A hero

[TripTango]

All I can do is speculate. Sicko people who commit crimes like this may want to watch the action take place.

And conspicuously try help those they crippled? Seems like it would be a new level of twisted to me -- has anything like that been seen and conclusively proven before? Say it ain't so.

 

[Denny Crane]

I remember a fairly recent story about a guy who set fire to his house, killing his children. His intent was to rescue them to look like some sort of hero.

I found this, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_syndrome

 

[TripTango]

I remember a fairly recent story about a guy who set fire to his house, killing his children. His intent was to rescue them to look like some sort of hero.

Right, but in that example -- if accurate -- the man wasn't trying to actually hurt them; he just wanted to put them in a dangerous situation. Those bombs were clearly intended to wound, dismember, and kill. Obviously it's conceivable for a person to be that messed up in the head, but I'm not aware of any comparable case.