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Thread: Clare Orton (19) was killed by her ex-boyfriend in a murder suicide

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    Senior Member dolcevita's Avatar
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    Clare Orton (19) was killed by her ex-boyfriend in a murder suicide

    http://mydeathspace.com/article/2015...murder_suicide

    I learned today from a friend of one of the families that Scott Bertics had suffered a severe psychotic break before he took time off from college (not sure if it was voluntary). His family was very concerned and got him psychiatric help. He ordered a ghost gun, which, apparently is a way to order a gun online and have it shipped in many parts. He put the gun together surreptitiously and used that gun (there might have been two guns) to kill Clare, who hadn't been his girlfriend in a very long time. In fact, they only dated briefly when they were both in high school.

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    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    Yea, I was about to ask "how jaded can your ex be" when you're fucking 19. I wonder how long ago this was for her. Were they 14 at the time? What happened?!?
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Ron was the best part, hands down.

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    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    And the 2nd Amendment, don't take my gun, blah blah blah thanks Obama.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Ron was the best part, hands down.

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    Senior Member dolcevita's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron_NYC View Post
    Yea, I was about to ask "how jaded can your ex be" when you're fucking 19. I wonder how long ago this was for her. Were they 14 at the time? What happened?!?
    Ha! For teenagers, a few years is a lifetime! They dated for a few months when they were maybe juniors in high school, so that was two years ago. As far as I know, nothing happened, they just broke up, no biggie. I think she was surprised when he showed up at her door. They hadn't had contact in a long time.

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    Senior Member bermstalker's Avatar
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    Articles are saying that he built the guns himself. He was old enough, I wonder if he would have been in the system if he tried to buy a gun? Maybe he would have been flagged because of some previous "mental" issue.



    Such a senseless crime.



    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...n-himself.html


  6. #6
    Senior Member dolcevita's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bermstalker View Post
    Articles are saying that he built the guns himself. He was old enough, I wonder if he would have been in the system if he tried to buy a gun? Maybe he would have been flagged because of some previous "mental" issue.


    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...n-himself.html
    That's what I wrote earlier. The gun is sent in pieces, small components, over time.

    https://ghostgunner.net

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    Senior Member leapfreak's Avatar
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    You can buy guns online and build them yourselves??? Does this sound insane and stupid to anyone else?

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    Senior Member bermstalker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dolcevita View Post
    That's what I wrote earlier. The gun is sent in pieces, small components, over time.

    https://ghostgunner.net
    Yes, I know that. My post was basically me wondering if he built his own guns instead of buying them because he had some kind of issue in his past.

    Quote Originally Posted by leapfreak View Post
    You can buy guns online and build them yourselves??? Does this sound insane and stupid to anyone else?
    I didn't know that either. Some of the articles I read said that a lawmaker was trying to pass some law where the stocks had to be registered, but it didn't pass.

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    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by leapfreak View Post
    You can buy guns online and build them yourselves??? Does this sound insane and stupid to anyone else?
    http://www.del-ton.com/ar_15_kits_s/1.htm
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
    Quote Originally Posted by nestlequikie View Post
    Why on earth would I smite you when I can ban you?

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    Senior Member IzzyCooper's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by puzzld View Post
    That's terrifying!

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    Senior Member Bellaboo's Avatar
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    And they are made in the U.S. We make them, buy them and use them at an alarming rate.

    "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves" .. Confucius
    "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation " ...... Henry David Thoreau

  12. #12
    Senior Member dolcevita's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bermstalker View Post
    Yes, I know that. My post was basically me wondering if he built his own guns instead of buying them because he had some kind of issue in his past.
    I get you. I know that he had had guns confiscated by his parents before. By the time the shootings happened, Scott was completely out of touch with reality. This "no red flags" stuff is absolute bullshit.

