[UPDATED] Several People Shot inside a Pennsylvania LA Fitness: Multiple Fatalities, Including Shooter

• I reread his unblacked out blog and then found more info about hism and his family from him online. Something snappeed in him. He noted he did weed and got laid in college and that he had been sober for 20 yrs not drinking. So he may have bad chemically induced psychosis. I found out his sister in law is Canadian educated, possbly born and bred, where women are like women were here 40 yrs ago. I lived there for 3 yrs. Not a man btw, and then I googled his sil name. She is a patent lawyer and had ran in a race taht noted her age as 33 in 2003. GS had noted his brother older than him, 50s so his wife is about 15 to 20 yrs younger. Thatis wher GS got this younger girl thing from. He notes how controlling his mom was and an ex bil noted this in an interview as well. He said he had falling out with the family to because he did not like his sister controlling her grown children. That is telling. He was heavily controlled by his own mom. He felt his neice and nephew should not be raised that way. He over time began to feel so alone and isolated i think it just slowly got to him. He tried to stop it but he was trying to self dx and self treat as to many men his age do. He was raised in my generation and men were taught to not show emotions. Man up as it was. We never talk about these thigns enough and they keep on happening. We have to learn from these and try what we can do to know the signs of the next would be killer. His neighbors reported in a PA interview that he jus sat for a time in his driveway 2 days before this. No one said a thing. Sad 3 lives and his did not have to end this way.

• *smile* I know neither of us, or anyone here, thinks of these hugs as trite or cute social punctuation. Well... in any case... whether we think loneliness is the product of mental illness (which camp I am not in) or mental illness is the product of loneliness (chronic, compounding loneliness most certainly will drive you to madness), either way, it will make a desperate human. Either way. "The vast majority of lonely people who can't take it anymore die too soon for lack of just the solace of an embrace, forcryingoutloud. A growing number are dead because they killed themselves, just themselves...all by themselves. Marty... Rear Window... The Heart is a Lonely Hunter... loneliness.... Every woman, every daughter, every sister, every mother, with their husbands, brothers and sons, should watch each of those movies." If whoever reads here thinks their loneliness is about to make them do something they may or may not live to regret, please, call a crisis hotline, such as for suicide, and just ask for someone to be with you on the phone. 800-SUICIDE. Please. This is a hug for you. It can be enough or just the start, whichever you need.

• Alexakim, I'll give you an unembarassed ((hug)) back. When I gave that emoticon to my far-distant mother, she was over-the-top happy, and yes, she *felt* hugged, metaphorically. And please forgive my lengthy reply earlier and trying to explain why I said what I had, but it was this quote of yours I was trying to refute: "Loneliness will fester into mental illness." I believe it is more accurate to assess him this way (without the benefit of a diagnosis or interview:) He was lonely because he was mentally ill, not mentally ill because he was lonely. More than likely, he had a problem that could have been helped with medicine -- had he been able to make the leap from self-care (books, etc.) to seeking professional, medical help. But, in complete agreement with you, yes, kindness behooves us all. Best wishes, all around the house!

