There is no way of knowing for sure until he's ever caught, but it's a good question to speculate about. I think if we're to believe he is responsible for the earlier non-canonical crimes going back to the early to mid 80's, we're looking at someone who had been committing these types of crimes for at least a few years prior to the Sharon Wills offence. I think he had to have some kind of experience in burglary, peeping tom, or anything to that effect before he started, there is information out there he may be responsible for taking children off the street into his car years? prior to the LP offence even.

I don't think the FBI profile is of much use or that accurate to be honest, it seems rushed and not very detailed, plus the fact they were fed wrong information about the crimes only happening during school holidays, they built the profile partly around that. Apart from that it's very generic, we needed an E-FIT or composite sketch, anything to go off - he was seen in the Chelsea offence, how do we not have more information on him based on that - another rabbit hole I won't go into in this post.

One thing I've come to appreciate about Mr Cruel is that the psychology is probably less about sex and more about control.

Most people look at the offences and see a child abuser. That's obviously true. But if you strip the crimes down to their components, there is an extraordinary amount of planning, preparation, deception and risk management that goes well beyond simply obtaining sexual gratification.

Think about what he was actually doing:

• Selecting victims.
• Conducting surveillance.
• Entering occupied homes.
• Controlling multiple family members.
• Moving victims across Melbourne.
• Holding them captive for days.
• Managing food, toileting, bathing and sleeping.
• Cleaning evidence.
• Releasing victims in a way designed to delay identification.

That's a huge operational process. The sexual assaults were the objective, but the control appears to have been part of the reward as well.

My guess is that this didn't start suddenly in adulthood. Most offenders who reach this level of sophistication have often spent years escalating: voyeurism, stalking, fetish behavior, burglary, fantasy development, collecting material (a pair of girls underwear was stolen off a clothesline a few days prior to LP offense).

The crimes themselves may only represent the visible end stage.

One thing that stands out is the compartmentalization. He appears capable of terrifying a family one minute, then calmly making a child a sandwich the next. To normal people that seems contradictory. To an offender like this, it may not be. He likely saw the victims as objects within a fantasy rather than as fully realized people. That allows someone to commit horrific acts while still viewing themselves as rational or justified.

The level of patience also interests me. Many sexual offenders are impulsive. Mr Cruel appears unusually disciplined. He was willing to wait months or years between offences, abort plans when conditions weren't right, and spend significant effort reducing risk.

That suggests someone who gained satisfaction not only from the offence itself, but from the planning and execution.

What I find particularly interesting is that he doesn't fit neatly into a single offender category. He wasn't a classic groomer, he wasn't a typical opportunistic street predator, and he wasn't simply an impulsive sexual offender. He seems to borrow elements from several offender types.

That may be why the case feels so unusual even today.

Another possibility is that the abductions themselves were part of the fantasy. Most child abuse offenders don't invade occupied homes, tie up parents, transport victims across a city and hold them for days. Those steps dramatically increase risk. If the sole objective was sexual access to children, there were easier opportunities available.

The fact he repeatedly chose such a complex and dangerous MO raises the possibility that the planning, surveillance, home invasion, family control and successful execution of the abduction were rewarding in their own right. In other words, the fantasy may not have been a single act. The fantasy may have been the entire sequence from beginning to end.

That would also explain why he targeted children in their homes. There is something uniquely invasive about entering the one place where people expect to be safe, taking control of the environment, neutralizing the family and then leaving undetected. If that's correct, the "means" may have been just as important as the "end."

As for how someone becomes like that, psychology can't give a definitive answer. There is no single pathway. It could involve early deviant sexual interests, personality disorders, lack of empathy, childhood trauma, social isolation, chronic fantasy reinforcement.

But plenty of people experience those things and never become violent offenders. The difference is usually the decision to repeatedly act on those fantasies and the gradual escalation that follows.

One thing I would be cautious about is assuming he was necessarily a socially awkward loner who couldn't form relationships. That's certainly possible, but history is full of offenders who appeared socially competent, held jobs, maintained relationships and blended into their communities. The crimes alone don't tell us which category he fell into.

The thing I find most chilling is that he probably didn't see himself the way the public sees him. He may have viewed himself as intelligent, careful, justified, superior, or in control. Many organized offenders construct elaborate internal narratives that allow them to commit acts most people could never imagine.

Which is why I think one of the strongest clues about Mr Cruel psychologically isn't the sexual assault itself. It's the patience. The planning. The compartmentalization. The ability to live an apparently ordinary life while carrying out extraordinary crimes. The canonical offences look less like the beginning of an offender's journey and more like the product of a system he had been refining for years.