We’ve seen the pictures of his Connecticut home. A tasteful white clapboard with black shutters set far back from the road amid a serene copse of trees— a string of green Christmas garland artfully wrapped around the pillars of the entrance. Our first thoughts? Not too shabby. Financial success. Comfortable life. Yet inside the home of the most recent killer to grace national headlines, there is something that belies its setting. There is life beyond the gracious doorway, but it is not the least bit comfortable.

When a murderer wakes up in the morning before the sun, what is on his mind the day he takes 27 lives, beginning with his own mother’s? As he prepares his arsenal, methodically packing his weaponry into a car trunk before calmly driving to a grade school a few miles away, what exactly is his m.o.? Whether the person is a sociopath, psychopath, or just a depressed loner unattached to his own emotions, who can know the heart of a killer?

Doctors and other assorted experts in the field of psychology are trying to figure it out for us. They parse and project the latest information on mental health, bubbling with a mixture of hope and sadness as they effusively reveal statistics gleaned from years of hands-on study. They present the facts and figures with experienced authority. We nod and groan at the facts they uncover, the meds and courses of treatment that have been successfully administered, and the unsuccessful cases that are beyond their reach.