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points by silverFork 3 days ago | 0 comments
It is probably was crime of passion that he had covered up. Apparently she was having affairs and he didn't. Robbers don't kill people for mere $50k. He maybe a nice guy but also a killer. It was not because of money I would guess. Anger management issues are likely and those are not visible now.
[–] BeetleB 3 days ago
> Robbers don't kill people for mere $50k.

Here in the US, people kill for a lot less.

[–] skissane 3 days ago
> Here in the US, people kill for a lot less.

In Australia, organised crime has taken to hiring teenagers as hitmen; e.g. the perpetrators of a failed assassination attempt against a retired footballer (they shot him but he survived) included a 15 year old and 16 year old – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sixteen-heart-pumping-ab...

Reasons for using teenagers include that they cost less, they are impressionable, easier to manipulate, eager to "prove themselves", and receive more lenient sentencing (especially those under 18). Adult hitmen demand thousands, they'll find a teenager willing to do it for $500 (AUD 500 = USD 350). https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/at-the-crossroads-offend...

Apparently, this strategy wasn't invented in Australia, Australian criminals have copied it from Europe where it was already established (particularly in Sweden and the Netherlands)

[–] rjsw 3 days ago
Another example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw8rzpl1ldkdo
[–] BeetleB 3 days ago
> Apparently, this strategy wasn't invented in Australia

It's an old strategy. It's commonly been part of plots of various stories/movies in the US going back decades.

[–] skissane 3 days ago
> It's an old strategy. It's commonly been part of plots of various stories/movies in the US going back decades.

I think significant aspects of it are quite novel – e.g. teenagers being recruited via Signal or Telegram, often by overseas fugitive gang leaders; some cases have even (allegedly) involved Iranian government agents

Also, there's a difference between something repeatedly happening in fiction over decades, and law enforcement seeing multiple real life cases of it over a few months in a single metro area

[–] tartoran 3 days ago
People do indeed kill for the kick of it. But professional robbers stick to robbing, sometimes going as far as to not use real weapons in case they get caught. But there are all kind of offenders, some with mental health probelms or some panicking who end up killing even if they did not intend to do that initially.
[–] t-3 3 days ago
Professional robbers aren't really a thing. It's more a lifestyle, and it tends to be quite short. Many people who would consider robbing others would kill for 50k, because most robbers and thieves are not rational profit maximizers, to say the least. 50k is the kind of money that makes normal people start getting ideas, let alone criminals.
[–] BeetleB 3 days ago
Most robbers are not "professional robbers".

And incidentally, in case you didn't know, to classify as a robber you need to either use, or threaten, with violence.

The average burglar is not a robber.

[–] silverFork 3 days ago
The wife was bludgeoned to death in her bed. Do you think the rubber would do that? why in her room? not at the site of the safe. seriously?!
[–] saaaaaam 3 days ago
Or it was her stepfather who she was going to report to the police for allegedly sexually abusing her.
[–] dbt00 3 days ago
This is probably more of a reddit thread than a HN thread, but it seems unlikely that he would make up a story about a robbery in that case.
[–] scarby2 3 days ago
Unless the step father robbed the store as a cover for the actual motive.

Also, given he opened the safe and called the police a few minutes later, what happened to the money from the safe.

[–] MisterTea 3 days ago
Or was it the butler?

Truth is in these situations we don't know so no one outside of the case should speculate.

I feel the tendency to turn criminal cases into public spectacles does more harm and disservice to justice than anything else. The public has no business passing judgement or deciding for themselves. Leave them out of it.

[–] saaaaaam 3 days ago
My point was that the post I was responding to had left out a significant point from the article and was passing a slanted judgement. Effectively the same point that you are making, which I agree with.

Though the gruesome spectacle of public obsession with criminal cases like this has a long and (ig)noble history. There were late Victorian and early Edwardian “police reports” that filled exactly this sort of lurid fascination with the macabre.

However, I found the wider premise of the article more interesting than the speculation about the crime - which is whether someone convicted of an unpleasant violent crime can be simultaneously a warm and friendly person, and whether the justice system is as cut and dried as people like to think.

I found it very thought provoking beyond (or possibly in spite of) the “unsolved mystery” aspect.

[–] InvertedRhodium 3 days ago
> Robbers don't kill people for mere $50k.

What a laughably insulated statement. An example from NZ - Janek Patel was murdered in 2022 while attempting to prevent the cash register at his corner store from being stolen.

The figure has been described as "a few dollars".

[–] silverFork 3 days ago
Things like that happen all the time but a masked rubber killed the wife in her bed and waited to get unknown amount of money from the husband from the safe. I don't know how to say this, he should have done a better job with the story... He hadn't watch enough murder shows on TV.