The man featured in a disturbing YouTube video who went on a killing spree murdering at least six and wounding several more was identified Saturday evening by authorities as Elliot Rodger, 22.
Calling him "severely mentally disturbed," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the 22-year-old stabbed to death three individuals at his residence "prior to [the] shooting rampage" that took place near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus Friday night.
The entire incident left at least seven dead, including Rodger, and was described by authorities as "obviously the work of a mad man." Several others were wounded and seven individuals remain hospitalized. Three of the victims have been identified.
The attorney for "Hunger Games" assistant director Peter Rodger confirmed earlier in the day that the family believes their son was the responsible suspect and added that he had previously been diagnosed as a high-functioning patient with Asperger syndrome.
Elliot Rodger, 22. (Image source: Facebook)
The rampage unfolded Friday night when Rodger stabbed to death three victims at his apartment, police said.
He then drove to a sorority home and started to knock for a couple minutes in an "aggressive" manner. When residents inside didn't answer, Rodger opened fire outside on three individuals, killing two and wounding another, according to authorities.
This photo shows the windshield of a car that was shattered by a bullet at the scene of a shooting on Saturday, May 24, 2014, in Isla Vista, Calif. A drive-by shooter went on a rampage near a Santa Barbara university campus that left seven people dead, including the attacker, and others wounded, authorities said Saturday. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Rodger then traveled to a nearby restaurant where he shot to death a 20-year-old male, police said. At another location, he brandished a handgun at a female before firing multiple rounds, authorities added.
Eventually deputies confronted Rodger and he hit a bicyclist while fleeing. At one point, police exchanged fire with him, likely shooting him in the hip. As Rodger fled again, the 22-year-old struck another bicyclist, causing him to crash his vehicle and come to a stop, police said.
When police arrived to take him into custody, Rodger appeared dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, authorities said. Police recovered some 400 rounds of ammunition from his vehicle. All of his weapons, police said, were legally purchased and registered.
Just hours before, the 22-year-old suspect had posted a chilling video to YouTube describing his murderous intentions. Police are investigating the video.
“Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men but never to me,” he said in the video.
“All those girls that I’ve desired so much, they would’ve all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes,” Rodger added, then promising violence.
“I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you,” he said. “You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one the true alpha male."
The 22-year-old had also posted other videos onto the Internet, lamenting his life as a virgin who had never held hands with the opposite sex.
In a video, titled “Why do girls hate me so much?” and uploaded Thursday, Rodger spoke into the camera and conveyed his sexual frustrations.
“I’ve been attending college in Santa Barbara for about two-and-a-half years now. And in those two-and-a-half years, I’ve experienced nothing but loneliness and misery. And my problem is girls,” he said in the video. ”There are so many beautiful girls here, but none of them give me a chance and I don’t know why. I don’t know why you girls are so repulsed by me. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I do everything that I can to appear attractive to you. I dress nice. I’m sophisticated and magnificent. I have a nice car, a BMW. Well, nicer than 90-percent of people in my college,” Rodger continued. “I’m polite. I’m the ultimate gentleman. Yet, you girls, never give me a chance. I don’t know why. I put a lot of effort into dressing nice. These sunglasses here. They are three-hundred-dollars. Giorgio Armani. You know.”
The 22-year-old then details how he felt when he walked to his classes.
“I feel so invisible as I walk through my college because none of the girls there pay attention to me. I see so many beautiful blonde hair, just so many beautiful blonde hair girls walk around everywhere. In your revealing shorts, your cascading blonde hair, your pretty faces. And I want one for a girlfriend,” Rodger said, still looking into the camera.
“I’m 22 years old and I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’m still a virgin. I’ve never had the pleasure of having sex with a girl, kissing a girl — I’ve never even held a girl’s hand. Hell, I don’t even have a young girl’s phone number in my cell phone,” he added. “And that’s just such an injustice because I am so magnificent. I deserve girls much more than all those slobs I see at my college.”
Elliot Rodger, 22. (Image source: Facebook)
On his father's website, Peter Rodger, however, has an album containing multiple nude, sexually suggestive photos of a woman taken from across the world. The woman appears to be the 22-year-old's stepmother Soumaya Akaaboune.
— Click here to see the album (content warning: mature content) —
Photographs posted to a Facebook page appearing to belong to him provide more insight into his luxurious life, complete with private Katy Perry concerts to limo rides in London.
A 141-page manifesto authored by Rodger also surfaced on the Internet Saturday evening.
In the 107,927 word memo, Rodger promised to tell the story of his life, which he described as a “dark” one of “sadness, anger and hatred.”
“I didn’t want things to turn out this way, but humanity forced my hand, and this story will explain why,” he wrote.
Rodger also said that when the “Day of Retribution” came he “would have to kill my housemates.”
“In fact, I’d even enjoy stabbing them both to death,” he wrote.
The family of the troubled young adult said they tried to alert authorities to their son's disturbing behavior.
Police interviewed Elliot Rodger and found him to be a "perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human," family attorney Alan Shifman said.
Shifman added that police did not find a history of guns, but did say Rodger "didn't have a lot of friends," had trouble making friends and didn't have any girlfriends.
The Associated Press contributed to his report. This story has been updated.
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