Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil Genius: Elliot Roger couldn't get a date, so he goes on deadly shooting rampage in revenge

Episode Date: July 10, 2018

Elliot Roger grew up with privilege going with his director dad to red carpet movie premieres and meeting the rich and famous. But Roger never had a girlfriend. He thought if only he could win the lottery he would be rich enough to lure a woman to love him. When that didn't happen, he bought 2 guns and began planning revenge on the girls who shunned him. Roger killed 6 people and wounded 14 others before taking his own life in the community surroundingthe University of California at Santa Barbara. Nancy Grace explores the case with prosecutor Wendy Patrick,  defense lawyer Troy Slaten, private investigator Vincent Hill, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, and Crime Stories co-host Alan Duke. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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A $40,000 BMW? $300 Armani sunglasses? I guess he didn't know you could get the same thing for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. Flying first class? A private concert of Katy Perry? Inside the privileged life of the director of Hunger Games, Son, before he became an evil genius, the so-called virgin killer. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. You know, let me first introduce my all-star panel. Wendy Patrick, Southern California veteran prosecutor. High-profile defense attorney out of L.A., Troy Slayton. Vincent Hill, private investigator, renowned forensic psychiatrist, author of Lions and Tigers and Terrorists, oh my, Dr. Carol Lieberman, Jackie Howard in the studio, and joining me from LA, Alan Duke. You know, Alan, you and I grew up in the rural South, you near Carrollton, me in the middle of nowhere, really not even a city outside of Macon, Georgia. I didn't even know things like this existed. $300 Armani sunglasses,

a $40,000 car, a private Katy Perry concert. I mean, Alan, I'm just thinking about how this guy's lifestyle. Just tell me one thing. Alan Duke, isn't his dad, the Virgin Killer's dad, one of the directors on the smash hit movies Hunger Games, that whole series where don't they fight about food and they have to kill each other? The children? Yes.

His father was involved as a director on that very big series. I thought it would be too upsetting for the children to see. Okay. So everybody laughed, but the children don't know anything about Hunger Games yet. I thought it would be too difficult for them to see children killing each other over food. So, you know, the worst we ever get is watching Poirot or Monk. Okay, that's as rough as it gets in our house. I just can't get over this. How could a guy with so much privilege become a prolific killer? Let's talk about this guy. But

first, I want you to hear the so-called virgin killer, Elliot Rodger, pampered son of a Hollywood director, in his own words. Elliot Rodger here. I'm up in the hills in Montecito right now. It's truly a beautiful environment is the darkest hell if you have to experience it all alone. And sadly, I've been alone for a very long time. I've been attending college in Santa Barbara for about two and a half years now. In those two and a half years, I've experienced nothing but loneliness and misery.

And my problem is girls. 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 I can to appear attractive to you. I dress nice. I'm sophisticated. I'm magnificent.

I have a nice car. A BMW. Well, nicer than 90% of the people in my college. You know, I'm polite. I'm the ultimate gentleman. And yet, you girls, you never give me a chance. I don't know why. You know, I put a lot of effort into dressing nice. These sunglasses here were $300.

Giorgio Armani. See, I'll put them on. See? Hold on. All right. See? Look at how fabulous I look. Okay, I'm having a hard time taking in what I've just heard. Let me just open this up to Alan Duke, Dr. Carol Lieberman, Vincent Hill, Troy Slayton, and Wendy Patrick.

Wendy, I'm looking at this guy's posts. Okay. And if my husband ever got to fly first class, and then he posted photos online of him being in first class of his meal and his wine and his croissants and a selfie of him sipping champagne in first class. You know what? I swear, I think I would divorce him, Wendy Patrick. I really do. I'm not kidding. That ostentatious show of look or luxury is just, it's very irritating to me. And he wonders why girls don't like him. I think I know. Yeah, Nancy, he learned the hard way that money can't buy you love. It's what your medical and psychological guests would call pathological narcissism. This idea that showcasing the life of luxury that he was privileged to lead

