Robert Hawkins: Troubled Child

From ‘Troubled’ to ‘Killer,’ Despite Many Efforts
By ERIC KONIGSBERG
Published: December 8, 2007
Robert A. Hawkins made a five-year journey through a maze of juvenile services before killing eight people and himself in a mall.

Robert A. Hawkins, as a ward of the State of Nebraska, received extensive care at Cooper — private psychotherapy, family therapy, drug counseling — from 2003 to 2005...
“I’ve just snapped,” Mr. Hawkins wrote in one of two suicide notes the police released on Friday.
But his actions did not come without warning signs; nor were these signals ignored. The rampage appears to be not so much a case of a young man slipping through the cracks, as a tragedy in which measured vigilance ended up not being enough.