Arkansas Blog

The woman's reaction to the reporter's call is totally understandable.

No her reaction to the report is not understandable. She should be willing to talk and share stories about this creep.

People need to understand that reporters in times like this are doing their jobs, they don't want to be having to call these folks any more than these folks want to talk to them.

People want to know this information.

Are you a stalker if you bring chocolates and flowers? Where's the line between just really bad social skills and stalking?

A paradox - The essential reason for man's aggression/violence is his need for love and belonging.

If only someone had realized this in this proceeding action and got him some medical help.

More easier said than done but think of this in the future.

I think the dental assistant done the right thing. There's sufficient information for any reasonable person to know that needs to be known....Timothy Johnson was a mentally unbalanced man.
There's no need to disturb her family privacy and have 15 wide-angle cameras and numerous tv vans surrounding her house and her work phone and home phone occupied by National Enquirer all day and night.

It may bleed and hence lead but, the suspected shooter is dead and he won't be any deader,
let the media madness be turned on Chesapeake Energy and the destruction that's about to be heaped
on Arkansas.

"The woman's reaction to the reporter's call is totally understandable." - durangokid.

Frankly, a "We have no comment and will never have any comments in regards to Mr. Johnson" would have been satisfactory. Threatening to call the cops is a bit much in my opinion, especially on the first call, but your mileage my vary.

Humans are social creatures that require social interaction and physical intimacy. When they don't have it for years this sort of thing can happen. Our society could care less about the large number of people that are lonely. When's the last time you heard anyone talking about it other than after some killing spree?

Somehow I doubt it was the first call to the woman.

Johnson terrified her. She'd already told the police everything she knew. The police apparently thought the text of the note Johnson had written to her was insignificant, or it would have been in the report. Now this madman who terrorized her has shot somebody dead in cold blood. A reporter calls her for what? To get her to rehash things she's already told the police? How could rehashing her experiences with the madman change things? What lessons could be learned? Where does it end for her? So easy for you to say she should spill her guts again, but you're not walking in her shoes, Newspaperboy. You're not walking in her shoes.

It sounds to me like this guy was very lacking in social skills. He may have been depressed and withdrawn as a child which would have resulted in a lack of social skills.

He's not a good looking fellow but I've seen married people that were less so. It's a shame this guy was alone and it's doubtful anyone cared. He's probably been full of rage for years due to a lack of social interaction, and of course that rage probably made social interaction all the more difficult.

Nothing justifies what this guy did, but we need to understand why so many "loners" do this.

Don't forget that this poor woman has her own survivor's guilt at play here. She's likely thinking about:

1) what she might have done differently in order to report this guy and prevent this and
2) how this could have been her and
3) how can she keep her name out of the papers and her privacy intact.

She's in predicament not in any way of her own making. She needs our prayers, too.

with the handle "perplexed", you certainly know more than most

damn fine point, kudos to you, tyvm

Isn't it fascinating to go disecting a guy after he does something like this? I mean, usually, people (like the VT shooter) leave some kind of trail, leading up to their defining event. Then, after the puzzle is put together, people can see a pattern of instability. It allows us to to rationalize, or at least semi-understand, why they behave the way they do in the end. Not that it makes any difference. Its too late to make any difference after somebody goes nuts with a gun. And, short of Big Brother, there's no way on the horizon to monitor potentially bonkers nutjobs and prevent this kind of thing from happening. Sad situation, that. All we're left with is food for our morbid curiosity.

Actually, Johnson's behavior sounds a lot like Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that manifests itself in strange social behavior. I had a similar situation sometime back and the individual ended up being institutionalized.

"Don't forget that this poor woman has her own survivor's guilt at play here. She's likely thinking about:

1) what she might have done differently in order to report this guy and prevent this and
2) how this could have been her and
3) how can she keep her name out of the papers and her privacy intact.