somehow would translate into relational success. And obviously, as a logical matter, we know that's not true. But we also know that emotions are not logical. And that was the downfall of Elliot Rogers. So as you say, this ostentatious lifestyle created in his mind unrealistic expectations of a thriving social life that unfortunately he never had. Well, that's certainly putting perfume on the pig. Wendy Patrick is not so much a social life. I think he wants sex with girls. He wants them to admire him, to adulate him and to sleep with him. Troy, let me ask you a question. And this goes for you too, Wendy. And I'm not asking you, Troy, to divulge anything about your clients. But very often, I think part of the reason that I ever won a case was because I was so interested, curious, really, in every curious really and every witness their life the defendant what the defendant said the location

I could sit and listen to people seriously for hours hours that's why I'd be working the streets till midnight putting a case together Troy here's my question I love listening to this guy in a weird way. Again, it's like looking at a tarantula under a case. I'm repulsed yet fascinated, and I want to hear his thinking. I know we don't have to show motive, but I want to hear what this guy, what's going on in his head. Are you ever like that with your clients or witnesses? Like, you just sit there, not, of course, on on the stand because you got to keep it moving for a jury, but to just sit there while you're investigating in case you just listen and look.

And so many times I just put down my notepad and just sit there and listen, because it's unlike anything I've ever heard. Absolutely, Nancy. You want to hear every single thing that not only your client has to say, but everything that every person that they know, every witness, every potential witness has to say. So that way, as a defense attorney, I know more about the case than the investigating officers and the prosecutors.

I certainly want you're doing it. You're doing it for a very wise angle, which is right. The more you investigate, the more you listen, the more you know, the better prepared you are to win your case. It's just, I guess it's the fascination with the human psyche. To Vincent Hill, private investigator, Vincent, you've met my husband and my children. You know us very well. The other day, David Lynch, my husband, you know, he's, I'm going to brag on him because he can't hear me. All right. He's super brilliant in the business world, a tiny bit socially awkward, but I find that endearing at times. The other day he went, I've got a rip in my pants. I'm like, you don't think you're buying a new pair of pants, do you? You are not. Until we finish paying for these children's school and have their college funds set away

we're wearing the same thing he went uh you're right and he agrees he agrees we've had our shoes resold so many times i can't even count it because we want to this guy is so obsessed with money and status and his car and flying first class is so off-putting vincent i i find that quite off-putting yeah absolutely nancy i mean we all want the finer things in life but unfortunately all of us don't get the finer things in life and you know i have kids as well i don't know really what you mean about that because I feel like, you know, I've got my husband. I've still got my mom. I've got the twins. We're all healthy.

We're happy. We have a roof over our head. You know, I've got, yeah, I feel like I'm so blessed. I would never drink. Dr. Carol Lieberman, what is it? You're the shrink. What is this fascination this guy has with showing off that he's flying a first class? Insecurity. It is all of the status, all of these items are to mask his main feeling of insecurity. He's hoping that if people, if the girls especially, see that he has a BMW and all of these

fancy sunglasses, that they won't notice that he's nothing. He feels so worthless inside that he uses all these status symbols as a way to try to pretend that he is worth something. So, Alan, I guess that means the fact that I wear the same black running tights and cowboy boots every single day. I guess that means I'm secure and mentally well. You are. Good to hear Alan Duke has now pronounced I'm mentally healthy. Okay, Jackie, you and I can talk about that in the break.

Right now, I want you to hear in his own words with me the so-called virgin killer. Remember, as Alan Duke correctly pointed out, his dad is one of the directors on the wildly popular Hunger Games movie series. They live in the lap of luxury, but guess what? He's miserable. 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-haired girls walking around everywhere. In your revealing shorts, your cascading blonde hair, your pretty faces. And I want one for a girlfriend. I want to take a girl out on a date and prove to her that I'm worthy.

