Horrifying Grisly Familial Dysfunction

"You fell into a depression that you failed to recognize and instead of seeking help you started to rob banks to pay your debt and maintain your lifestyle. You report relief at being arrested at the scene of the 14th robbery ... You admit some excitement in the early robberies but towards the end of the robbery spree  you become more remorseful and apprehensive ..."
Brett Ryan's Parole board hearing

Not his fault, the young man with a stable family background; parents and three brothers. Just how life played out for him. True, he had become estranged from his family but that was because they just did not understand him. It all started, his problems in entangling himself in criminal activities, because two girlfriends disappointed him. While he "invested everything" in the relationships he was "let down on both occasions".

Facebook    Brett Ryan has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the alleged crossbow killing of three people in Toronto on Thursday.

This is what caused him to become depressed. In his depressed state, he could not concentrate, wasn't able to work, to maintain interpersonal relationships. Money problems followed, and he had to do something about that. So he turned his hand to becoming a serial bank robber. That was then, however. He served his time for bank robbery, the fourteen he committed before he was apprehended. Not that he came away with a lot of money, only about $28,000 altogether.

He had engaged in nine months of banditry in 2008, then decided to look elsewhere for satisfaction in life, once he emerged from his prison term. There was no mental illness in his health record. He hadn't engaged in substance abuse. No record of personality disorder, nor did psychiatrists find any traits recognized as psychiatric illnesses. Only genetically inherited risk of depression. He could manage with counselling; no medication was prescribed for him.

When he appeared before the parole board he left the impression that his potential to reintegrate back into society was high; his level of risk to turn back to crime was appraised as potentially low. A great candidate for early release, remorseful about his poor choices that landed him in prison to begin with. And so he was prepared to embark on a new life, take summer courses and work in home renovations, eventually earn enough to pay his way to study biophysics at university. No lost soul, he.

Granted full parole in 2010, currently at age 35 he had the opportunity to do with his life whatever was most important to him. He was in a stable relationship with a  young woman with whom he had moved in to live together, and their marriage was set to take place in several months' time. He was in a stable intimate relationship, and his future looked bright.

A week ago, in east-end Toronto, he garroted his mother in the garage of the family home. And he attempted to murder his three brothers, succeeding in using a cross-bow bolt shot into one brother's neck, killing him, and using another bolt from his cross-bow to slam into a second brother's neck, killing him as well. The third brother, wounded, escaped to a neighbour's house and police were called.

Clearly, they too had disappointed him.