It goes something like this... those that witnessed the act could very well have PTSD, and if never resolved, never diagnosed, never acted upon for treatment, would then mean that their children have grown in emotionally abusive households, which means these children would know what is wrong with their parents, because it would have been mentioned behind closed doors, which means the children would have then been abused for an easy term, emotionally, maybe physically also, which equates to an entire town of which is in denial that anything is wrong, bad to begin with, and then their children would have either PTSD themselves, or what is called secondary PTSD, being the symptoms and actions of a sufferer, though don't actually have the disorder because they never witnessed any true trauma, maybe not even abused, just simply replicating what they seen their parents do and say.