Elliot Rodger was from money and fame, being the son of Peter Rodger the film director. He was loved by his family, he had cash, nice expensive things, travelled the world and as if that wasn't enough he was also a pretty good looking cat. Unfortunately he suffered from some major malfunction in the mind department.
Elliot had some kind of problem with speaking to people, especially the ladies, and this led to him being very lonely. He craved for the life of those he saw around him and could not see a way that he might be able to have a slice of it. He blamed them for not letting him have a great life rather than seeing that he was preventing it himself. Other guys were all seen as being 'losers', 'brutes' and 'beasts' who were undeserving of beautiful girls and he found himself to be 'superior' in his money, car, clothing and intelligence. He blamed the girls for not wanting him and said he could not understand why they don't. From all accounts he didn't really talk to girls through shyness and when he did, they found him creepy. From the videos he left behind and his manifesto that is very easy to understand.
Elliot came across as a spoilt, ungrateful, misogynistic child with a hugely over inflated ego in his videos and I was shocked when I found out he was 22. I not only think he looks younger but the strange mind set seems like one of a frustrated teenage boy, which is reinforced by his over use of the phrase 'it's not fare'. He had been in therapy from a young age so it was pretty clear he had some kind of long standing mental issues but no one seemed to know the full extent of what he was capable of.
On May 23rd 2014, Elliot made a few last videos for his YouTube channel, emailed his manifesto titled "My Twisted World" to a few people and then set about his killing spree in Isla Vista, California. He stabbed three male students to death in his apartment, two who lived there with him as room mates and a third who was visiting them. He drove to a sorority house as planned in his final video but could not get in. He got back in his car and shot at three female students around the corner. Two of them died and the third was injured but survived. After this he went by a deli and fired in, killing another male student. He drove around and fired randomly at people on the street, hit people with the car and even ended up in a shoot out with police. Elliot was hit in the hip but drove on until he crashed his car. He then turned the gun on himself.
If you would like to read more in to his story and what happened then the wiki page is quite extensive. You can still view Elliot's YouTube channel but the final video has been removed, however here is a compilation of all his videos made on that day which includes he final one.
You can also read the manifesto here or listen to it read out in the video below. At first I thought it was a 10 minute video and then quickly realised it is actually 10 hours. It's a long read.
Bellow is a 20/20 documentary all about the incident, how his problems were missed and the aftermath.
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