Over the holiday weekend, Robert Lewis Dear, an unkempt 57-year-old man with an apparent history of trouble with the law over cruelty to animals and humans alike, opened fire on civilians and cops first outside and then from inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic. He killed three people — including a police officer, a 36-year-old mother, and a 29-year-old father and Iraq War veteran — and wounded nine others before surrendering to police.

As is so often the case in these circumstances, Dear is described by neighbors as an odd loner, who avoided eye contact and spoke unintelligibly. In South Carolina, his previous residence, he had been arrested after hiding in the bushes and peeping into his neighbor’s house. He shot a neighbor’s dog with a pellet gun and threatened him with bodily harm. In Colorado, he lived off the grid in a trailer, on a five-acre plot of land he apparently purchased for $6,000 in 2014. This followed a series of cabins and trailers — without electricity or running water — that he stayed in after his divorce in 2000.