• <b>NotFromHere</b>, You do know. I can tell that you have been there a time or two. I know how I feel when someone types *hugs* in a message to me: it reminds me of when I was literally well embraced. That memory makes me smile, sometimes a very big smile, sometimes a little rueful smile. Almost always, it makes me feel better. So I hope you can stand feeling silly for a few seconds and receive a *hug* from me. The human creature is a universe. I am little dismayed that you might be thinking that I am thinking that loneliness was the cause for the mass murder. No, it was the cause of his suffering. Obviously, most lonely people do not commit mass murder. Most abused people do not resort to this level of violence. Self-abuse, that happens quite a lot. Everyday kindnesses... I must disagree with you. Yes, the right amount of every day kindness may not effectuate a cure but it WILL reduce the degree of suffering. Every little bit counts. It buys time, it relaxes the stranglehold. If the unexpected kind touch of your elbow or shoulder does not make you feel even a little bit better, or prompt even a small smile on your face, then for you, it might be true, that a small kindness isn't enough. But I doubt it. ;) Who should I blame for being unkind? I can start by blaming myself for when I am too self-absorbed to even acknowledge a fellow human. Everyone should notice how they treat others. Every little kindness adds up, just like every little cruelty does. If we all started small, it would take the edge off of those who are quietly dying in inches every day. It would help the suffering to hope that maybe, just maybe, that if you showed them kindness, perhaps others will, too. If they can feel just a flicker of hope, it could make all the difference in the world. Just a flicker. I did earlier acknowledge that he was likely ill. But too often, we wait for the extremes and then react with extremes. Why stand by, be pleasant and polite (I have no idea what "normal" is...) and wait for the tension to violently break? Some people do prefer solitude. That strengthens my suggestion: start small. I guarantee you, even with such persons, a build up of appropriate acts of kindnesses towards them will encourage them to, at a minimum, pay it forward. And, we learn. While being kind to someone else, they may say/not say, do/not do something, a very small something, that could signal the possible path they are on. But we can't learn that if we do not engage at a level even just slightly deeper than being polite. Today I read a report that George Sodini did try to get some help (on how to date women). He WAS trying. Yes, he WAS attractive. Importantly, he sensed he was good looking (now). Which can, paradoxically, make his isolation more stark. If being attractive, spiffing up his home, having a very good job, still wasn't enough to bring him someone to love him, how hopeless might that feel? But even he knew that time was against him. Though he made some enormous improvements, now he was in a society where being "old" is more repellent than ever before. A lot of teens and young adults can be very cruel to someone they think is too old to even look at, nevermind speak to, and even less, speak to graciously. We never know how the kindness we commit can make even a very profound difference in someone. You might not even think anything of it and may never know its impact. Here's how I know: The sweet words of <b>jadensmokes</b> were enough to simultaneously bring me to tears and make me feel the opposite of bad. Enough to make me hope that whoever visits here and needed to be renewed a little bit, was. Embarrassing hugs for everyone.

• Alexakim, I agree that loneliness is painful, sometimes excrutiating. I promise I have experienced it keenly. My point is that he wasn't just lonely. My point is that he was sick and he needed help. A hug would not have hurt him, but it's clear from watching his videos and reading his writing that what he struggled with was more than friends or family could help with -- he needed treatment. It seems apparent but I'll be specific: no matter how lonely healthy people get, they don't plot mass murder for months and execute innocent people because they feel slighted by women not finding them attractive (either physically or mentally) and not having sex with them. He WAS an attractive man, and he did hurt terribly, but no amount of everyday kindness can "cure" mental illness. He knew he needed help but he did not seek it (for whatever reason). He needed extraordinary, and probably professional, intervention. I pity him, it must have hurt terribly, but please don't blame other people for being unkind. It is likely that everyone around him was being pleasant and normal. At worst they probably just thought he was an odd duck and preferred solitude (some people do and we all want to be sensitive to that, don't we? Of course we do.) His web searches on isolationism implied and his video said explicitly that he knew he needed to do *something* but for whatever reason he could not muster whatever it took to find it. But yes, do let's all of us be kind and generous to one another. The world can be painful and all of us need the kindness of both friends and strangers.

• Alexakim, I agree that loneliness is painful, sometimes excrutiating. I promise I have experienced it keenly. My point is that he wasn't just lonely. My point is that he was sick and he needed help. A hug would not have hurt him, but it's clear from watching his videos and reading his writing that what he struggled with was more than friends or family could help with -- he needed treatment. It seems apparent but I'll be specific: no matter how lonely healthy people get, they don't plot mass murder for months and execute innocent people because they feel slighted by women not finding them attractive (either physically or mentally) and not having sex with them. He WAS an attractive man, and he did hurt terribly, but no amount of everyday kindness can "cure" mental illness. He knew he needed help but he did not seek it (for whatever reason). He needed extraordinary, and probably professional, intervention. I pity him, it must have hurt terribly, but please don't blame other people for being unkind. It is likely that everyone around him was being pleasant and normal. At worst they probably just thought he was an odd duck and preferred solitude (some people do and we all want to be sensitive to that, don't we? Of course we do.) His web searches on isolationism implied and his video said explicitly that he knew he needed to do *something* but for whatever reason he could not muster whatever it took to find it. But yes, do let's all of us be kind and generous to one another. The world can be painful and all of us need the kindness of both friends and strangers.