I want to feel that sense of being worthy of a girl's love and affection. 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, sleeping 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. And that's just such an injustice, because I'm so magnificent. I deserve girls much more than all those slobs I see at my college who are somehow able to walk around with beautiful girls. I mean, even in the college town that I stay in during my semesters,

as I walk around like the common areas of those towns, or the areas where all the college parties happen, I see these obnoxious guys walking with beautiful girls. And that pisses me off, because I should be the one with the girls. I mean, look at me. I'm gorgeous. But you girls don't see it. I don't understand why you're so repulsed by me. So to Dr. Carol Lieberman, LA forensic psychiatrist and author of Lions and Tigers and Terrorists. Oh, my. You can find it on Amazon. Dr. Carroll, how does his, it's like he's fascinated with women, yet angry with women that they won't date him or sleep with him. How does that transform? How does that manifest in mass murder?

Well, you know, it's interesting. He actually wasn't a bad-looking guy, and plus he has all these couturements and all that. But women must obviously have picked up on how damaged he was psychologically, you know, that there was something really wrong with this guy. Because just looking at him, you you know you wouldn't necessarily he he wouldn't seem less attractive i mean in all different ways than these other guys but it's they sensed something wrong inside and something wrong inside mainly came from his parents divorce and his father remarrying a woman who really didn't like him wanted to get get rid of him, and got his father to not

really pay very much attention to him. One of the most interesting things is the interview that his father did on television with Barbara Walters afterwards, and that you could see sort of the disconnect that his father had towards his son. He was saying, I don't know how this happened. I don't know how my son wouldn't have killed all these people. I don't get that. And yet when you really look into their background, it was so troubled for so many years,

and his father really was ignoring him. I want to figure that out. Alan, we always hear killers somehow blaming their parents. I mean, for me, on the outside looking in, they lived in a Beverly Hills mansion with a pool. He went to great schools. His parents were sending him to college. I mean, I know his father was a famous director. I've looked at pictures of him, Elliot Rodger, on the red carpet with his dad.

But how does that translate? The dad working, I mean, my dad worked on the railroad like yours did. He was gone all the time. Same railroad. But I felt that he was doing it to support us, just like my mom. Right. Well, this is what made him very bitter. Because, yes, when he was living in Los Angeles in his younger days, he had this more luxury. But then his parents split up when he was a kid.

His father went one way. He stayed mostly with his mother, who didn't make a lot of money as a research assistant for films. Yeah. As a matter of fact, his father, Peter Roger, is a top Hollywood honcho. He was a director on Hunger Games. His grandfather, George Roger, was a legend in the world of photography and a founding member of Magnum Photos. Now, his mom, Chin Roger, a nurse from Malaysia, as Alan was telling you, the dad and mom divorced, and he married a French-Moroccan actress who stars in the French version of Real Housewives. Now, see, I didn't even know

that Real Housewives were international. I mean, I knew they were in California, in New York, in Atlanta. I guess there's one in Jersey. I had no idea they were all over the world. So that's given me a tiny peek into the lifestyle Alan is talking about. How did this kid, Elliot Roger, who brags about $300 Armani sunglasses and a $40,000 BMW, private Katy Perry concerts, flying first class. How does he end up being a mass murderer? Elliot Roger here.

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Everybody you know has something to hide. Now you can root out the most dangerous people before you become the next victim. It's not just used to bust bad people. Truthfinder helps Americans reunite with friends, family, even people who served with them in the military. It's never been so easy to find the truth. Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. Hi, Elliot Roger here. Well, this is my last video. It all has to come to this. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity, against all of you. For the last eight years of my life, ever since I've hit puberty, I've been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires,

all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, but never to me. I'm 22 years old, and I'm still a virgin. I've never even kissed a girl. I've been through college for two and a half years, more than that actually, and I'm still a virgin. It has been very torturous. College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure.

But in those years, I've had to rot in loneliness. It's not fair. You are listening to Mass Killer, a so-called evil genius. In his own words, it's Elliot Rodger, the son of Hunger Games, one of the directors, his stepmother, the star of the French Real Housewives, and an actress who had roles in Lovelace and Playing for Keeps, he ends up murdering six people in Santa Barbara because he was frustrated he was still a virgin. I want to go to Alan Duke, who has been on the case from the very beginning. How did the killings go down?

