PALMETTO BAY, Fla. - It wasn't anything big that prompted Manny and Kathy Hernandez to discuss taking their son Michael to see a psychologist. Just a bunch of little things.

When his after-dinner bike ride was done, the eighth-grader would open and close the garage door a certain number of times. He would stare at the grandfather clock in the living room every day at the same time, for the same amount of time.

But the couple decided to wait to make an appointment until after the stress of midterm exams in late January. They waited a few days too long.

On Feb. 3, the day after his 14th birthday, Michael allegedly stabbed his best friend to death in a school bathroom. His secret journal, 43 pages of which have been released by prosecutors, indicates it was his first step toward achieving a disturbing goal - to become a serial killer.

Authorities say Michael slashed 14-year-old Jaime Gough at least 40 times in a second-floor bathroom at Southwood Middle School, a magnet school tucked among luxurious homes in this affluent Miami suburb. His journal contained a hit list of other targets, including his 19-year-old sister.

Despite his "little quirks," Michael's parents said they saw nothing to suggest their son was keeping secrets from them or descending into darkness.

In the months leading up the slaying, Michael wasn't making much eye contact or talking with his parents as much. His obsessive-compulsive routines were increasing, his father said.

Michael also became increasingly obsessed with bodybuilding and horror movies. A videotape of the Stephen King miniseries "Storm of the Century," about a killer who continues his string of murders telepathically from jail, remains where he left it on his bedside TV.

But he wasn't getting into fights at school, taking drugs or drinking, and he still kissed his mother goodnight.

"The changes that we saw in Michael we thought were age-appropriate," Kathy Hernandez, an occupational therapist, told The Associated Press in an interview at the family's home.

When Manny Hernandez, a consignment store owner, told friends about his son's "little quirks," they said there were a lot worse things Michael could be doing. His compulsions did not appear to suggest violent tendencies.

But the couple said their son's behavior began getting more troubling last summer before he entered the eighth grade. He stopped shooting hoops in the driveway, quit the car washing business he'd once promoted with fliers, and displayed a sudden fascination with bodybuilding.

Michael's new exercise regimen was rigid. He made lists of routines, then checked them off when completed. After months of begging, Michael persuaded his parents during Christmas break to buy him a 2-pound can of the muscle-boosting supplement creatine, a favorite of major league sluggers.

Based on the missing amount, the 115-pound boy may have gone through about a pound of the supplement in little more than a month - up to four times the recommended daily amount for an adult nearly twice Michael's weight, by some health experts' reckoning.

Creatine is legal and available in health food stores, but its use has not been studied in children or beyond recommended doses. Michael's parents said they now worry about their decision to allow Michael to take the supplement.

Manny Hernandez said he had approached his son about seeing a psychologist. "He didn't like that too much," the father told prosecutors. He remembers Michael saying, "They won't know anything if I won't tell them. What is there to tell?"

According to the journal confiscated after the slaying, there was a lot he could have told a doctor.

The journal contained a hit list that included Gough and a 13-year-old classmate from his days at a neighborhood Baptist academy. According to the journal, Michael had an eight-point plan to lure the two into the handicapped stall at the far end of the bathroom before classes to show them something. They didn't know it was a gravity knife, which is similar to a switchblade, that Michael had been prohibited from taking out of the house.

Also on the list of those to die was Michael's older sister Christina, 19, who was away at college.

Since the killing, the Hernandezes have been replaying the last few months, searching for signs that they might have missed. Kathy Hernandez recalls the three scratches she noticed on Michael's upper arm in January.

He blamed the injury on a school fence. She worried he was cutting himself and warned him, "I better never see that again."

They didn't know about Michael allegedly jabbing a screwdriver at students during a school football game last November. The incident wasn't reported until after Jaime's death.

Other things have become known since the boy's arrest. His Internet use seemed normal to his parents, but a classmate said he downloaded photos of severed heads. His journal contained printouts of instructions for making a bomb, detonator and Molotov cocktails.

Michael's parents said nothing they saw made them think their son would hurt - let alone kill - anyone.

"There was never a profane word out of his mouth," his father said. "He was never, ever disrespectful to us or anyone else."

"We're Christians," added his wife. "We definitely believe in God. Do we go to church every Sunday? No. Do we say a blessing at night? Yes."

But Rob Klein, the family's civil attorney, said some will want to blame the parents for not doing enough. "It's like a need that people have to turn this into some dark, brooding kid," he said. "He was anything but. He's everything every parent wants in a child."

Today, Michael sits alone in a jail cell. The boy, whose previous worst disciplinary problem was being suspended for looking into a girl's locker, now faces a mandatory life prison sentence if convicted as an adult. A trial date has not been set.

Kathy Hernandez used to think the military would agree with Michael because his life had become so regimented. His jailers have complimented her on Michael's conduct.

They consider him a model prisoner.