An unfitting conclusion
The end of the short and apparently miserable life of Jacob Robida had a certain inevitability to it, but that fact isn't likely to give anyone much satisfaction or solace.
That's because he died early yesterday with so many questions left unanswered, and because he will never have to face up to the misery he caused others.
It is useless to speculate on the sources of the malignant rage that caused his attack last week on the patrons of a gay bar in New Bedford. For whatever reason, he was apparently ready to kill people, simply because he didn't approve of the way they live.
It is so easy to believe that such hate crimes belong to some hazy past. And thank goodness, the world has changed radically for people of color, gays, and others who have traditionally been society's targets. This, though, is a sobering reminder that hatred is alive. New Bedford officials said yesterday that they were still investigating what motivated the original attack and whether others may have been involved, a chilling prospect.
A search of Robida's house after the attack at Puzzles Lounge found a depressing cache of hate literature aimed at gays, Jews, and African-Americans, along with a makeshift coffin.
After his brazen attack on three men Thursday, Robida had no interest in sticking around New Bedford. Instead, the 18-year-old, said to have ''dabbled in Nazism" -- I didn't know it could be a hobby -- immediately took to the road, sparking a multistate manhunt ending in violence and death. Investigators were still trying yesterday to piece together his route -- when and why he went to West Virginia, what he was doing in Arkansas, and how he knew the woman he ended up killing.
Clearly enough, he had decided to go down with guns blazing. The tragedy is that Officer Jim Sell, 63, and Jennifer Rena Bailey, 33, paid with their lives for his insanity.
Dan Shetorum, who lives above Puzzles and was described as a frequent patron, told reporters yesterday that he wished the saga had ended differently.
''I wish he had lived and gone on trial," Shetorum said, according to the Associated Press. No doubt he spoke for many in New Bedford.
Reflexively, some asked after the attack Wednesday night what Robida's actions say about New Bedford. The answer: nothing. One of the great frustrations of this kind of random pathology is that it doesn't lend itself to generalizations, or deep meanings, or meaningful lessons. Some people are just plain evil.
US Representative Barney Frank, whose district includes New Bedford, is surely right when he says that Robida's actions do not reflect any wellspring of feeling in New Bedford -- or anywhere else in Massachusetts, for that matter. We all know that, but we're shocked nonetheless by this kind of attack, and rightly so.
Ideally, Robida would have survived to return home. He would have sat in a Bristol County courtroom and listened to the evidence. He would have watched the testimony of his victims, seen the cries of his relatives.
Their agony might have meant little to him. But the public expression of outrage and grief would have been useful to many other people, especially those who were sitting in a bar living their lives when, out of nowhere, madness struck.
Had he lived, there would have been a trial in Arkansas, too, one in which he would have faced the death penalty for killing a police officer. That prospect, perhaps, would be sobering even to a person with no apparent conscience.
Instead, Robida died with his demons still raging and his secrets intact. In its way, that's too bad. We all deserved to know why he did what he did, and the chance to introduce Robida to a concept he apparently knew and cared very little about.
Justice.
Adrian Walker is as Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
