David Vann - Last Day on Earth - A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter

“Then he got a PS3,” Mark says, “which I didn’t have, so we couldn’t play online with each other, so he tried to convince me to get one. This time he said he saw a psychiatrist about his problem of not holding onto things. And he said she had me engrave my name onto the equipment so it’s harder to get rid of. So he told me he was done, he was past that point, and he wasn’t going to get rid of stuff, and he recognized that he had a fear of hanging onto objects, that he sold them. He said he was confident now and knew he was okay financially. On that Tuesday [February 12, 2008, two days before the shooting], I told him I’d get a PS3 soon.”

Video games are not Steve’s most powerful addiction, though. A few days after his October 19 email to Mark, he goes on a wild spree on Craigslist in the Erotic Services and Casual Encounters sections. He meets a male professor from the biochemistry department at another university. They give each other blowjobs in the car.

He meets others, including “Kelly,” an undergrad at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. He describes himself, on October 22, as “very gentleman like and respectful in person, but have a wild side. I’m well educated and am confident in bed. I have a few tattoos, love giving oral, (in fact, I enjoy giving it more than any other act, even more than receiving. . which I’m told is rare by guys), and don’t discriminate when it comes to fuller figures, different ethnicities, etc. I am DD free, clean and am in great shape.”

In a later email, he tells her, “We can meet at a coffee shop or something if that makes you more comfortable, but I can assure you that I’m not socially awkward or anything, (actually, I’m probably too social and talkative at times, but I know when to keep quiet, lol).” She says meeting in a public place first “isn’t absolutely necessary as long as you don’t plan to chop me up and store me in my freezer. So. . don’t do that.:)” He reassures her, “I’m not a serial killer/psycho or anything,” and to seal the deal: “Just so you know, I am very oral, and love to give it. . True story: I have a particularly strong tongue, as I used to play the Tenor Saxaphone when I was younger. I’ve never had any complaints:-)”

He drives to her apartment for sex on October 23, 2007. He has to share the bed with a dog, “a cranky old Yorkshire Terrier with a purple rhinestone collar and several missing teeth,” as she describes it, so that’s unfortunate. He’s had an uneasy history with dogs. He wrote a poem at age ten about the first one that died, titled “MESHA”: “Oh, yes! I remember the anxiety I felt when my dog perished into death. I remember when her beautiful lips used to lick me.”

Kelly is cute, long blonde hair, round and busty and wholesome, a bit of a hippie, but he also teases her about being a redneck, coming from a small town. They have a similar dark sense of humor, love the macabre. They’re both excited about SAW 4 coming out on Friday. He has a great time with her, fun sex, up all night. He tells her Jessica is just a roommate and ex-girlfriend who’s jealous sometimes. He’s been trying to get her to date other men, since her jealousy is a drag.

The next day he buys the SAW box set. “Jigsaw is on the cover in plastic,” he tells Kelly in a goodnight email at 5:27 a.m., “so how cool is that???”

“Get something scary for Halloween!” Kelly writes. “Then maybe sometime I can have sex with you when you’ve got a scary mask on. . also in a cemetery.”

So Steve does exactly that. “I bought the Billy the Puppet Mask (i.e. the puppet from SAW) and it is creepy looking! Maybe I’ll bring it up next time I’m out there to scare the hell out of you, haha. Ever want to have sex with the puppet from SAW? lol. I told you that I’m pretty sexually adventurous, and I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea. . Know any good cemeteries?;-) I actually enjoy sex in random ass places, (although I haven’t done it that much), so let me know if you’re ever interested, as I am up for anything and everything.”

“The puppet mask sounds good,” Kelly replies. “It creeps the hell out of me already. I’d hate looking out my peephole to see that, but creepy is good.:) I don’t know any good cemeteries around here, but back home there is a really old scary one on the lake that I have been eyeing for a long time. . Let me know if you find any around here! Also, any empty churches. . I’m pretty much up for anything as well, so feel free to share any ideas you’ve got. . It’s nice to not have to worry that I will offend you or creep you out, because you are just as sick as I am!”

“I’m also glad that I don’t have to sugar coat things and be PC around you,” Steve writes — they love watching Maury, make jokes about sterilization of blacks, about watermelons, about hating Mexicans, etc. — “as I usually have to make an effort to mask my words and contain my dark sense of humor. Oh, and don’t worry Kelly, I won’t ruin the ending of SAW 4 for you or tell you that Jigsaw is really the father of. . Okay, so I didn’t see it yet, but it’s still fun to speculate as to how the series will conclude, (if it will conclude). I honestly wouldn’t mind [if] the creators kept sticking to the recipe of another Halloween, another SAW since the series is *that* good.”

Steve and Kelly consider sex in a public bathroom, and then Steve writes about Jessica: “Anyway, I can’t wait until my lease expires here, as I’m going to start looking for a new one bedroom for next year. My roommate is great and everything, but I just want my own place, as I’m not really used to living with a roommate, particularly one that I used to date.”

Kelly invites Steve to her family Thanksgiving in her hometown, but he isn’t interested and she backs away from the idea, saying she just didn’t want him to be alone for the holiday.

SAW 4 OPENING NIGHT,Friday, October 26, 2007. Steve is excited. He’s seeing it with Jessica and Susan. A chance to make up with Susan, perhaps, and Jessica. Just had one of his fights with Jessica. He wrote to Mark, on October 24: “Crap on a stick! Jessica is flipping out tonight after too many drinks + prescription medication, so I won’t be on until 11:00 pm [to play first person shooters online].” Jessica knows when he goes out to have sex, knows what’s going on with Kelly.

But Susan is the one who really hates him. Maybe things can be better. Maybe they can get along. Susan is talking with a friend on the phone, though. Steve asks if she can drive, and she starts telling her friend how he’s a jerk, and then he gets angry.

So no Susan after all. He gives away her ticket outside the theater. He doesn’t know why it hits him so hard, not getting along with her. Family has always made him want to die. But to hell with them, he’s going to enjoy the movie.

When he and Jessica enter the theatre, they smell puke. Someone has projectile vomited in the previous showing. Should be good.

The movie begins with an autopsy of Jigsaw, gruesome, sawing into his head, removing his brain, sawing into his chest, slicing through fat, removing his stomach. They cut open his stomach and find a tape. “Did you think the games would end with my death?”

The “games” are a kind of therapy. In all the SAW movies, Jigsaw is a pseudopsychologist, a man who doesn’t have long to live (dying of terminal cancer), who is going to help his victims appreciate the value of life. He tells a rare survivor, “Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore.”

“He helped me,” the victim then tells investigators.

All of Jigsaw’s killings are strictly regulated by time limits and “rules.” In the Cole Hall shootings, too, timing and strict control of behavior will help provide order to an insane act. Steve will walk calmly down the aisle shooting his victims, some of whom will be too paralyzed by fear to flee, then he’ll turn around and march back to the stage to kill himself, with no hesitation. Like the military, the world of SAW offers behavioral control without any reference, grounded on absurdity. Unmoored from society, parroting the rules.