-By Warner Todd Huston
The people that were closest to Navy Yard killer Aaron Alexis have revealed several details about the last few years of his life, such details as his increasing dissatisfaction with America and a growing sense of entitlement, a feeling that people owed him something that he wasn’t getting.
Kristi Suthamtewkal, a woman who, along with her husband, gave Alexis a room to live in, reports that she watched as the killer went from being a relatively happy man to a brooding man who was “ready to move out of the country” over his disenchantment with his lot in the United States.
Kristi and her husband Oui, gave Alexis a room in their home in exchange for his work at their Thai restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas. Alexis lived there until July of 2013 when, after a short period, he left for the east coast eventually landing a job with an IT company that stationed him at the Washington Navy Yard.
The Suthamtewkals say that Alexis was a nice fellow for most of the time they knew him. Alexis even began to practice Buddhism with Oui. But the murderer’s sunny demeanor began to change in November of 2012 after he returned home from a contract job in Japan.
After that, Alexis began to become upset at perceived racism directed his way. “He felt a lot of discrimination and racism with white people especially,” Kristi Suthamtewkal said.
Mrs. Suthamtewkal said he felt cheated out of money from the Japan job and began to become easily agitated.
She also said he began to exhibit signs that he was entitled to things from people and began to abuse their friendly relationship. “He did have the tendency to feel like people owed him something all the time,” she said.
As NBC News reports, “He got annoyed when she couldn’t give him rides, and he started eating the couple’s food without permission, and ignoring her when she complained, she said. When her cats developed fleas, he was angry.”
Then there was the increasing dissatisfaction with this country.
“I knew he was not happy with America and he felt slighted as a veteran and he was ready to move out of the country,” Suthamtewkal said.
After Alexis left the Suthamtewkals’s home he moved in with Melinda and Marvin Downs who said he seemed brooding and quiet, not at all like the man the Suthamtewkals first knew.
Some who knew him also say he complained about Post Traumatic Stress over the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Alexis did have a job near the World Trade Center at that time but thus far no proof has emerged showing that he participated in rescue operations on that terrible day.
Soon he left the Downs’s home for the east coast. There, things seemed to take a drastic turn for the worse.
In one incident police were called to his apartment because Alexis was claiming that voices were coming from his closet and that someone was using microwaves to disrupt his sleep.
Despite his seemingly sane behavior with the Suthamtewkals, though, Alexis does have several past bushes with the law concerning firearms.
In 2004 police arrested Alexis for an incident involving a Glock .45 pistol. Later, in 2010, Texas police say Alexis was arrested for firing several shots through the apartment of a neighbor with whom he had argued. Authorities did not prosecute him, though, because his paper work was “lost.” There was also a 2008 arrest in Dekalb County, Georgia for disorderly conduct.
Also, even though he had an honorable discharge from the Navy, it is reported he had several problems with insubordination and disorderly conduct while in the service and as recent as September, Alexis had sought treatment for psychiatric issues from the Veterans Affairs Department.
It seems that for years many small red flags had gone up from Alexis’ behavior, but no one was ever able to put all the evidence together to see that there were major issues developing.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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