Charles Severance and Leo Tolstoy

In an odd coincidence, Google is today celebrating Leo Tolstoy's 186th birthday, with a nifty Google Doodle celebrating some of his better works:

And today, the newspapers have also announced that former political candidate Charles Severance has been indicted in three murders of prominent citizens of Alexandria, Virginia.

I do not wish to make light of these murders, which were brutal and senseless in every sense of those words.  The Washington Post article itself does not clearly describe a motive, but one of the comments does, so I'll reproduce that comment in full, without vouching for it in any way:

nan_lynn

9/8/2014 10:57 PM EDT

Severance had a long-running beef with Alexandria law enforcement and courts related to his child custody case. Inter alia, Severance has a history of mental illness, which warped his perceptions of everything that was happening. Dunning's husband was the Sheriff; Lodato's father was the Judge. I think there might have been a separate beef with Kirby. (WashPost and other local media ran a few stories detailing these connections shortly after the Lodato murder. You should be able to research it.)

If that's correct, and if everything else in the article is true, there's a pretty good circumstantial case against Severance.  Will be interesting to see how this plays out.


Anyway, I just felt that somebody had to point out the coincidence.  No offense intended.