What A Man Will Do For Legacy

Oddly not a well-known case even though it was fairly recently, but this guy Jonathon Candy — so, in a weird twist, sometimes called “Jon Candy,” i.e. “John Candy,” a beloved comedian — killed most (more in a second) of his family in Yukon, Oklahoma about two months ago. Here’s a video that goes into some of it, although there’s speculation herein:

I say “most” because Jon and his wife Lindsay (nee Terry) had four kids, all boys. That’s six total people. You see dogs in that thumbnail, but I am not sure if the dogs were still part of the family, or if the dogs were killed as well. (That makes it worse, IMHO.)

Well, out of the six people, Candy killed five, including himself. He left the youngest son alive. That son, who was 10 two months ago, is now living with family, I believe also somewhere in Oklahoma. Because he’s 10, his name is not being released, but you can find it online if you want.

There were two immediate jump-to-conclusion moments in the aftermath of this:

1. Candy worked part-time at the Oklahoma City Thunder arena. If you read above, he had four kids still living at home. So, in an inflationary period, money was obviously very tight. Some people just assumed this was a “Modern economics causes people to snap” story, which might be true.
2. There was a bunch of stuff on Reddit that Candy was ex-Mormon, although that seems to have been debunked, and he went to a Catholic HS and stuff. I’ve also seen Reddit postulations that he was a “survivalist,” because he had a bunch of guns and some dried food, but honestly “survivalist” is like the term “far-right” now — we apply it without realizing that how we’re describing it applies to about a million+ people.

Alright, well, if you know much about the “family annihilator” model, they usually kill everyone.

Candy did not kill everyone, and that’s confusing to some people trying to discuss this case online and in the media.

It seems like the answer is pretty easy, though: he spared one boy, the youngest one, because he probably wanted his “legacy” to continue even though he’s a monster. This is very typical bass-ackwards masculinity shit, whereby you want to see your seed move on for another couple of generations, even though you killed everyone on your tier by your own hand.

I would think the “legacy” argument is more convincing than “He didn’t know the 10 year-old was home,” because if you’re walking through a house systemically taking people out, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to miss a room.

I think he did it to extend his legacy and not have the name/line die with him, as f’ed up as that is.

The “legacy” stuff is very important to guys.

I can tell you that’s one of the harder parts of infertility — that you’ll never have this supposed legacy. You can get over that by realizing that, 100 years from now, no one will know most people who are living now, even those who had six kids. Legacy is more something you consider in the moment, not something that actually happens for you decades hence. And sadly, in American life, legacy is mostly determined by work, not connection to family, which is a much bigger issue than this post can purport to solve.

So, I think this Candy guy spared one because of the legacy aspect.

I also always wonder on these cases: did this guy “snap,” or were there clues?

I would imagine there were clues, as most men I know don’t wake up one day and just decide to take out 83.3% of a family.

The sheer psychology behind it is interesting, but I’d bet I’m right on the legacy aspect. Your take?