Wall O' Text, incoming.
"Ryan" was popular. He dressed well, was obsessed with his own hygiene, had a laid-back manner, and liked to throw fun parties. He was also a sociopath, and a narcissist; I was certain, and everyone said I was crazy -- to the point where I started to wonder, seriously wonder if it wasn't me.
But, every so often, something would happen... and it wasn't a big deal, right? But the only rational explanation for it was "Ryan doesn't accept that other people are people." Once, he broke a $900 computer of mine, and told me it was up to me to replace it, because I was the one who needed it. He was fine without it. This wasn't just him deliberately being an asshole; this made perfect sense to him. He was deeply offended that I felt differently, and he was visibly confused.
Friends, including other roommates: "Nah, dude, he's alright. Just a little off," whatever that's supposed to mean. I was pretty sure that, if he thought he'd get away with it, he was the sort of guy who'd run you over for a 20-dollar bill. It wasn't just the little things he said, or did, but the fact that he was totally, absolutely beside himself at the notion that there was anything wrong with how he acted. If you tried to talk to him about it, he'd deflect or joke, and then "turn you off." The feeling of suddenly "not existing" in his perception was actually pretty disturbing. I've never met anybody else who could do this. You became a nonentity if he couldn't understand what your issue was.
Flirting with a waitress? "Here girl, here girl!" and patting his knee, talking to her like she was a dog. "Who's a pretty girl, then?" Creepy shit. I eventually stopped going out in public with him. He neither minded anybody's company, nor noticed/cared when they were absent.
Then, over the course of six weeks, he went over the edge.
Ryan started tracking down desperate women online, and sleeping with them for cash. He finally got on my one buddy/our landlord's bad side, when he used this money to make expensive purchases, despite being unemployed and several months behind on his rent. When you owe someone $1500 and you show up on a new motorcycle saying you're broke, and you don't see an issue with that, they're apt to get angry.
Then, there was the underage girlfriend. Ryan was 24. "Sandy," as it turned out, was 15. My buddy and I came home one day, and we could hear her crying upstairs in his bedroom, as well as what sounded like slapping. "C'mon," Ryan was saying, in his drawn-out, wheedling tone; "this is fun! I've seen this on some of Jim's videos!"
"Jim," aforementioned buddy of mine/our landlord, watched medical porn and BDSM videos. So... yeah. That's what this 24-year-old guy was doing to a 15-year-old girl, as she begged him to stop. That was his last night in the apartment. I'm still torn over this, 15 years later, but we didn't call the police -- why? Bluntly, he'd been in serious trouble before, he had prominent relatives, her family was locally well-connected and loved him like everybody else did, and he got out of it. He always got out of it.
After Ryan left, he traveled the country a bit. It turned out he had tens of thousands of dollars, not just "saved up" from having sex with lonely women, but also from his family. He'd simply earmarked it as spending money, so he "had no money" for expenses. He never went to visit his father, who lived in another state with his second wife and Ryan's two underage half-siblings. He said they'd had a falling out, and were no longer in touch.
Then, his father committed suicide. Abruptly.
Within 48 hours, Ryan was at his stepmother's home, and at first he helped her and his half-brother and half-sister deal with the fallout. This is what cost him my last ounce of regard for his humanity: he knew how to behave, what was expected, and what other people would appreciate. He understood -- not everything, obviously, but a lot more than he let on. Anyway, he helped out, helped plan the funeral, even paid for part of it -- which shocked Jim and myself, until we found out (from him, like it was nothing) what happened next.
His father had left a modest estate, about half a million dollars. Ryan wanted it. He had been left a small piece of it. Most of it went to his stepmother, and her two children, with specific amounts destined for college funds. When Ryan showed up, and tried to at least be a part of things, his stepmother actually offered to share some of what was left to her, with him; she was employed, and doing alright. Maybe she wanted to reconcile; maybe she wanted him to go away. I don't know.
Ryan promptly informed her that, if he didn't get all of it, he'd publicly accuse her of molesting her own children, and forge a document stating that his father had found out, and that that was why he killed himself. He also told Jim and myself that this was his plan all along.
I don't know what happened. Jim and I parted ways not long after that; I moved out, over unrelated reasons, and wound up moving out of state. I don't think Ryan went to prison or anything; I hope his stepmother called his bluff, and simply cut him off, but I do know from casual contact with Jim (who had casual contact with Ryan some time thereafter) that Ryan was still living in the same general area as his stepmother some two years later.
Supposedly, he was having money problems. I don't know. I was right about him, ultimately, but it wasn't exactly a good feeling.