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When a person commits
a crime that seems totally alien to his personality and background, people are
puzzled and shocked. In my experience, a crime only appears to be "out of
character." If you develop a thorough understanding of the perpetrator's
mental makeup, you will learn that there is precedent if not in behavior, then
in thinking for the crime to occur. The quiet man who murders his wife in the
heat of an argument may not have planned the homicide in terms of a specific date,
time, and place. However, in his mind, he had killed her many times during previous
conflicts. This is a person who, instead of coping with the adversity, fantasized
numerous times destroying the adversity. Thus the occasion in which the actual
crime occurs truly reveals the perpetrator. It is within character if one only
knows his or her true character.