Well, after years of planning and the building anger and frustration, he actually planned to do it at one time, but broke his leg just before and delayed it but then we get to May of 2014 and he starts executing his plan. He lives in an apartment with three roommates, people he didn't like and people he resented. So the first thing he had to do in his mind was take them out his three roommates after killing his roommates he drove his bmw to the alpha pi sorority house at the university of california santa barbara there he banged on the sorority door expecting them to open it but they looked out and they said no we're not letting him in. So he turned around, went down the sidewalk, and there were three young sorority members who were walking up the sidewalk, and he shot them, all three of them.

Take a listen to what an actual survivor of this mass killer has to say. I see his face. He smiles at me and just starts shooting. Like a smirky, grimace smile, but it was a smile. He was just, he wanted to do this. He looked happy about it. I honestly, first of all, it didn't seem real. I thought, is this rubber bullets? And then I realized I'm bleeding. I'm in pain. I had to call my mom. I thought, is this rubber bullets? And then I realize I'm bleeding. I'm in pain. I had to call my mom. I just told her I've been shot. I don't know what happened. It's crazy. But I love you. I'm afraid I'm going to die. I love you so much.

So much. I love you so much. I'm angry that it happened and that it does still happen. We need to change this violence. How did he slip through the cracks? It shouldn't happen. The question is how did he slip through the cracks? Well, apparently there were warning signs. Me and my group of international friends want to get him into a group and try to help him. He was really, really upset about why is the world so unfair to him and like, oh, I'm a good looking guy and a girl is falling for those ugly fat guys.

Sometimes I don't want to hang out with him because he's so depressing. He never actually made me feel that, oh, there's a rap fag. And we watched a movie with a group of friends. It's called Chronicle after the movie he told me that oh i want to dominate the world while the shooting was going on i was in the bar with my friend i saw a picture of his car so i was really shocked i'm like dude this is elliot's car i started to see some news feedback on Facebook, and I was totally shocked. I was disappointed.

I think he's a really lonely guy. I mean, if he had received more love, then I don't think he would get that bad. That was Andy Kahn, a friend of the so-called evil genius Elliot Rodger. Now, Alan, what can you tell me about his mom having cops do a welfare check on her son the week before? Well, she was noticing on April 24th that these videos that he was posting and she was disturbed. So she called to Santa Barbara to ask the police to go and check on him. So in fact, they did. Several cops knocked on his apartment door and he thought he was found out. But they never went in. They just talked to him briefly and decided, no, this guy doesn't seem suicidal. He seems okay. So he was able to bluff his way out of it and they left him alone. And it was not long until he launched his

massacre. This was actually two weeks before then. Wow. The attack we're talking about, often called the Illa Vista murders, began when Elliot Rogers stabs three guys to death in his apartment. They were his roommates. Then he drives to a sorority house, shoots three female students outside. Then he drives past a deli and shoots another male student to death inside. He begins speeding through the town, shooting and wounding pedestrians, striking other people with his car. He exchanges gunfire with police during all of this. It goes on.

Take a listen to one of the victim's father, Richard Martinez. He's our only child. I'm 61 years old now. I'll never have another child. He's gone. So the reason I'm doing this right now is to try to see if you can make my son's death mean something because that's all we've got he was articulate

nice and tough if there's all these things in the media about the shooter and there's nothing about the victims, then it sends the wrong message. And the people need to understand that real people died here. And they need to know, put faces and names and histories to the people who died to make it real for them.

