When a firefighter who saves lives becomes the one taking them,

when a father who promises protection becomes the greatest threat his children will ever face,

you get Robert Fisher, a man so terrified of losing his family that he chose to destroy them instead.

This is what happens when trauma turns toxic and control becomes catastrophic. I'm going to be. The Born in 1961 to Jan Howell and William Fisher in New York, Robert William Fisher

started life like millions of other American kids. The family relocated to Arizona when Robert

was young, and by most accounts, his early childhood looked pretty standard. Three kids, two parents,

suburban life in the southwest, nothing that could make you think you were looking at a future

family annihilator. Trauma has a way of reshaping people from the inside out, and when Robert

turned 15 in 1976, his parents divorced. Divorce was becoming more and more common in the 1970s,

but for Robert, watching his family fall apart became the defining moment of his entire existence.

He processed this event differently than most kids would. This became

his blueprint for terror, the thing that would haunt every relationship he ever had. Robert graduated

high school in 1979 and immediately enlisted in the Navy, serving aboard the USS Bellowood.

Here's where the story takes its first major turn toward disappointment.

Robert had bigger ambitions than regular Navy service.

He wanted to become a Navy SEAL, the elite of the Elite.

In 1982, his seal application was rejected.

This rejection hit Robert hard, adding another layer to his growing

collection of perceived failures and humiliations. He left the Navy that same year and transitioned

to civilian life, eventually finding work as a firefighter in San Diego County. At least in this

career, he could be the hero, the one who saves people from disaster,

which is kind of what he wanted to be with the Navy Seals, maybe a hero complex.

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