To Cry, Kill, and Die; To Lie, Hate, and Fear

By Kevin Guilfoile

Hi, I have always been different from most of my peers - extremely quiet, unable to engage in any sort of small talk, somewhat obsessive, intelligent, and somewhat unable to make friends. Many of these qualities I attributed to the fact that I grew up in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no immediate neighbors, and the way that may [sic] parents were rather different than most people in the town that I lived near. (White trash town - my father is a doctor, my mother from France, and not used to many American customs) I was always considered talented and gifted in school, but I struggled socially (many people felt I was mute), and I have never been in a real relationship in my life despite my above average physical attractiveness. I am now 28 years old and recently moved from the United States to an island in the Caribbean.

Recent readers of this site will recognize in those words the troubled voice of Hans Rudolph Peterson, who one month ago confessed to last October's savage murder of Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet.

(If you're new to the case, or if you've been directed here by the recent flurry of Peterson coverage, you can find links to previous reports in our last post related to Peterson's online activity at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum. A version of that post also appears on the op-ed page of today's Chicago Tribune. If you are a regular reader of this site, our usual rotation of contributors will resume on Friday.)

The above introduction was posted to yet another internet discussion, this one at Wrong Planet an "online resource and community for those with Asperger's Syndrome." Peterson registered at the site in July of 2004, but apparently didn't post until February 4, 2007, three months after Dr. Cornbleet's murder. He joined the discussion only twice, but the posts seem to provide one more fold in the map Peterson was trying to follow to the source of his mental illness. As in the Accutane discussions, he is trying to find a concrete reason why he became the person he did. It is also perhaps the most revealing glimpse we've had into Peterson's psyche. In his own words, he provides a vivid picture of just what what Hans sees when he looks into the mirror.

I suppose what I am trying to do here, is determine whether or not I have AS. I have many of the attributes typically attributed to AS:

* Social awkwardness/lack of intuitive understanding of social situations: I have never felt comfortable with small talk, or making friends. It's not that I don't want do, I definitely do. I just find myself pushing people away frequently because I'm generally clueless regarding friendships - and, probably more importantly, I seem very averse to initiating or continuing normal social interaction with people that I have just met.

* Excessively logical rather than emotional thought processes. I'm not the person one would want to come crying to for comfort. My brain just doesn't work that way. I seem to always look at things from a logical rather than emotional perspective. (I have emotions, they just seem more warped and diluted than those of most other people.)

* Above average intelligence. In many (most?) areas of intelligence I am substantially more intelligent than my peers. When it comes to long term memory, or understanding systems, or writing, or most academic subjects I am just a lot better than most of my peers. (I have always done exceptionally well on standardized tests, etc.)

* Lack of organization/attention span. In classes or lectures I have never been able to take notes - not even a single page. For some reason, the whole idea of writing things down repulses me. When I am paying attention, I just try to process what is being said rather than writing anything down. Also, I frequently find myself staring out the window or at a wall with my mind wandering around some subject or idea totally unrelated to the class or lecture. These factors undoubtedly hurt my academic performance. I tried to correct them to some extent, but my success was very limited. Also, I virtually never clean my room or even use a garbage can - as a result most of my rooms/apartments are not very pleasant places in which to hang out.

* At points in my life, I have been rather lazy about my hygiene as well. Just not shaving or wearing the same clothes frequently because I become bored with the process of picking out different clothes to wear. (This has not always been the case, there have been stretches in my life where I have been rather hygienic.

* Obsessive interests: Generally I am either very interested in a subject, or not interested in it at all. This has resulted in quite varied performance in school and work. Also, I suppose, when I was a child, I would have very specific interests that I would obsess over at the expense of everything else (such as dinosaurs or geography). I have generally grown out of that pattern, however, the all or nothing interest that I have in subjects largely remains.

However, i do not have some of the common AS attributes: (at least I'm not aware of having these)

* Panic attacks: I can't even comprehend what it feel like to have one.

* Lack of coordination: I'm not especially coordinated, but nor am I especially uncoordinated.

* Stimming: I may have this, I'm not sure, I certainly don't do the over the top full body convulsion type of thing, but I do fidget a fair amount, and I almost always bounce one of my legs up and down when sitting.

Also, my line of work doesn't seem typical for someone with AS. I am a professional poker player and a key part of that is thinking from the perspective of one's opponents. However, in the setting of poker, this can be done in a very logical and systematic manner, so maybe it isn't that hard for someone with AS.

I have a variety of mental issues: depression, extreme shyness, and some shades of OCD.

So, do you think I have AS? (I took the online test, it said I was very likely an aspie.) If I am, what difference does it make? AS isn't a disease, right?. It does not have a known cause, or 'cure' for that matter. As a syndrome, is it just a group of attributes which seem to be rather correlated? I dislike some of my attributes, such as the social awkwardness. Does the idea that these things may be part of a greater syndrome make it easier to deal with? I don't know yet. I guess one good thing is that I now know that there are others that have the same peculiarities as me.

It's not clear that Hans ever concludes that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but three days later he joins a music discussion at the same site.

Although I doubt it was written with AS in mind, Tool "46&2" describes my mental state fairly well. In particular the obsessive tendencies, introspection, desire to analyze, and desire to change.

(From what I read it may have been written about some sort of Jungian psychology or the next step in the evolution of the human species, but the lyrics are vague enough to cover a wide variety of topics, including AS.)

These are the words to the song Forty Six & 2 by the band Tool, the lyrics which allegedly described Hans Peterson's mental state "fairly well" just three months after he bound, gagged, tortured, and stabbed David Cornbleet more than twenty times:

My shadow's
Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.

A likely irrelevant but nevertheless creepy coda to Hans's brief foray into the Asperger's site is provided by another poster who calls himself Flagg. Like several other members of the online Asperger community, Flagg tries to welcome Hans and encourage him to post further.

"Welcome to the unending battlefield of Outer Planet," Flagg writes. "I'm the unofficial host of the slaughter, Liquid Ocelot."


DIPLOMATIC UPDATE: "U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to consider, in light of the State Department's support for France's extradition request for Manuel Noriega, to publicly request that the Government of France extradite Hans Peterson, an American citizen who reportedly confessed to the 2006 murder of Dr. David Cornbleet in Chicago."

MEDIA UPDATE: The syndicated television program Inside Edition will be featuring the murder of Dr. Cornbleet today (Thursday, September 13). In Chicago, that show airs at 3PM on WLS-TV channel 7.