She's in predicament not in any way of her own making. She needs our prayers, too." - Perplexed

Pretty much.. If she had called him (and pressed charges) in for stalking, he'd have probably been given help, either in an institutional setting or out patient if he had problems. I know I'd think what would have happened if I had pressed charges. She probably thought he was harmless, but in truth he was a ticking bomb waiting to go off, with a cache of arms and ammo to go along with it.

Rick you couldn't be more wrong. Learning why people commit such act is not a waste of time. There most certainly are ways to identify such people before they act. This country needs to place more importance on mental services and treat mental problems as what they are...health problems.

One article said the guy went to the doctor about his dog dying. Many men are embarrassed to admit they have depression. That was probably just an excuse to get on anti-depressants. And there is a great possibility that this guy was bi-polar. Regular doctors have many people who are bi-polar on anti-depressants which is a recipe for disaster.

Me? Wrong?
If that's possible, why has it never happened before?
Are we learning here? Or are we speculating?

People on this blog are speculating about Johnson but I hope you and others learn something.

We can all learn from situations like this. I hope you learn that while such events can't always be prevented, they often can be.

Mental illness is a serious problem in this country and it can be treated and cured. Just like physical illnesses though, not all mental illnesses can be treated successfully or cured.

Earlier this evening I was in a discussion about this with friends and somebody insisted it was just a "random" killing.

This argument is as weak as the infamous cop-out phrase, "senseless" killing.

No matter how deranged (or not) the state of the killer's mind, there's NEVER anything "senseless" or "random" about a killing, unless it's a stray bullet in ghetto gang warfare accidentally striking an innocent terrified child hiding in its living room, or something similar.

Johnson specifically chose his target (for whatever "reasons" in his mind), specifically drove to that address and specifically chose Gwatney. There was nothing "random" about it. Nor was it "senseless," in Johnson's mind. However irrational, he believed he had "reasons."

Nothing can bring Bill Gwatney back to life, nor exonerate his killer.

Yet the human mind (and we) instinctively seek some kind of rational understanding of tragedies like this, in the hope that our understanding may prevent similar future tragedies.

As police spokesman Terry Hastings said, "we may never know." He may be right.

The police have collected clues. Perhaps soon, through their evidence and maybe acquaintances and co-workers of Johnson's, or the woman he stalked, coming forward, we may finally understand some or all of the factor's that led to Johnson's decision to murder Bill Gwatney.

Making "sense" of It won't make one iota's difference in the grief of his family or us, the public.

But understanding the connected dots in this horror at least gives hope that behavioral clues that were evident well in advance of this shooting can help prevent even ONE similar act in future.

Gee, eLwood, don't be too hard on the "mentally unbalanced." Half the people on this blog are mentally unbalanced, and only their neurotic obsession with blaming all the world's ills -- parking tickets, constipation, the air conditioning in the car going on the blink -- on George W. Bush keeps them up and moving around. With Timothy Johnson not the right-wing nut that so many on this blog fervently wanted him to be, fears arise that the disappointment might set one/some of them off to do bad things like Johnson. Let's all keep a sharp eye.

I'm at least as interested in finding out why he went to the Arkansas Baptist Convention and prepared to shoot there. In most conversations I've had with other people, and on this blog as well, this part of the equation seems to get left out. For those who aren't familiar with the area it's not an obvious random choice. Once leaving Democratic Headquarters, he had to drive several blocks, through two four way stops and two stoplights, during lunch hour traffic. You pass several buildings with more obvious activity going on in them before you arrive at the ABC which looks like an abandoned building most of the time. I'm not sure I'd even know where to find the door if I had to stop inside. I drive this strip of Capital everyday when I drop my wife off at work (her office is next door to the ABC). Could be random I suppose, but it seems more likely to me that he targeted ABC as well as Gwatney. Or he could have gotten the wrong building. Who knows? But it's a question that deserves looking into.

These are just police reports. Was he ever actually charged with anything?