Devlin wasn't perfect, but "he wasn't a monster"

Devlin wasn't perfect, but "he wasn't a monster"

by RebelSnake | Published on January 14th, 2007, 9:12 am | Life

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243612,00.html

Acquaintance Says Kidnap Suspect 'Wasn't a Monster'
Sunday, January 14, 2007

By Cassie Carothers

NEW YORK — At 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds, Michael Devlin is an imposing figure.

But the scariest thing about the burly pizza shop worker is that he never gave any reason for anyone to be suspicious of him.

The 41-year-old suspect in the kidnappings of two young boys in Missouri was an introvert who never spoke about his personal life, said Charles Wehrmeyer, an acquaintance of Devlin for roughly 15 years.

Devlin wasn't perfect, Wehrmeyer said, but "he wasn't a monster."

He kidnapped and held a boy hostage for over four years doing who knows what to him and then kidnapped a second young boy for more of the same. I'd say yes that qualifies him as a monster. That first boy may never fully recover from this.

First let's note that Wehrmeyer also said:

"The most frightening thing is this is a normal guy," Wehrmeyer said of Devlin. "There was nothing about him that would make you think he was a monster. Which is scary, because it could be anybody. He didn't talk about sex. There was none of that."

"You meet people and the bells go off in your head," Wehrmeyer said. But he said that wasn't the case with Devlin.

So I think it fair to say that Wehrmeyer was not defending him and may have intended to say they "he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't a visible monster".

Very few real monsters are.

A Person wrote:"he wasn't a visible monster".

Very few real monsters are.

That unfortunately, is the reality of most human monsters. Serial killers are mostly people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, charming and well liked by all who knew them in their regular (non killing) personas. Or they were like Richard Ramirez and Jeffery Dahmer--weak, rather ineffectual and mild mannered persons in their non-killing personas.

It is a problem that TV and the Movies typically show bad people as obvious bad guys. Even in "The Deliberate Stranger" about Ted Bundy, it was obvious from the start (the music, the way Mark Harmon was filmed, etc.) that even though he was good looking, he was obviously a really bad guy. And when he was sweet talking girls into helping him, he was quite obviously sinister, when in reality, Ted Bundy was so charming, handsome, and well dressed that almost anybody would have offered to help him.

And of course, if you consider monsters like Hitler and Eichman... well, people liked Hitler well enough to elect him as leader of a country.

Real monsters quite often look just like the nice guy next door.