  13. #13
    What's bizarre is how his parents did not notice him ordering the parcels for the gun parts or assembling the items. As Scott's former classmate, I still am equally baffled by his actions especially when his parents did not give any testimonies afterwards. I know this a bit old, but I hope it offers more accurate insights into all of this incident. I heard from a few friends was that Scott was going through some really rough times. He did not select a major during his Junior year at Stanford and was no longer the valedictorian that he used to be in high school. This probably was the most likely reason for his mental deterioration since before going to college. I recall vividly he always wanted the best for himself and made sure to excel in everything he did whether it be academics, sports, clubs, or cooking. He did not tolerate failure very well as he once threw a tantrum in front of the entire AP English class when he found out MIT had rejected him. A few months before his despicable act, me and another classmate coincidentally bumped into him at a local restaurant. Funny I should mention he sounded perfectly normal, but he only remembered us because of where we went to college and the fact that we were friends with the valedictorians in our class. His breakup with his ex girlfriend was mutual and on very amicable terms. They did not have any type of communication until the day of the shootings. He probably told Clare he wanted to go hiking early in the morning to trick her into opening her front door when he arrived at her house. Apart from the mental disability explanation, he could have shot Clare because he could have been too scared to face death alone. Did they (his parents) not institutionalise him for an extended period of time? This sounded very severe, if he were mentally ill, wouldn't he have had an illness (i.e. narcissistic disorder) that gave him hallucinations yet have no influence on his usual activities of daily living? He probably still functioned as a "normal" person from time to time otherwise he would not have had the ability to put together the two weapons. I would not want any random attacks like these showing up in our driveways especially when people are get distressed from the COVID 19 lockdown. Stay safe from the pandemic, we will pass by it together!

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    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    We've seen it before where over acheiving perfectionists kill themselves because they think they "failed" at something, but why did he kill his ex?!?

