Thanks. I have another, more focused article on Rand coming out soon.

I'm not sure what we should take from the Hickman story. According to Wikipedia, he was 19 when he killed the girl, and he was executed in California.

Rand 'describes him as "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy" and speculates about the society that turned him into "a purposeless monster." Rand wanted the protagonist of her novel to be, "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."'

And Rand scholars regard this as an early influence of Nietzsche on her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Marion_Parker