Originally Posted by
Cavaleirodosazulejos
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!