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  15. #15
    Exactly, we have learned the same concept in graduate school. When people try to strive for perfection, they overreact when they feel like they did not achieve something without any imperfections. They slowly turn their backs to the people who care about them the most until they can no longer bear to live with themselves anymore. You are spot on Angiebla (virtual high five)! Great minds think alike. I think I can answer all of your questions here since I know Scott very well. We have had many classes together, hung out during lunch with a close group of friends, and participated in a lot of the same extracurricular activities (Yes we both signed each other's yearbooks before). He aced every class he took and built robots for the robotics club he founded with three other people. He ran cross country and track during the Fall and Spring Semester respectively from Freshman year to Senior year. In one of the math classes we had together, one particular professor had a penchant for praising his star students. Since Scott did well in our class, he would compare him with another student who used to be good before Scott overtook her. He was one of those students who were "quiet smart" and not "loud smart". Participation did not really appeal to him at all unless the instructor or TA picked on him first to answer a question. Normally, he was a major procrastinator. For a lot of AP chemistry or AP biology assignments, he would do them at the last minute, but still receive high marks on them. This was something he was known for aside from getting waitlisted at Harvard after writing some sort of poetry on the college application in Fall 2011. Although many students at Acalanes High School excelled in their classes, Scott went to the most prestigious school out of everyone else in the graduating class of 2012. To him, he often thought of himself as the best student in our class. One of my friends always did better than him on the math club exams since he learned the material when he went to school in Macau. Scott on the other hand could not stand being second best. After each practice test, he would ask the Macanese friend to always compare answers with him even if it means deciphering my friend's copy like a puzzle. Talk about being extremely uptight. During lunch, he always packed himself the most organic foods he could get to maintain his physical fitness. He was so ambitious on living a long, healthy life; you would not expect him to take his own life. During normal conversations, it revolved around making progress on schoolwork or academics. I do not recall him telling jokes or focusing on non academic pursuits like photography or video games. There was nothing off about his personality, he presented himself as a happy individual overall back in the day. Since he constantly earned the praise of the history professors who posted the names of those who received the highest scores on each midterm, that probably furthered his ego. Probably when he went to college, he was not used to receiving grades less than average. I know a lot of friends who developed depression since their peers were too competitive, this probably is what happened with him. He knew he wanted to become an engineer of some kind, but as he grew increasingly frustrated with not being able to be #1 like he used to be in high school, his syndromes grew worse. During Christmas Parties at his friend's house with other people, he probably could not reveal his struggles or let anyone else in on his problems. If he had some close friends, it may have helped him alleviate or cope with his ongoing stressors. Soon enough, he fell behind his coursework to the point where he did not complete enough courses for a major. At most schools, you have until your Sophomore year to declare a major otherwise you delay your graduation by one year or the school will not you proceed to the next grade level. The leave of absence was something his parents advised him to do since as one user stated above, he got psychiatric help sometime afterwards most likely. For sure someone like him who craved achievements was not someone who was willing to give up on his own. Either that, or he decided to leave school temporarily to buy some time to prepare for his attack on Clare. Piecing together the facts we already know, he could have acquired the gun parts while he was at school to avoid his parents from detecting it. That way he could just take it back home where he could work on building it. His parent's garage has a carpenter's/handyman's workstation where they could do a lot of hands on projects. I assume that helped a lot with configuring his two handguns. As for his ex, remember it was a friendly split, not one where they both bickered before blocking each other on facebook. Given he had a psychotic breakdown when the shooting occurred, we can infer there were voices telling him to go kill Clare or he did not want to die alone. I thought about this a lot with my medical school friends, we believe the former is a very likely explanation since mental illnesses take about 6 months to form. If he had some sort of issue with his inflated personality, he would have thought the whole act could win him some fame on the news. Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am more than happy to help with all respect! There were no leads or anything in this particular case, if anyone else has any information, I would love to hear them out. Thank you for all of your posts!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Cavaleirodosazulejos View Post
    Exactly, we have learned the same concept in graduate school. When people try to strive for perfection, they overreact when they feel like they did not achieve something without any imperfections. They slowly turn their backs to the people who care about them the most until they can no longer bear to live with themselves anymore. You are spot on Angiebla (virtual high five)! Great minds think alike. I think I can answer all of your questions here since I know Scott very well. We have had many classes together, hung out during lunch with a close group of friends, and participated in a lot of the same extracurricular activities (Yes we both signed each other's yearbooks before). He aced every class he took and built robots for the robotics club he founded with three other people. He ran cross country and track during the Fall and Spring Semester respectively from Freshman year to Senior year. In one of the math classes we had together, one particular professor had a penchant for praising his star students. Since Scott did well in