Regarding firing squads, I think a good case could be made for that being more humane and I've heard of some who got the death penalty asking for a firing squad because legal injection doesn't always work right away and it can be pretty nasty. Bullets work. I don't know why it has to be like that. When they put pets down that seems to happen right away but with humans they do something like give them a tranquilizer and then something to paralyze them and then something to stop the heart. Sometimes the paralyzer works but the others don't work right away and that potentially is pure horror. Feeling everything that is going on, it's not working and they can't speak. The "odd" thing about killing his wife for money is that he put the land in her name in the first place in an attempt to shelter it from the boating accident creditors so killing her to get it back in his name doesn't make a lot of sense, in that regard. I'm not saying that a divorce was not why he killed her and the reason for killing the son could have been the boating liability and to distract from his own stealing from clients but none of it is especially straightforward in terms of logic. There was no indication that he didn't love his son. I personally just think that he wasn't especially logical or clear-headed when he planned all this out. The crazy thing is that "Buster" apparently still supports his dad and also believes that Paul wasn't the one driving the boat but I don't know that all this is really what he believes and I think it's just more about supporting the family no matter what. Nothing Alex did really made much sense long-term since he was bound to get caught regarding the financial stuff and killing his family would only buy him a little time. It's nuts really. I'm sure he is a psychopath and much of this just doesn't register for him. You can see how he can just turn the emotions on and off. When he was on the stand he was emotional but he wasn't emotional in the least for the rest of the trial including when he was found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. He was emotional on the 911 call and when the police arrived but at all other times he was just working on clearing Paul's name? When Paul called Alex after the boating accident he just showed up at the hospital trying to handle things and to set-up alibi's for Paul. You have to be pretty cold blooded to blow your son's head off and call all of your friends on the phone and chit chat to establish an alibi, go see your mother, drive back to the kennels and then turn the emotions on again.
Not related other than in terms of how people just aren't logical when committing many crimes...when I first got out of school I worked for a finance company and after a few years I was asked to be the manage of a nearby office. The reason for the job opening was that the current manager had just been caught writing fake loans to himself. In other words, embezzling from his own office. It was stupid. The amount that he embezzled wasn't a lot compared to his salary, he was bound to get caught and then he would have to pay it back, lose his job and possibly be prosecuted. He did it anyway, got caught, wasn't prosecuted only because his brother loaned him the money to pay the company back in exchange for his brother only being fired but not prosecuted. When I was a kid my next door neighbor moved to a much bigger and nicer house. They bought the house from the ex-city manager who was caught embezzling and had to move. It was a fairly high paying job, he gained nothing, had to pay everything back, was fired and had to leave town. All of which was predictable. How can you kill your wife and son and have any degree of confidence that you wouldn't ultimately be caught and for what? Yet, people do stupid stuff like this all the time.
I think AM wanted his son's upcoming trial to disappear most of all, because his exposure there was in the millions of dollars. But if he thought the wife was filing for divorce, he might have equally wanted her to disappear since that would also cost him millions. But I agree with you, that he definitely thought he could shift the blame to the "threats" against his son. Meanwhile there is no evidence of any threats, that we know of. Maybe some randos posting on reddit or something? Who knows
