There's an old parable.

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river, and the frog refuses, he'll get stung.

And the scorpion laughs, well, if I sting you, we'll both drown. I'm not stupid.

It makes sense.

So the frog agrees.

And halfway across the river, the scorpion stings him.

As they both sink, the frog gasp, why?

And the scorpion says, I couldn't help it.

It's my nature.

It's supposed to be a story about what's inevitable.

But the scorpion still made a choice.

He climbed on, and when the moment came, he chose to sting.

We like to think evil is simple.

Bad people do bad things, but what happens when someone commits murder and says,

it wasn't me?

Something else made me do it.

Do we believe him?

Or do we decide that everyone's responsible

for their own venom?

I'm Harvey Gienn,

and this is Killer Stories.

Music This is Killer Stories. Brookfield, Connecticut is one of those small towns where the biggest headline in the paper is usually about the church bake sale or a new stop sign going up.

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