Inside the minds of mass killers

Is the Colorado shooter delusional, depressed, or psychotic? And why does this type of tragedy keep happening? Dave Cullen, author of ‘Columbine’, searches for clues in the latest research on mass murderers

FROM the moment news broke of a shooting in Colorado, the question reverberated: why? As the tragedies continue, America’s collective national frustration has boiled over: Aurora, Columbine, Tucson, Virginia Tech... Why does this keep happening? In the interim, there has been another shooting, this time when a white supremacist opened fire at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin: Six people died.

In the 80 interminable hours it took to get a glimpse at the suspect in the Aurora shooting, a second question emerged: What was a look at James Holmes going to reveal?