Seriously, both of his parents are shitty parents. I can't even tell which one is worse because they are two opposite sides of bad parenting. The mom is an idiot for giving her son everything he wants all the time without questioning any of it, despite her obvious confusion. Unconditional love isn't defined by throwing yourself at someone's feet and doing everything they say, and on top of that she obviously doesn't respect her husbands opinions or values because she kept sneaking around him and affirming her son's blatant descent into madness and swept everything under the rug. I doubt Christine ever had a real conversation with Caden and told him he was wrong about anything.
The father doesn't deserve any more sympathy than the mother either, maybe less. He neglected his son so much by letting him loose on the Internet to get involved with deranged communities. Andrew could have pulled him out of this if he gave enough of a shit by cutting off Internet access or taking his phone away while he was still a young teenager, but he waited until two months after the 18th birthday to do so. Way too late for that, Andrew. And is he oblivious to the mom supporting his son in all this? Or is he abusing her or something? The archived twitter thread shows Caden texting his aunt and her first question is if the mom is ok but that could all be made up or lied about though. Still, something's off there.
When I hear that video where Caden is arguing with him about being financially cut off, Andrew's tone is ANYTHING but 'dad voice'. He stammers and speaks so meekly to his son that he sounds like a manager talking to a problem customer that he's willing to lose but would rather not. No wonder his wife doesn't respect him, it also explains why his son was so comfortable raising his voice (I'm sure the autism doesn't help tbf). This is the type of parental scenario where teenagers and young adults run away to wind up on the street or involved in a gang or pregnant with a convict's baby: fucked up childhood due to fucked up parents who either don't care or are WAY too involved. Caden got both.
I get that you can't always monitor your kids' online activity and they're going to go to weird places if they have an internet connection, but once you catch them getting into trouble it's your job as a parent to actually fucking do something about it and make them learn that what they did is NOT okay. But no, Caden had a mom that not only enabled his sick behavior but INDULGED in it by using a twitter with a furry bio (seriously wtf), and was completely forsaken by his father who just didn't want to deal with him. Both failed miserably, and I'll bet a high sum that something traumatic happened to Caden long before his web activity was documented that was also ignored by them. Good job dipshits, you created a monster.
That being said, being a stupid teenager can be excused (to an extent) because teenagers are dumb and impressionable. But once you become an adult, you can't blame your parents for your fuckups anymore. It's way too late for Caden to claim victim now and even though I only skimmed the OP, I read enough to confirm my belief that some people never should have been born.