Bomb Suspect Presented Ordinary Front

(May 6) -- Inside the Connecticut apartment where Faisal Shahzad allegedly plotted to bomb New York's Times Square, investigators found Oreo cookies, oil paints, brushes, a canvas and an easel.

The trappings of normalcy that decorate a would-be murderer's life are not unusual, according to Katherine Ramsland, author of 37 books, including "Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers."

"They psychologically create different realms in which they operate. They know how to pass. They know the social rules," said Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.

To many outsiders, it appears that Shahzad was living a typical American life. An immigrant who entered the United States on a student visa, he married, had two children, bought a home in the suburbs and had a steady job. He earned a master's degree, was granted U.S. citizenship, quit his job and lost his home to foreclosure -- things that happen to thousands of people every year in this country.

His marriage to a young, pretty Pakistani-American was arranged, according to The New York Times. But that is not unusual, either.

"Even among many young Pakistanis living in the West, there is some degree of arrangement," Tahir Andrabi, a professor of economics at Pomona College in California and an expert on women in rural Pakistan, told AOL News.

Shahzad's wife, Huma Mian, 28, appeared to be in love with her husband. On her profile page on the social networking site Orkut, Mian lists her ideal match as "FAISAL!" and lists him as one of her passions (along with fashion, shoes, bags and shopping).

Mian graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2004 with a business degree. She and Shahzad married soon after in a ceremony in Pakistan, the Times reported.

On her Orkut page, Mian says she speaks four languages: English, French, Urdu (one of the official languages of Pakistan) and Pashto, spoken mainly in western Pakistan and Afghanistan. She describes her religion as Muslim and says she is not political. She lists her favorite TV shows as "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Friends."

Posts on the site discuss simple things such as wedding plans and visits with friends. Her photo album includes images of her husband holding a newborn baby, and a few of young children, including a pink-clothed baby smiling while wearing huge bunny ears.

Mian and the children reportedly moved to Pakistan after the couple walked away from their $273,000 home in Shelton, Conn. There was no indication that she and the children had ever lived in the two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport, Conn., that Shahzad leased in February.

A video shown on ABC-TV that was recorded after FBI agents seized items from the apartment showed a nearly bare kitchen, exercise equipment and painting supplies. A folding metal chair sat beside an air mattress on the floor. Authorities removed bags of fertilizer, fireworks and a painting of a mosque and tree, ABC reported.

Mian has not been implicated in the bomb plot, although the Pakistani newspaper Dawn cited an anonymous source as saying her father, Iftikhar Mian, had been picked up by intelligence personnel. The report could not be verified, and U.S. newspapers have reported that Mian's father is Mohammad Asif Mian, who until a few years ago lived in the Denver suburb of Aurora, according to The Denver Post.

It is possible that as Shahzad moved toward more radical views, his wife was unaware of the change.

"The wives are always suspected and yet so many of them have no idea" what their husbands are up to, Ramsland said.

If Shahzad did receive weapons training from the Taliban, as some reports have alleged, Mian might not have been aware of it.

"People live in secrecy," Ramsland said. "Some are little secrets and some are big secrets."