• Alexakim, you have already made the world a better place just by being who you are. Thanks for the positive words and suggestions for our fellow man that may just be suffering.

• No worries 242none, my comment was indeed meant for that commenter, I just didn't mention his name. Truly, no one aside from the police should be attempting to get into his website(s). Just put yourself in the place of a defendant. Would you want a stranger fingering the evidence, making a fair trial impossible? Or in this case an accurate post-mortem? NotFromHere, have you ever been lonely much? I am not talking about "clinical" definitions. And really, whichever came first, the mental illness or the loneliness, it doesn't matter. The suffering human is in a more tenuous state, and more vulnerable to making bad choices when stressed. I really don't want to talk about loneliness in clinical, cerebral terms. Really, people who suffer chronic loneliness thirst for kind words and humane warmth. An unrushed, sincere, generous embrace can make such a huge difference. An appropriate, caring, gracious hug can be like a meal to someone starved. Goodnight all. Try to be a little kinder to the next person you see or meet who seems like they could use it. Ok? Thank you.

• Ok, forget that last post. crazyg works for the crazygeorge site, but that takes you to the old comcast site. Still can't figure out the password for that one.

• It's driving me nuts not knowing the passwords for the comcast site and the crazygeorge site....if anyone figures them out, PLEASE post!!!!

• crazyg doesn't work

• I must beg to differ: loneliness has not been found to be causational to mental illness. Rather, isolationism can be seen as symptomatic of it.

• password is crazyg

• alexakim ... It appears as though "jeff poisson" was the individual who posted Soldini's manifesto here on this site. Still no go on the password. Will leave it to the authorities to crack it. Just wonder what lurks behind that so called vault. Take care and thanks for the feedback.

• Sodini's blog has been cached and re-posted all over the net, including here at the top of the post by Steve. Why repeat it all in the comments? If I were you, I'd be careful about trying to hack the password. You could be considered to be tampering with evidence.

• Hey, I see that in my post above, I incorrectly wrote "snippets" instead of "snippers" (apparently the name of George Sodini's deceased cat). I entered "snippers" and still no-go on gaining entry. Upon submitting a password (or a guess at the possible password) and then hitting the submit button, you are then taken to a page announcing the following: http://home.comcast.net/site/error/error_404.html Sorry, the page you were looking for could not be found. Suggested Actions * Check the URL that you have typed and retry. Once again, if any of you are able to crack this password, I and others here on this blog would love to know it. Please post it here if you do. ***** BUT NOTIFY THE PROPER AUTHORITIES FIRST AND FOREMOST AS THEY HAVE LEGAL AND INVESTIGATIVE PRIORITY IN THIS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION. ***** Thanks for your time once again. 242none

