A chainsaw, an assault rifle, and a homicide

Well, Sean, I’m going to depart from the norm a bit tonight (and the election) and talk about a crime from the Las Vegas Review Journal. It seems to be spreading over multiple newspapers at this point.

At 1:10 am yesterday (11/3), witnesses saw William Keck walk into the the Fountains at Villa Cordova apartments over on Eastern and Sahara, with an assault rifle and a chainsaw.

He is then accused of cutting a hole in one of the apartments doors with the chainsaw, one belonging to his estranged wife, and opening fire with the rifle.

The neighbors heard 9 shots, then a pause for reloading, and six more shots. Aingel, who was 18 weeks pregnant, lost the baby, but is now in stable condition in the hospital. Her lover, Jonathan Lestelle, who she had been living with is dead, as is a dog which was in the apartment.

He was arrested in his apartment an hour and a half later.

I suppose reading his spock.com page, which states:

Rabid, Psychotic, All of the ABove. I like guns, beer, tabacco, red meat, nuclear weapons, toxic gasses, Tattoos and the apocalypse foretold. I hate pretty much anything with a face that needs to be smashed in, I hate Liberals, and left wing Homos. I hate Commies and all alike. Things need to be blown up. If you have a death wish, I can help you scratch that itch. MySpace

Born:

1983

You might not be surprised. I was, though. You see, Billy Keck was an ex-coworker of mine, who was let go a month or two ago. I didn’t know him well, and, yeah, he had the whole tough guy image with tattoos and all, but he always seemed to be a nice guy under it all.

I guess you never can tell.

Which shouldn’t be news. One of my other coworkers was telling me recently about a job he used to have on a bus line that gave tours, and these two Islamic guys were on one of the tours asking questions like “Why does America have so many religions?”.

They later crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center. Seriously. His boss thought the names looked familiar afterwards, and checked her records.

Oh well, time for some music, I suppose:

Smackwater Jack – Carole King

Have I ever mentioned how much I like Carole King’s Tapestry? No? Consider it mentioned. So many of her songs from that album became hits for her, or other musicians, and were covered endlessly…

Willy Taylor – June Tabor & Martin Simpson

And, of course, a traditional murder ballad I happen to like. I don’t, naturally, condone any of the behavior described. I may be crazy, but not that way…

Update:

The Las Vegas Sun had an article with more information and a mugshot.

This is by far the worst I’ve ever seen Billy looking. [2] That and a statement by him about being on several medications at the time really makes me think he may have been going through some sort of reaction to the drugs in combination.

Or another possibility, if they were switching medication, would be withdrawal symptoms. I wish, aside from a mention in the comments of one of them possibly being Seroquel, that they had more information.

Naturally, that doesn’t excuse what happened, but it makes it a lot more understandable. Otherwise you just have to wonder how someone who went on a killing spree could have put together a website like this for a badly injured friend.

So at least I can be somewhat reassured that I didn’t misjudge him that badly. Of course, that doesn’t help Jonathan or Angel, but it eases my mind a bit.

[2] Of course, mugshots are good at that, but even taking that into account, just a look at his eyes tells you something’s wrong.