Some stories stay with people because of the crime itself.
Others become unforgettable because of what happens afterward.
One sentence, spoken by a mother in the documentary series Evil Lives Here, has continued to spark debate years after it first aired:
“I wished my son were dead.”
She wasn’t talking about a stranger.
She was talking about her own child.
For many viewers, those words sounded impossible to forgive. Others believed they reflected the unimaginable burden of being the parent of someone convicted of murder.
But the biggest debate didn’t center on the crime. It centered on what might have happened long before it.
A murder that changed several lives forever
In January 1992, Texas teenager Jessica Witt was murdered. William Patrick Alexander was later convicted of the crime and sentenced to prison.
The tragedy devastated Jessica’s family, but it also placed Alexander’s own family under an intense spotlight that has never completely faded.
Years later, his mother, Joyce Alexander, shared her experience in Evil Lives Here. Looking back, she described behaviors she says she noticed when her son was still young—persistent lying, a lack of empathy, manipulation, and episodes that left her deeply unsettled.
She has also stated publicly that her son was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder later in life.
The question viewers couldn’t stop asking
After the documentary aired, online discussions quickly shifted away from the murder itself.
Instead, many viewers focused on the relationship between Joyce and her son.
Some believed she appeared emotionally detached. Others felt there was an unusual distance between them, leading to speculation that William may have experienced abuse or emotional neglect during childhood.
Those theories spread rapidly across social media and discussion forums.
But speculation and evidence are not the same thing.
Is there any proof he was abused?
Based on publicly available information, there is no verified evidence that Joyce Alexander abused her son during his childhood.
Neither court records nor publicly documented accounts have confirmed those claims.
The idea originated largely from viewers trying to understand how someone could eventually commit such a violent crime.
It’s a natural question to ask.
It simply isn’t one that has been answered with facts.
Why people search for a simple explanation
When a case like this captures public attention, many people instinctively look for a single cause.
If a violent criminal had a traumatic childhood, the story seems easier to understand.
If no obvious explanation exists, the case becomes far more unsettling.
Researchers who study violent behavior have long argued that reality is rarely that straightforward. Personality, mental health, genetics, family dynamics, and life experiences can all influence human behavior, but no single factor can fully explain why one person becomes violent while another does not.
That is why drawing conclusions without evidence can be just as misleading as ignoring the role that childhood and environment sometimes play.
A story told from one perspective
Another detail is often overlooked.
Evil Lives Here is designed to tell stories through the eyes of relatives and loved ones of convicted killers.
In this episode, viewers primarily hear Joyce Alexander’s version of events.
Like any personal testimony, it offers valuable insight, but it cannot capture every conversation, every family dynamic, or every event that shaped the years before the murder.
The parts that remain unknown often become the space where assumptions begin.
The questions that remain
More than three decades have passed since Jessica Witt lost her life, yet the case continues to generate discussion.
Not because the facts of the crime are uncertain, but because people continue searching for answers that may never exist.
Could anything have changed William Patrick Alexander’s path?
Were there warning signs that only became obvious in hindsight?
Or are people simply trying to make sense of something that may never be fully explained?
For now, one fact remains clear: despite widespread online speculation, there is no public evidence confirming that William Patrick Alexander was abused by his mother as a child.
Everything beyond that belongs to the realm of theory rather than established fact.
And in cases like this, distinguishing between the two matters more than ever.