• Thursday, August 6th, 2009 Hello ... This is a response to the post by "Rick" listed above: ______________________________________________ Rick said: The crazygeorge.com website is still online (and it is his) it has a password box on it. If you look at the source for the HTML, it says email him for the password (and has a different email from the above) However, if you look at the code, the password is in the HTML itself in some javascript. Password is snippers. Found it myself, wasn't reported anywhere else. Also a note to someone named "stacey" is in th source. Posted 08/05/2009 at 02:08:15 PM Regarding the post above that mentions the "password" for George Sodini's Secure Page on his webpage, I followed Rick's suggestion and typed in "snippets" in the password box at the following link: http://home.comcast.net/~space777/crazyg/personal/security.htm Once "snippets" is typed in, the HTML / URL code now appears as: http://home.comcast.net/~space777/crazyg/personal/security.htm?pass=snippets In effect, the snippets password is incorrect. Whatever you type into the password box and subsequently submit (by choosing the submit button), now closes out the end of the HTML code listed above. For example, if I typed bozotheclown in the password box, then the HTML / URL code would now appear as: http://home.comcast.net/~space777/crazyg/personal/security.htm?pass=bozotheclown It remains an incorrect password. If any of you out there are pretty adept at cracking codes / passwords, then this would be one more potential clue into George Sodini's motives or mindset way back in 1999 / 2000. I would love to know what the contents of this "secure page" may be (in addition to the law enforcement agencies who are working on cracking the password ... if they haven't successfully done so by now). Please post the password if you happen to discover it. Thanks for your time, 242none

• wikileak picked up the story from my blog post about hidden message in his blogs source code...I posted it yesterday aa little after 9pm at http://law.rightpundits.com/?p=689&cp=all#comments see comments #11 and # 12...I posted it there then forwarded info to CNN who apparently didn't want to be first to report it ...well non the less it got out as I intended...I stumbled on it just looking at source code to see if maybe he had just loaeded that diary to his site and it appeared so to me...there was a page break after his copyright info ,etc and the hidden statement didnt show on his page...whether it was intentional or just a hurried mistake. we dont know but it changes what has been reported so far by the media regarding his state of mind...the woman he speaks of just might have become a target. anyone can email me if they want a copy of html sourcecode that was associated with his site I save it and the original blog prior to it being removed/edited jeff_poisson@yahoo.com

• Loneliness will fester into mental illness, unless it is interrupted. If he was mentally ill, and I think that is highly likely, then holding him exclusively responsible for getting help is not realistic or humane. He also was malsocialized. Depending on strangers, male and female alike, to teach you how to overcome that is also not realistic but oddly often pursued. Humans become malformed, by many different forces that often finish their terrible duty well before a person is of legal age. Overcoming all of that is not impossible, but mostly it is avoided. Most people find other ways to cope, most of which mean they suffer alone. They find ways to mask or costume it, enough so they are safely ignored. Society rather royally expects people to keep right on doing so. Still.

• His internet searches have been released guys! Crazy stuff in them. http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-309990

• I don't think it was loneliness that killed him, it was mental illness. He recognized he was depressed but he never sought treatment. He said he needed a personal trainer to give it to him straight, yet he never hired one. He noted money was not a problem so we must conclude there was something dangerously self-destructive keeping him from the help he knew he needed. Unfortunately, he then took innocent victims with him. No, it wasn't isolation, it was sickness. (And what's with calling women "hoez" while wanting to be sexually promiscuous himself. What a jerk. No wonder women didn't want to get close to him -- look at what his heart really, truly, genuinely believed about them.)

• Steve, someone commented in an online article that if you view source on the blog, he has an extra little line at the bottom about "talking to a pretty lady & her young friend..." I love the city of Pittsburgh, it is heartbreaking to see a second psycho rear his ugly head there in just a matter of months

• Steve, Do you think that he put his blog online in January and took it down after his first attempt failed? Just curious as to your thinking on that.. Afterall he seemed to think he was really going to do it that day in January from what he was writing...

• Does anyone know Lee Ann Valdiserri's cause of death? I don't like the sound of that. <i>Halloween?</i> Jesus H, people. Hope she wasn't the first victim.

