/1990, not 1979. I've had some dealings with people from that part of the world, and it took Romania quite some time before they were able to get their shit together, following the fall of Ceausescu.
There is a hell of a lot of sex-trafficking in that part of the world, especially amongst pedophiles & underaged kids, as the CNN special reports have pointed out over the last week.

A lot of the detachment disorders from the orphanages come simply from babies being placed in cribs with tops that locked down, to keep them from crawling around, and left alone with minimal interaction from caregivers. If children aren't held and nurtured very early in life, it does damage to the part of the brain needed for socializiation. It's kind of like kittens or puppies--if you don't handle them before a certain stage in their development, they are quasi- feral and never truly adapt to/trust humans as adults.
Nancy Collins | 02.04.08 - 2:10 am | #

Nurse said: ....... that were activated by a myriad of things such as SAD (seasonal affective disorder), alcoholism or drug abuse


Looking through Spearman's pictures on his myspace, he has a picture of Elmo holding a glittering letter 'E' referring to Ecstasy.
He also ha a tattoo drawing he did of a woman who's hair is made up of marijuana leaves.
I don't usually pay much heed to too many things on peoples myspaces but this rang alarm bells for me.
frangi | 02.04.08 - 6:44 am | #

Nancy,
I always love to read your take on things....and actually even though I do NOT AGREE with what you said here completely...I can still understand where you are coming from...and here is what you said : {Strangely, he might share the same disorder as Travis Mullis. Mullis was also an orphan, one who was adopted at age 2 and sexually assaulted by his adoptive father. He later would go on to sexually abuse a 8 year old female relative, then sire 2 children as a teen before relocating to Texas, where he seems to have spent his very brief adulthood running scams and lying to everyone before molesting another 8 year old girl and curb-stomping his infant son to death. There is also some question as to what the biolgical mother (a potato-faced internet junkie fond of showing her tits on line for money in order to earn cash for diapers) may or may not have known re Mullis' intentions towards her child. The whole scenario reeks of White Trash Depravity, the likes of which almost beggar the imagination.}

My issue with this is that glittering generalities and straw men cannot reasonably explain away why ANYONE could be thrust into that position of beating One's parents heads into a pulpy mass of blood and brains.

My experience in life (and my opiniontated take on this only), is such that I truly believe there are two basic kinds of people on the earth...those that cut their path and lube the way with their own sweat...and those that couldn't cut a path to save their lives and either grab on the shirts of those obvious explorers...or rather seek the path of least resistance to achieve whatever ends may be the item of the day.

People work or they don't. They mooch or they don't. I am far from a believer in extremes and the grouping of similar human attributes and responses in the same situations...

Dang! I have so much more to say on this but we are the middle of a freaking blizard here in Kansas and i am going to go for a midnight cross country ski. Not to mention, perhaps some cold can assist me in trying to understand exactly why anyone blames this kid's adoption on why he is a freaking sociopath...
nursebeeme | 02.06.08 - 2:54 am | #

I didn't invent Emotional Detachment Disorder/Reactive Attachment Disorder or the linking to orphanages. Here's a couple of links that explains the disorder and its connection to horrific conditions in former Eastern Bloc orphanges:
http://www.coe.iup.edu/njyost/DI...hment/ index.htm

http:// www.attachmentdisorder.ne...Our_Journey.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Rea...chment_disorder

Most people are responsible for making their own way in life, good or bad, but a certain percentage are fucked up hard & early before they are verbal, and whether or not they get the proper treatment later on in life depends on whether or not they turn into functioning members of society or guys like Travis Mullis.

The horrible thing about this disorder is basically, if a child is damaged early & awful, it's pretty much for life, in some way or another. Most of these children have no clue as to why they are the way they are--their responses were forged before cognitive thought and real memory. The capacity for self-awareness and control amongst them is close to zero. In many ways, their emotional development has been stunted at that of an infant. When an infant throws a tantrum, all they can do is cry. But when an adult man throws a infant-level tantrum, the results can be horrifying.