our class, he would compare him with another student who used to be good before Scott overtook her. He was one of those students who were "quiet smart" and not "loud smart". Participation did not really appeal to him at all unless the instructor or TA picked on him first to answer a question. Normally, he was a major procrastinator. For a lot of AP chemistry or AP biology assignments, he would do them at the last minute, but still receive high marks on them. This was something he was known for aside from getting waitlisted at Harvard after writing some sort of poetry on the college application in Fall 2011. Although many students at Acalanes High School excelled in their classes, Scott went to the most prestigious school out of everyone else in the graduating class of 2012. To him, he often thought of himself as the best student in our class. One of my friends always did better than him on the math club exams since he learned the material when he went to school in Macau. Scott on the other hand could not stand being second best. After each practice test, he would ask the Macanese friend to always compare answers with him even if it means deciphering my friend's copy like a puzzle. Talk about being extremely uptight. During lunch, he always packed himself the most organic foods he could get to maintain his physical fitness. He was so ambitious on living a long, healthy life; you would not expect him to take his own life. During normal conversations, it revolved around making progress on schoolwork or academics. I do not recall him telling jokes or focusing on non academic pursuits like photography or video games. There was nothing off about his personality, he presented himself as a happy individual overall back in the day. Since he constantly earned the praise of the history professors who posted the names of those who received the highest scores on each midterm, that probably furthered his ego. Probably when he went to college, he was not used to receiving grades less than average. I know a lot of friends who developed depression since their peers were too competitive, this probably is what happened with him. He knew he wanted to become an engineer of some kind, but as he grew increasingly frustrated with not being able to be #1 like he used to be in high school, his syndromes grew worse. During Christmas Parties at his friend's house with other people, he probably could not reveal his struggles or let anyone else in on his problems. If he had some close friends, it may have helped him alleviate or cope with his ongoing stressors. Soon enough, he fell behind his coursework to the point where he did not complete enough courses for a major. At most schools, you have until your Sophomore year to declare a major otherwise you delay your graduation by one year or the school will not you proceed to the next grade level. The leave of absence was something his parents advised him to do since as one user stated above, he got psychiatric help sometime afterwards most likely. For sure someone like him who craved achievements was not someone who was willing to give up on his own. Either that, or he decided to leave school temporarily to buy some time to prepare for his attack on Clare. Piecing together the facts we already know, he could have acquired the gun parts while he was at school to avoid his parents from detecting it. That way he could just take it back home where he could work on building it. His parent's garage has a carpenter's/handyman's workstation where they could do a lot of hands on projects. I assume that helped a lot with configuring his two handguns. As for his ex, remember it was a friendly split, not one where they both bickered before blocking each other on facebook. Given he had a psychotic breakdown when the shooting occurred, we can infer there were voices telling him to go kill Clare or he did not want to die alone. I thought about this a lot with my medical school friends, we believe the former is a very likely explanation since mental illnesses take about 6 months to form. If he had some sort of issue with his inflated personality, he would have thought the whole act could win him some fame on the news. Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am more than happy to help with all respect! There were no leads or anything in this particular case, if anyone else has any information, I would love to hear them out. Thank you for all of your posts!
    I have always thought to myself back in high school how long would he last in college. There were some people in class who referred to him as "Bill Gates" and others who admired his looks as well. If he cared so much for the "spotlight", what would happen to him if he ended up in an environment where people were vastly different from him? If he competed with extremely intelligent students across the nation, could he keep up with them with his habit of doing things at the last minute? If no one noticed each other for their academic performance, how would that impact his outlook on life? At that time, some of the valedictorians from the class of 2012 had suffered from some painful moments in their lives. As morbid as it sounds, the sixth sense indicated to me that another valedictorian was going to suffer from some major catastrophe.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    We've seen it before where over acheiving perfectionists kill themselves because they think they "failed" at something, but why did he kill his ex?!?
    I meant to say he had no ill will towards her at all, this has [B]nothing[/B] to do with hate in the least bit if you understand what I am trying to say. Most likely he wanted her to join him in the next realm because he still had feelings for her. They could be "together" again back in the old days before college started; he would no longer fear death as he would have a "friendly companion". Think about it, Clare was still willing to be ordinary friends with him since she opened the door that morning and did not ignore him. Scott, however randomly chose her as the unfortunate target as they shared some happy memories in the past. In other words, anybody could have been his victim, even close relatives. However, he knew Orton would least expect it coming as his friends were a bit aware of his strange demeanor in 2014 (which I will explain later). Choosing his own family was not an option due to age differences; his only sibling obviously he cannot "date". If he was not under the influence of the auditory hallucinations, then this was undoubtedly his train of thought. It's scary how it presented itself as a sick twisted ending in a one of those bad romance films.

