Norman W. Resol was born on September 8, 1972, to David and Linda Resol of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Norm's father, David, was a laid-off steel worker collecting unemployment. His mother, Linda, worked nights as a topless dancer. Norm was watched by a loose coalition of neighbors.

In 1974, the family packed their bags and headed north towards the promise of great jobs in the automotive business. The tip proved to be a little out of date, and the Resols left Detroit after only seventeen days.

Linda continued to support the family by dancing in clubs while David worked odd jobs, but ends never met. The family moved frequently during the next ten years, staying in one place only until the bill collectors turned ugly. These moves took their toll on Norm's education, and he fell more and more behind in the basic skills as he was yanked in and out of school. With no friends, neighbors, or family to watch Norm, Linda frequently took him to work with her.

In the mid-eighties, the family's situation improved when David landed a position loading trucks for a booming defense contractor. The family moved again, purchased their first home -- a doublewide trailer.

Norm's middle school years were extremely tough. He showed little interest in schoolwork, defied authority, and could not deal with the discipline of athletics. He did, however, have an interest in girls, especially those who were physically precocious. When these girls seldom gave him what he wanted, he grew frustrated and was known to threaten them. Norm also found that by using his fists he could intimidate the other boys. Even though he was shorter and scrawnier than most of the boys his age, Norm bullied, badgered, and fought his way to a "young tough" reputation. He took up smoking, drinking, and learned to shoot pool. Given the number of times Norm was suspended from school, his attendance record showed him out of school as much as he was in.

Norm's father's borderline ways soon led to a plan that looked great on a paper napkin. David schemed that he would steal a case of hammers from the back of a truck, fudge the shipping manifest, and then sell the tools on the black market. There were ten hammers to a case and the defense contractor was charging the government a thousand dollars per hammer.

David told both his beer drinking buddies and Linda that he was a taxpayer. He paid for those hammers. David said that, in a way, he wasn't even stealing. He was reclaiming his own property.

The security guard who caught David leaving the premises with ten hammers tucked into the back of his pants disagreed. David didn't have any better luck convincing the arresting officer, the jury, or the judge that he hadn't done anything wrong either. David went to prison. Linda headed south to Mississippi with her son.

Norm learned from his father's mistakes. He only stole items that easily fit in his pockets. It took him several years to perfect his technique, though. Between shoplifting charges, underage drinking charges, and assault charges, Norm became a regular in juvenile court and spent most of his teen years on probation.

As Linda grew older and less able to find work at dance clubs, she turned to low paying waitress jobs and to selling herself outright to "gentlemen callers," most of whom were not gentlemen. Norm was exposed to all this, and more than once, the young man was knocked around by one of Linda's "clients" who just didn't like the way teenage Norm looked at him.

Norm graduated from shoplifting to petty theft and burglary. He grew to know the fastest route to every shady pawnshop and flea market within 150 miles. Electronics, car stereos, and jewelry went to the pawnshops. At the flea markets, Norm would sell a dealer garbage bags full of clothes, shoes, and other personal items. Some of these dealers noticed that Norm provided them with many sets of women's shoes, underwear, and lingerie. However, they asked no questions. The cops had their eye on Norm, but could never definitively connect him with a specific crime.

With either no or dysfunctional models for a relationship, Norm had no girl friends or romantic interests that lasted more than a few months. Norm normally found companionship in drunken one-night stands or with street "working girls."

Norm's 20s were a string of jail terms for minor offenses. Plea bargains, overcrowded prisons offering time off for time served or good behavior, and the low priority that solving crimes against property received kept any of Norm's terms from being extensive.

One week after his 1998 jail stint for passing bad checks, Norm and decided to celebrate by bringing a bottle of champagne to a woman who worked behind the counter at one of his favorite pawnshops.

The evening did not go well for Norm, who decided that when the woman said "no," she really meant, "yes" and that after drinking his champagne she didn't have a right to say no anyway. Norm's court-appointed attorney negotiated a deal with the prosecutor and Norm pled guilty to sexual battery, which sent him to a state penitentiary instead of a county jail for the first time. In prison, he received an education from other convicts on many things including the best way to stalk his victims. When Norm was released, he was required to register as a sex offender.

Norm first found work cleaning a local church through the church's program that transitioned released inmates back to society.

An economic downturn forced the church to cut Norm's hours, but he stayed and supplemented his income by working at Kevin Travers' photography studio. That's where he first met Barbara Dubois. Norm became the president of the one-member Barbara Dubois Fan Club and mailed her a five dollar bill to help her achieve her goals. Susan Dubois, Barbara's mother, investigated Norm and complained to Travers about him.  Shortly thereafter, Travers let Norm go.

At the church, Norm was fired nine weeks after he was found peeking into the women's restroom through a hole in the wall.

Two weeks later, Norm was hired as the night shift custodian at the Yoknapatawpha County Conference Center. He included his prison record on the application, but also provided a recommendation from church officials.

At YCCC, Norm's personnel record is clean. He shows up on time, completes his scheduled work, and rarely calls in sick. He keeps to himself, has no friends. He has twice been seen taking an exceptionally long time to clean up around the pool area when women are relaxing in the area. Two female guests complained that Norm made them feel "creepy," but had no specific charges. Co-workers have gossiped that he both drinks and sleeps on duty and tends to leave closets and doors that should be locked, unlocked. Management is aware of that scuttlebutt but has not felt it was serious enough that they should assign someone to check on Norm at night. To date, nothing has been found missing.