Basically, being sexually & physically abused before the age of 4, combined with *extreme* neglect--and receiving no treatment and/or help as they continue to age--fucks a person up for life. It's a question of whether they grow up to be a victim or victimizer is all.

This isn't a new condition--just one that's finally being, sort of, understood. It's not an excuse for sociopathic behavior, but it's certainly an explanation.
Nancy Collins | 02.06.08 - 4:47 pm | #

FYI, the mother of Alijah Travis is being charged with child endangerment.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story....tx/ 5524041.html

"An arrest warrant affidavit accused Kohberger of allowing Mullis to take the baby from the family's house in Alvin in the early morning of Jan. 29, even though he had made menacing statements toward the children.

"Kohberger stated that Travis Mullis indicated to her that he was having flashbacks from being sexually abused as a child and told her that he had to get out of there, meaning the residence that they were staying in Alvin ... because he might do something to one of the kids," according to the affidavit, which was obtained by The Facts.

Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne said she waited for authorities in nearby Galveston County to find Mullis before she pursued the charge against Kohberger. Child endangerment is a second-degree felony punishable by up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine."

They should forcibly sterilize her while they're at it.
Nancy Collins | 02.10.08 - 5:51 pm | #

I don't understand much of what is being said on this board, but I would like to comment on a few things.
I personally know this kid. He was adopted at birth, so this is not because of trauma he endured.
His parents were wonderful to him and never hesitated to do what needed to be done to raise him in a Godly environment.
He craves attention like no one I've ever met. He needs it. In my opinion, which means little, is that he's borderline, possibly sociopathic. Not due to childhood trauma, just plain old mental illness.
Janet Mays | 02.15.08 - 1:37 pm | #

Janet Mays:
REactive Attachment Disorder isn't a form of insanity, it's a personality disorder. Narcissism isn't a mental illness, either, it's also a personality disorder. Oddly enough, either paying TOO MUCH attention (spoiling) or NOT ENOUGH attention (neglect/abuse) can result in this condition--one that mental healthcare professionals like Dr. Drew Pinsky--have been warning us is reaching epidemic proportions in Western culture. However, narcissism alone doesn't result in sociopathy, but is an importnat earmark. While the Spears boy might have been adopted at birth (although unless they were there to catch him the moment he squirted out, I couldn't put the possibility of phsyical/sexual abuse out of the question), in the case of Travis Mullis (who was adopted at age 2 and later sexually abused by his step-father), the history of abuse/neglect was pretty well documented before he went on to stomp his infant son to death.
Nancy Collins | 02.15.08 - 6:44 pm | #

Actually, personality disordors on the mental illness continuum is labeled borderline pyschotic, so actually it is mental illness. He wasn't spoiled, he was simply disturbed.
There is a big difference between a 2 yr old and a newborn baby.
Janet Mays | 02.16.08 - 6:23 am | #

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/ar...41145/1007/ TL02

In this article, Josh's aunt says he was adopted from Romania at age 2.
Ellen | 02.16.08 - 1:42 pm | #

I apologize if I seem combative, I'm not trying to come across that way. It's just I know this kid, I've known him for awhile. He had several sides to him.
Not everyone that does something like this has been traumatized in some way. I'm not saying Josh didn't have something happen to him, but it is possible that he is either mentally ill, or just plain evil. Mental illness is not always preceded by trauma. I have been studying mental health for some time now, and there are some significant abnormalities that go along with personality disorders. Trauma is not the only cause. There are people in the world that are, and trust me he was capable of this. His family agrees. He did this, we don't know why, and we may never know. It's truly tragic. Daryl and Cheri were wonderful, I adored her, and I will miss her terribly. So please accept my apology for coming across the way I did, there is quite a bit of emotion attached to this for people that know this family.
Janet Mays | 02.17.08 - 10:37 am | #