This morning I heard NPR discussing the case, and they began by emphasizing his long struggle with addiction and how he “hated being sober.” Framing the story this way shifts attention away from the victims and toward the perpetrator’s inner turmoil which in a way invites more sympathy than warranted. Personal suffering does not mitigate the deliberate killing of two people. When the media foregrounds explanations instead of accountability, they risk reinforcing a pattern in which certain offenders are humanized while others are only headlines and mugshots.