Friday night a 22-year-old suspect, now identified as Elliot Rodger, went on a killing rampage in Isla Vista, California, a beach town adjacent to the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Prior to taking the lives of six innocent people, injuring 13 others and taking his own life, Rodger sent a 141-page manifesto, titled "My Twisted World" to over a dozen people including his parents and at least one therapist. He also posted a grossly disturbing YouTube video where he outlined his revenge.
According to CNN, who spoke to a family friend, Simon Astaire, the receipt of the manifesto prompted his parents to call 911 and head to Santa Barbara to search for their son. Astaire is a talent agent and media advisor.
The Los Angeles Times also spoke to Astaire, and reported that one of Elliot's therapists called Elliot Rodger's mother, Chin, at around 9:17 PM PDT, after he had seen the email. Chin then visited her son's YouTube page where he had been known to post videos of himself. This is when she saw his final video about his plans for "retribution" against women and others in Isla Vista.
Chin then called Elliot Rodger's father Peter Rodger and asked him to watch the video. She subsequently called 911, according to Astaire, and Peter and Lichin drove from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara. On their way there they heard there was a shooting in Santa Barbara. According to police, the shootings happened around 9:30 PM PDT.
Later the parents found out that their son was behind the mass murder.
In the sickening manifesto, Elliot Rodger laid out his plans for the mass murder, which included torture, murdering of women in a specific sorority, going on a killing spree in Isla Vista, killing his brother and stepmother and committing suicide. He also lays out a grotesque hatred of women, resentment towards his family's divorce and explains that his plans were nearly foiled by a police check-up last month.
In April, six police men showed up at Elliot's door to do a wellness check, after his mother called his therapist about other disturbing videos on his YouTube page. The deputies said he was polite and shy, and they left without suspicion. If they had searched his room however, the authorities would have found three semi-automatic handguns and an assortment of other weapons.
“For a few horrible seconds I thought it was all over," Elliot wrote in his manifesto. "When they left, the biggest wave of relief swept over me.”
The manifesto is a gruesome, misogynistic and disturbing document. (Warning the following is a deeply disturbing excerpt from the manifesto.):
"I realized that I would be a virgin forever, condemned to suffer rejection and humiliation at the hands of women because they don’t fancy me, because their sexual attractions are flawed.
They are attracted to the wrong type of male. I always mused to myself that I would rather die than suffer such an existence, and I knew that if it came to that, I would exact my revenge upon the world in the most catastrophic way possible. At least then, I could die knowing that I fought back against the injustice that has been dealt to me."
He also said about the "Day of Retribution":
"Then I came up with a name for this after I saw all of the good looking young couples walking around my college and in the town of Isla Vista. I named it the Day of Retribution.
It would be a day in which I exact my ultimate retribution and revenge on all of the hedonistic scum who enjoyed lives of pleasure that they don’t deserve. If I can’t have it, I will destroy it. I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to. And I will slaughter them like the animals they are."
Further excerpts can be found here, however, like the excerpts above, these are violent and upsetting.
At odds with a prior statement from the family's lawyer, Astaire told the Los Angeles Times that Elliot was not formally diagnosed with Asperger's, however the family thought he was somewhere on the spectrum. Elliot, Astaire said, had been in therapy for years.
h/t the Los Angeles Times, CNN
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