This. Over the weekend I was reading transcripts of some Charlie Manson interviews conducted by FBI ‘Mindhunter’ John Douglas, and damned if he didn’t sound a lot like Rekeita with his bullshit.
The funny thing is that Charles Manson doesn’t have the pathologically immature defiance Nick does. When Douglas asked him why he didn’t join his disciples in the actual murdering and torturing, Manson looked at Douglas as if he was dense (Douglas’s own characterization) and said “Because I was on probation!”
As Douglas writes, people like this are inadequate nobodies and pathetic losers who seek to control others in order to briefly escape their deeply seated knowledge that they are insignificant and not special. Which is Nick Rekieta to a tee.
Douglas also makes the argument that many of these sickos became criminals due to their upbringing rather than any inevitability based on inborn traits. The magic transformer beyond any others seem to be an overbearing mother and weak or completely absent father. I have to wonder what Celeste is like, and whether bringing such enormous wealth into her marriage affected the dynamics at all.