But he was such a "nice kid..."

Father of teen suspect in sniper case says he was "nice kid," though he hadn't seen him for years

A man identified as the father of a 17-year-old arrested in the U.S. sniper shootings said his son was a "nice kid," though he hadn't seen him in four years and didn't know he was in the United States....Leslie Malvo, a 55-year-old building contractor, said Thursday that his son moved away with his mother when he was 13, and he heard they had gone to another Caribbean island...."He was a nice kid so I don't know how he got mixed up in this," Malvo told The Associated Press at a street corner near his home in Kingston's working-class Waltham Park neighborhood...."I feel bad, I can't feel anything else." ...

And this...

Leslie Malvo said he last saw his son in 1998...."He was a happy kid, good kid, liked school, never got into any trouble," he said.

Maybe one of the reasons he turned out to be such a "nice kid," was because he had such a "close" relationship with his father.

I know I shouldn't judge - and I'm trying not to - but this makes me angry ... how dare people bring children into this world, and then treat them so carelessly. I know that there may be circumstances that sometimes lead to a divided family, and I know sometimes it's not the parents fault. But these comments seem, and I hope it's the reporter or editor's fault, a bit callous, if not trite. I guess that's what this quote from a stepbrother is supposed to tell us...but then, I guess some of that blame should also lie with the mother, which at this moment nobody seems to know where she is.

It was all right growing up in that part of Kingston," he said. "It's a rough neighborhood but our father raised us right. He tried his best to put the food on the table. He was there for us." ... Rohan Malvo said Lee was 5 or 6 years old when his mother moved from the neighborhood.

And of course there's the obligatory comments from former schoolmates telling us what a super chap he was...

Classmates who remember Lee Malvo from a three-month attendance at Bellingham High School said he was studious, polite and well-dressed — but did not make any friends...."He would speak up and he would tell his opinion. You don't get that from many high school students," said Chrissie Greenawalt, who went to a writing class with Malvo. "I thought that was cool."

So what made this sweet, cool kid turn into a death machine? My guess? Don't be surprised if somebody starts to point the finger at us video game players, especially if it's shown that some of the shots came from the "nice" kid...

But in the meantime, brace yourselves for a slew of "sniper was a nice kid" stories, and what better way than to look at the headlines, which, incidentally, are almost all using in the body of their texts the same AP copy.

Teenager remembered as a 'nice kid' ,
Sniper suspect 'a nice kid',
Father of Jamaican teen suspect says he was 'nice kid,' though he hadn't seen him for years,
Malvo's father: `He was a nice kid'
Teenage suspect's father tells of shock at arrest

This headline tries to breakout of the mold...keep trying...
Teen an enigma to those who met him

The most boring headline is this one from the Washington Post...
John Lee Malvo
although they do better on the jumphead...
Smuggled Into This Country, A Transient Life in Shelters

Like the others articles, this uses the AP copy, but notice the slight change in the headline's tone:
A 17-Year-Old's Strange Life
You can almost feel tones of Halloween

And this headline, doesn't tell us much, we pretty much knew he left Jamaica. NOTE: Get a new editor
Sniper Suspect Left Jamaica as Teen

But, my favorite is this one:
Malvo's Jamaican Relatives Shocked, which not surprisingly is from Fox, and the same story as the others, but, hey a little sensationalism doesn't hurt anybody...