  18. #18
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    Was he showing signs of Schizophrenia?

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  19. #19
    That may be possible. When my friends and I saw him two or three months before the shooting, he was still normal. There was nothing different about him save for a moustache that he did not shave for We speculate he had a mental illness like bipolar disorder, split personality disorder, narcissistic disorder, paraphrenia, delusional disorder, or a mild form of schizophrenia. The biggest hint was that he still retained his skinny appearance and walked normally, this meant that he was not taking any types of anti psychotics based medications as they would all experience rapid weight gain and irregular movements of the arms and legs. If he did not take his medications that frequently, he would be less at risk for these symptoms. I know in some cases, people had been diagnosed with psychotic abnormalities, however they could still function independently as "normal, ordinary people". They would appear so normal both physically and mentally that you could not tell if they had some sort of mental disability. We did observe that a year prior to all of it he was displaying some strange tendencies. He stopped attending a lot of the social events hosted at other people's houses, refused to interact with a lot of people, withdrew from social media, and kept to himself a lot. That was something that sort of caught our attention because he never did that at all before.

  20. #20
    That may be possible. When my friends and I saw him two or three months before the shooting, he was still normal. There was nothing different about him save for a moustache that he did not shave for at least a week. We speculate he had a mental illness like bipolar disorder, split personality disorder, narcissistic disorder, paraphrenia, delusional disorder, or a mild form of schizophrenia. The biggest hint was that he still retained his skinny appearance and walked normally, this meant that he was not taking any types of anti psychotics based medications as they would all experience rapid weight gain and irregular movements of the arms and legs. If he did not take his medications that frequently, he would be less at risk for these symptoms. I know in some cases, people had been diagnosed with psychotic abnormalities, however they could still function independently as "normal, ordinary people". They would appear so normal both physically and mentally that you could not tell if they had some sort of mental disability. We did observe that a year prior to all of it he was displaying some strange tendencies. He stopped attending a lot of the social events hosted at other people's houses, refused to interact with a lot of people, withdrew from social media, and kept to himself a lot. That was something that sort of caught our attention because he never did that at all before.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    Was he showing signs of Schizophrenia?
    None of his friends could tell whether he had it or not. The only people who know for sure would be his family members. Circling back to Dolcevita's previous post, if he was out of touch with reality, it must mean he had been diagnosed with something like it. If he built a gun, it meant his illness was not crippling him enough as he still acted normal in front of everyone and could do his own shopping. I would not be surprised if he did have sporadically occurring schizophrenia, but was not adherent to his medicine. He would be a "sick person disguised an ordinary looking college kid". If Dolcevita has any further details about his mental state, please share.

  22. #22
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    He could have shown signs of a mental illness, but his family/parents were in denial, or maybe they did try to get him help but he rejected it. He also could have hid symptoms thus the isolation of himself socially.

    Either way, this is a sad case.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  23. #23
    Or likely is that the doctor did not diagnose anything too serious to institutionalise him. His parents could only persuade him to take the leave of absence and hope things got better from their perspectives. I concur this is sad as he (and Clare) would have had a lot good contributions in the future. I think I also need to mention that another friend said he was very hardworking, but not necessarily the most intelligent of the bunch. Of course getting good grades does not necessarily equate to intelligence 100%.

  24. #24
    In the summer of 2014, he actually had a Linkedin account before but he deleted it almost immediately without adding or accepting any invitations. He erased his old facebook page to make a new account where he only added the people who he normally talked to (including me). Then in the summer of 2015, he deactivated the second account before he carried out his attack. I remember seeing in both of his facebook accounts he did not post anything related to college at all, it was mostly photos of him back in high school. Additionally, his Linkedin account only showed he knew Java programming and other fundamental software engineering skills. The information was so bare boned, I did not think he personally wrote that himself. In every Calculus or Statistics assignment, he usually could usually ask sophisticated questions or create elaborate study guides. Come to think of it, he would not share them as much as other people would have liked. Although not the most talented in music or creative writing, he made up for that by adding programs in his graphing calculator or making tutorial videos for his old Youtube channel. He was in a sense your stereotypical nerd, he did not have any other hobbies like weight lifting, basketball, fashion, drawing, martial arts, painting, or gardening. Everything was centered around academics or anything related to showcase his intuition. Even during PE, he would get satisfaction from running 7 minute miles or be the better player without gloating. In band, he was quiet and relaxed however. He knew how to talk to people without offending them or saying anything they did not want to hear. Occasionally he would get his "prom girlfriend" to teach him her mother tongue before he would speak them to other members. He did get a little irked when he could not get the syllables right the first time. I noticed he stopped going to the winter parties beginning in 2013 which was strange, probably he started having issues after his first year at Stanford. I heard he did not make any friends in college and did not fit in wherever he went. It's a big school; it's not for everyone. Someone told me he tried to transfer to MIT during his second year but that failed. I do not think this was main the reason why he shot his ex. The social isolation also became prominent too with his family perhaps, if they talked things out or did stuff more together, they could prevent this. He did not want to interact with anyone else including his sibling and the latter's friends. Not only did his personality change, but also his walking posture/hand motions. I felt as if he were struggling to find the energy to talk about himself in depth.

  25. #25
    As he was super obsessed with getting super good grades and keeping up with the fast paced lifestyle, this can be correlated with the string of suicides that Palo Alto had between 2009-2015 partly due to high parenteral expectations. The same can be said for university students.

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