So here's a final, devastating window into the mind of one of the most high-profile cyber-criminals as of yet brought to justice in United States history.

And if it serves any lesson, my guess is that it should be that some of these people we write and talk about who are behind these ubiquitous and escalating cyber-attacks are not simply greedy scammers looking for a way to get rich quick, but in fact raving lunatics, and very dangerous individuals, or groups.

Eddie Lawson, the 35-year-old-convicted "spam king" who walked out of a minimum security prison in Colorado last week where he was several months into his 21 month term there for masterminding pump-and-dump penny stock schemes and other e-mail driven cyber-crimes, has apparently killed himself and his young family.

The Denver Post and many other news outlets are reporting that neighbors of Davidson's wife found the escapee, along with his wife, Amy Lee Ann Hill, 29, and the couple's 3-year-old daughter, shot to death at Hill's home in Bennett, Colo. yesterday after hearing gunshots at the home.

Another teenage girl was wounded in the incident, which police are classifying as a murder-suicide, and is reported to be in serious condition at this time. An unidentified 7 month old boy also present at the scene was apparently uninjured.

Over the last few days, the biggest question mark surrounding Davidson's breakout was why someone awaiting a mere two years in a minimum security prison for a white collar crime of sorts would jump the fence instead of just doing the time and starting life anew thereafter.

Here's the incomprehensibly chilling answer.

In deference to those killed and injured in the incident, and the fact that we will never know what was going through Davidson's mind, or what the state of his life was like in general, it's not worth trying to theorize what exactly may led this event to happen, on any level.

Davidson had been ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment of some kind when he was sentenced, and previously diagnosed with some level of A.D.D.

But what the new of this horrible situation makes me feel is genuine fear and contempt for many of the people behind cyber-crime.

We tend to think of most of these folks carrying out this activity as unemployed software engineers or classic scammers who are simply trying to convert a little technical know-how into some easy money or something of the like; plying a little automated game of Three Card Monty, with "caveat emptor" serving as the best advice to most of those being hoodwinked. But the truth is far, far worse.

There's no need to detail the exploits of online child pornographers, human traffickers, or illegal drug and weapons distributors, variants of which have all already been exposed and convicted for their technology based-crimes, in many instances.

There's also plenty of evidence that government entities from all corners of the globe have been spying on each other using computers for decades, and that terrorists are using the Web to both communicate and make money to back their efforts even as we speak.

Businesses and governments are engaging in industrial espionage, and teens are getting sucked into the underground world at earlier ages via automated malware gizmos that allow them to steal other kids' video game passwords.

But what it's easy to forget sometimes is that a fair number of the people behind all these cyber-crimes -- just as with any of the criminals breaking our laws offline -- are also likely bad, bad people, as with any group of criminals.

At times over the years writing about some of the illegal attacks and schemes going on over the Web I've wondered if I might make myself a target to have my back account emptied or my credit card abused.

I've feared on another level for the researchers and law enforcement workers who are taking these people on directly out in the wild, actively attempting to draw them out to shut down their operations or report them to the police -- and making themselves targets for revenge in the process.

Most of the activity we seem to cover in the business world is in fact carried out by individuals who prove to be mostly just money or power hungry when apprehended.

Davidson appeared to be a classic example of this at first, passing glance. He had used a sizeable amount of money attained via his schemes to buy gold coins, what some would call a smart and conservative way to utilize such ill-begotten gains.

The degree of faceless separation between criminal and victim in the online setting is oft-cited as the reason why a lot of seemingly otherwise normal people appear to get involved in cyber-crime.

But some of the people on the other end of the connection are evil as can be.

Matt Hines has been following the IT industry for over a decade as a reporter and blogger, and has been specifically focused on the security space since 2003, including a previous stint writing for eWeek and contributing to the Security Watch blog. Hines is currently employed as marketing communications manager at Core Security Technologies, a Boston-based maker of security testing software. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Core Security, and neither the company, nor its products and services will be actively discussed in the blog. Please send news, research or tips to SecurityWatchBlog@gmail.com.