re: yup.. this will stay local.. nothing to see here

Kids can do wildly irrational things, regardless of how their parents raise them. I wouldn't be so fast to take blame for their actions. The only way you could blame yourself as a parent would be if you were imply to your son that it was okay to do something like this to a woman. It could be from your actions or your words degrading women, or whatever. HOWEVER, if you NEVER did anything that would remotely qualify as leading to such behavior, you would be taking responsibilty for something you had absolutely no businesss doing so.

I firmly believe that there are circumstances where parents are to blame for the childs behavior, but I also believe the reverse is true. Sometimes a parent does everything "right" and their kid still goes and does something insane. I think you're assuming too much in this case, as there is no evidence that would support that his father or mother or upbringing in general would lead to such behavior.

Furthermore, even if you did have some developmental role in cultivating an environment where an action like this was okay, the kid would still have to be punished for justice to be served. In that case I would hope both the parent and the kid would be punished, if possible.