Can you spot the signs of a troubled teen?
People have been asking how such a terrible thing could have happened. How could a 15-year-old allegedly rape and murder an 8-year-old girl in Santa Cruz?
One of the big questions: Were there any signs before Adrian Gonzalez allegedly did something that landed him before a judge Thursday?
One child behavioral expert said yes, it’s possible.
“It looks, sounds like it came out of the blue, but I will bet you that there is some of their history in there that we don’t yet know about,” Tom Berg said, a child behavioral health and sexual assault expert with Monterey County. He is not connected to the Gonzalez case.
“This is not something that happens because some screw all of a sudden goes loose in a kid’s head. It’s something that builds over time,” Berg said.
“I tell parents over and over again, you can deal with this now and it causes very little trouble for your child and maybe they’re going to be OK,” Berg added. “If you don’t deal with this now and you let it go, when they’re 20, 25 years old and it’s still a problem, you’re going to be visiting them in prison.”
NewsChannel 5 showed Berg some of Gonzalez’s Instagram posts to see if there were some red flags. Berg pointed out that Gonzalez seemed lonely and isolated.
Berg also mentioned something about the seemingly harmless picture of Gonzalez playing with a yo-yo.
“It’s one of those things that would make him seem very normal. It’s probably something he took pride in, but you know, it’s something you do alone, you don’t need a partner to do that,” Berg said.
Although the Instagram posts don’t tell the whole story, Berg said they lay the foundation of what could be a troubling future.
Berg added that parents can’t be vigilant enough when it comes to their child’s perceived odd behavior. He urges people to ask questions like are they acting out violently? Are they spending too much time alone in their room? Also he encourages parents to monitor what they’re kids are doing online.
Often the older the teenager, the better they are at hiding their problems, Berg said.
