A suburban kid gets arrested for killing and gutting cats and crushing their skulls and leaving them in their owners' yards the next morning and you know it's all "he seemed like such a nice kid" and "suddenly the earth doesn't feel so firm beneath our feet" and "who could ever know such evil was lurking in the heart of a South Florida boy."
It's a predictable and boring response, but the truth is that 18-year-old Tyler Hayes Weinstein is almost surely the cleanest-cut serial killer of cats in the history of this great country of ours. The kid was apparently very normal in a lot of ways. For instance, in addition to poking out the eyes of neighborhood cats, Tyler apparently liked hockey, wakeboarding, and mudding. He had girlfriends who adored him. He took German in high school.
But he also exhibited a wild hair. For instance, he liked blowing up a lot of shit, including, quite literally, his own. Take this comment from a friend on his MySpace page (like most of the comments, it comes between 2006 and 2007, when Weinman was 15 and 16):
"yeah, remember when all we used to do was light fireworks or you would take dumps and then stick fireworks in them lmao"
And:
"ill get some more fireworks so we can blow more crap up dude.:
He also liked smoking weed, apparently. Nothing unusual in that, really, but it's being reported that Weinman might have been expelled from Miami Palmetto Senior High School because of it. If that's true, if a school expelled a kid because of a touch of the pot, then the school committed the first big crime here. Take a mischievous kid and throw him out of school for no good reason and see what horror he can come up with out of sheer boredom (one MySpace group Weinman belonged to was called "Bored Out of My Mind").
Anyway, here's a piece of artwork sent to him by a friend:
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Then there's this one from another friend, slightly perturbed by Tyler's lack of reserve when it comes to smoking the cheapa:
"why you gotta post bullitens about smoking weed and shittt."
Weinman also liked beer, as there are a few referencing brew, like this one from another friend: "thsi weekend im getting a keg, bottles, and mad hoes so be ready."
He got into some trouble other than the expulsion, apparently. There are a couple of references to stays in juvenile detention and probation.
hye tyler wuts poppin? how have ya been this sumer?? lol monica got me thinkin of u bcuz she was bored so she was messin around wit me sayin " yeah tylers having a suprise party tonite bcuz his comin home 4rm juvi" n i was like huhh? n she said "yeah courntey called me n siad u were comin home frm juvi n there was thwqorin a suprise party" n im like 4real n shes like no i was juss plaing but yeah soooo have a good summer cnt wait to skool starts call mi up so we could jump off snowdens!
And:
my new school up here is so different from palmetto its weird. but yeah you didnt get ur drinks cause the summer was kinda crazy so i guess when i come down to florida we will have to hang out and get crunk since you SHOULD be off probation.
None of this really makes the feline mutilations make any more sense, and I'm not even going to take a stab at trying to figure out what went wrong. Instead, here are a few more miscellaneous comments directed by Weinman's friends that just struck me as interesting:
-- "niggercake. you're a freaking bisexual."
-- "i feel that you feel unloved.
no one has been commenting you.
i'll be nice and be the first one to do so in FOREVER
plus...i'm bored as hell."
-- "ur so cute.
a little weird though..."
-- "i think u look like a chick...u cross dressing freak from HELL!!!!!!!\"
-- "liarr...you dont have a twin...so0 why'd you say that i meant to be talking to your brother...stephen said you were an only child
you are confuzingg me kidd"
-- "u are quite literally satan."
