I will apologize in advance for the long post but here's my story. There was the time shortly after high school when I was in town on a college break. I visited my cousin at his family's business, just dropped in to say hello as I usually had done. He was showing me around the place and without warning, he grabbed his father's revolver from behind the counter and pointed it at me. It was a nickel plated Smith & Wesson large frame gun. For a few seconds, I froze not knowing what to think. This nut could have killed me right there and called it an accident.
After a second or two, he started laughing and said that he just wanted to show me the gun. If he just wanted to show it to me, he could have done it the regular way and he didn't have to point it at me. The thing is, he wanted to see the expression of fear on my face. You see, this cousin of mine was a sociopath but we grew up together and he was, unfortunately, part of the family and I cared for him. Many thoughts ran through my mind as I decided how to handle this situation. In the end, I basically decided to disconnect from this family member.
The whole incident shook me up and I didn't care for him much at all after that. Fast forward 10 or so years. This guy was usually in trouble for one thing or another ... drug addiction, theft, child support, etc. It got to the point where his parents didn't trust him and they put him out of the family business. He was always threatening people and anecdotally talking about shooting people. Several times he bragged about shooting someone and I didn't know whether he was telling the truth or just trying to build himself up to seem like a bad dude.
Fast forward several more years. I got a call one night that cousin had been arrested for first degree murder. He shot someone and was seen by witnesses. Eventually he was caught and has been serving a life sentence for several years.
He had the nerve to ask family members for money for legal expenses. I wouldn't give a dime to free him but I would pay good money to keep him locked up. His parents soaked money into lawyers but it was a losing battle since so much evidence was stacked against him. He has been writing to members of the family trying to get cigarette money and favors and he wrote to me twice. I have not responded and I don't think I ever will. I think about what he did to me almost 20 years ago and how he was showing his murderous tendencies way back then. It finally caught up with him and now he can spend the rest of his life in prison with some people who are just like him.
It hurts to see how that kid that I grew up with turned out to be such a loser. He had every advantage in life and maybe that's what spoiled him. He always acted as if people owed him something and he had some serious character flaws. Whenever there was peace, he couldn't resist starting trouble, arguments and fights. He was only happy when he made trouble for others and he could never be trusted to do the right thing. When I think about all the sociopaths in the world, it makes me sick and I wish they all could be locked up.