Yesterday evening I spent some time reading a document that I have been avoiding: the so-called "psychological autopsy" of the Lake family's murders and suicide--a long, detailed report on the case and various hindsight indicators of imminent violence. The thing is both dull and horrendous, and it's available online if, for some reason, you want to look at it. The authors are a group of ex-cops who asked the families if they could conduct this autopsy as a way to help families, law enforcement, and the judicial system improve their response to domestic violence. As you can imagine, it took a great deal of bravery for the families to participate in this process; and Linda has still not brought herself to read the final report.

I don't know why, but certain bits of the text struck me as particularly strange and disturbing. The following statement, for instance, gave me sudden pause: "Intimate relationships are increasingly complex and potentially dangerous in direct proportion to the degree that spouses or partners are not 'soul mates.' Soul mates are relationally fulfilled by an individual intimate partner and tend to have very few or in some cases no disagreements . . . what we refer to as 'a low coefficient of friction.'"

This has got to be the most depressing definition of soul mate that I have ever heard; as Tom said, apparently, for a cop, all one has to do to be a soul mate is to not fight with your partner. None of this "twin minds/twin hearts/intellectual and erotic equals" stuff so beloved of the poets. It makes me very sad to think that safe boredom might be equated with happiness. And yet, of course, in Amy's case it would have been.

For here's the other passage that struck me cold: "According to our sources, Steven owned either 20 or 21 firearms and had purchased 7 or 8 pellet guns for Coty as a child. It was stated that Steven would use plastic pellets in those guns to occasionally shoot Christmas tree ornaments hanging from the tree in the family living room in Wellington, including heirloom ornaments. Steven was described to us, however, by many of our sources as 'mouthy, but I did not think dangerous.'"