Our country is no stranger to horrific crime fueled by the criminal's tragic past. The loss of his teenage son to suicide certainly seems to have played a role for Rainer Reinscheid, the UC Irvine college professor at the heart of a suspected arson and murder plot at a California high school. The dad is accused of setting fires in an attempt to burn down the school, and that's just the beginning.

Cops said Reinscheid had a plot cooked up to murder students and school staff, commit sexual assaults, and then burn down the place where his son was once a student. It never got that far: despite fires at the University High School administrator's home, a nearby park, and the school itself, the professor was arrested before anything else happened. Coming off such a recent and devastating loss, I feel for the man. But I can't understand any of these allegations.

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