• First, killing others before or while you kill yourself is an act of terrorism. You end up teaching people to be afraid of the lonely, making others like you suffer even more. There are other ways, always. I just finished reading a cached copy of George Sodoni's blog. It would make sense for him to keep it private until shortly before taking action. He clearly was very lonely, very isolated. I do not find anything he said to be shocking. It is actually highly educational that he knew that his state of mind would be interesting to many of us, on many levels. He has, at least, given us a glimpse into his pathology. If we pay attention, we might learn something useful. It will not, however, be useful for anyone if we simply point at his brutal honesty with scorn, derision or dismissal. He didn't strike me as a "maniac" or a "monster." He was extraordinarily lonely. We live and work right alongside very lonely people. Often, unwittingly. Do most of us like it that way? Don't tell me about your life, I really don't care, my body language says to them? Or, I kinda' do care but I'm afraid of getting involved? I don't have any confidence in my ability to be your friend or your ability to accept who *I* am? We all know them. Those who seem lonely and/or alone; some really are loners. Loneliness kills. Most of the time, it kills very, very slowly, like tiny doses of arsenic. It builds up and then one day, it's too much. The vast majority of lonely people who can't take it anymore die too soon for lack of just the solace of an embrace, forcryingoutloud. A growing number are dead because they killed themselves, just themselves...all by themselves. Marty... Rear Window... The Heart is a Lonely Hunter... loneliness.... Every woman, every daughter, every sister, every mother, with their husbands, brothers and sons, should watch each of those movies. We have to be careful. We do tend to over-compensate. Then we reach out, offer them our friendship, give them our friendly interest, invite them to lun-- er, wait... Yeah, actually we don't. We start staring at the "loners." We become paranoid, and then become even less open to the loner. Please, at least let's each of us, start small. Just smile. (When someone smiles at you, smile back. At least nod to show you saw it, respond with *something nice.*) Say hi. Be sincere. Don't rush. But have some stamina. Ask yourself: if I were in his place, how could I be welcomed to join the people around me? If a woman is nice to you, please, don't assume it's a signal of sexual attraction. Just consider her lesbian until she makes it abundantly clear otherwise. I am so very sorry for the surviving families and friends of those killed, and I am sending all positive thoughts out for the wounded to fully recover.

• The crazygeorge.com website is still online (and it is his) it has a password box on it. If you look at the source for the HTML, it says email him for the password (and has a different email from the above) However, if you look at the code, the password is in the HTML itself in some javascript. Password is snippers. Found it myself, wasn't reported anywhere else. Also a note to someone named "stacey" is in th source.

• Steve, One thing that stuck out to me in his rambling... he said this: "If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. "

• when I just read this guy's blog at websleuths and figured you were all over it... and you are. Thanks for that. Your insight is invaluable in these types of cases! My jaw is hanging open as I read his ramblings. Literally hitting the floor.

• The creepy thing is that he reports in his online journal that he actually had a date on May 19th of this year. Maybe someone out there is having a helter-skelter moment right now. I come away from reading his journal feeling that isolation and loneliness are both the cause and consequence of his psychopathy -- a vicious circle driving a downward spiral. Also: an all-powerful mother (at least in his mind), sister is described as a victim, brother as a big bully.

• So we can add fitness clubs to the list of potentially dangerous, exposed places to frequent. How nice.

• Good find Pablo. You are quick! Reading the diary is very chilling.

• His name was George Sodini This is his online journal http://georgesodini.com/20090804.htm Here is his photo: http://news.lalate.com/2009/08/05/george-sodini-photo/ <strong>NOTE FROM STEVE: Thanks, Pablo - I hadn't seen your comment when I first published the info, or I would have thanked you as well. I got his blog link from my friend Sue.</strong>

• The nut had a blog too: http://www.georgesodini.com/20090804.htm He had planned to do it before. I saved the htm page in case it gets torn down.

• Your guess would be wrong. This dude was just whacked and angry. Here's the link to his personal blog: http://www.georgesodini.com/20090804.htm

• There is a link to his blog up and it does not appear to be a disgruntled bf as previously reported. Its interesting how he started thinking about this a year ago and continued to work as an engineer the entire time.

• This was his personal online blog. Frightening to read.

• Steve, from one of the live feeds one of the reporters just said that the man was dressed in gym attire and women in the class throught he was "playing raquetball" when he first stepped into the back of the room..........

• Thank you for covering this Steve. Dance class. Wonder if this is another disgruntled husband/boyfriend? <strong>Nurse, that's my first guess.</strong>

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