We're all proud to be Americans. But what kind of a message does it send to the world when we have such a rudderless bunch of idiots in government? I can't tell you how angry I am. It's just awful. And no parent should have to go through this no parent to have a kid die because in this kind of a situation what what has changed have we learned nothing these things are going to continue until somebody does something so where the hell is this these people we elect to Congress so we spend so much money on these people are getting rich sitting in Congress and

what do they do they don't take care of our kids my kid died because nobody responded to what occurred at Sandy Hook those parents lost little kids it's bad enough that I lost my 20 year old but I had 20 years with my son that's all I ever have but those people larger than six and seven years old how do you think they feel and who's to do them now who's doing anything for them now to high profile LA defense lawyer Troy Slayton and Wendy Patrick California prosecutor prosecutor Troy, I know that that is so hard to hear. That is the father of Christopher Michaels Martinez, one of the six students murdered. That is happening across the country every single day. The heartbreak is, and it hurts to hear it. But that is the wake of pain that crime leaves in the aftermath.

And Troy, how do you keep going to court? Of course, you're on the other side of the fence from me, as I'm a prosecutor-minded, but we hear the same thing. Do you numb yourself? Do you try to put it out of your mind when you leave the courtroom? How do you deal with hearing that all the time? That type of suffering can never get out of your mind and you can never numb yourself to the horrible hurt that crime victims all across the country feel. When I'm in court, I'm focused and concentrating on the Constitution and making sure that the process is done correctly, that everybody, especially the prosecutors, the police, and the court are following the law.

And if my client does suffer a conviction, I want to make sure that it was done by the book, that all the rules were followed, and that the government didn't cut corners and cheat in order to secure a conviction. So you take the focus off the emotion and focus on the Constitution and how to use the Constitution as you should to protect your client. Wendy Patrick with me, California prosecutor. I always had a very, very hard time not being too emotional. I just really could not remove my emotions from the cases because I would be so involved with the victims and their families and the witnesses that I don't know how you can turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to it. I mean, Wendy, one of these victims, six slain victims, many, many others injured, the Wien Wang suffered a total of 15 stab wounds and 23 incision wounds to the head,

neck, chest, back, both arms and hands. Chang suffered 25 stab wounds. George Chen suffered 94 stab wounds, 11 incision wounds. Catherine Cooper, one of the young girls, was shot eight times, including once in the left side of the head. Veronica Weiss, seven times. Christopher Michael Martinez shot once in the chest. I mean, the degree, the level of violence Wendy Patrick is, he didn't just shoot them, he killed them 20 times over. Right, Nancy. And you know, that's exactly what he said he was going to do online. And part of the part of the challenge of being a good prosecutor is maintaining that level of objectivity that you mentioned precludes the risk, or I should say never really precludes it,

but reduces the chances of becoming so emotionally involved in the details of the criminality that you're not able to fairly judge the case. And that's why we look at what do the jury instructions say we have to prove? What are the elements. But you're right. Noticing all of those little details, it's true you don't have to prove motive, but it's always at least a clearer picture for the trier of fact if you can. And Elliot Rodger, in his own words, let us know exactly why he did what he did. But Vincent Hill, private investigator, looking back, people say there were red flags to his murder spree. But I don't know that I don't know that there were. Yes, he whined all the time.

But a lot of people whine all the time. Yes, he ignored his blessings and focused on his perceived problems. But I don't really see that as a red flag. A lot of people are like that. Yeah, Nancy, that's just it. And, you know, the police went and talked to this guy and they saw no signs of anything that they could have made an arrest or committed him to a mental health facility. So, yeah, everyone complains, you know, everyone's rejected. Everyone wants a girlfriend. I'm single. I want a girlfriend. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the police would be able to come in and arrest me for that or commit me to a mental health facility.

I hear you, Vincent Hill. There are some earlier incidents to Dr. Carol Lieberman, L.A. forensic psychiatrist and author. Back in the previous July, he followed a couple that he was jealous of out of a Starbucks and threw coffee on them. Just threw coffee on them. In a later incident, he threw coffee on two girls sitting at a bus stop for not smiling at him. Then he bought a super soaker. Are you familiar with those? The twins play with them whenever we go to a pool.

And he fills it with orange juice and sprays a group playing kickball at a park and i just find that very odd he shoved girls at a party over a 10-foot ledge after being mocked by them uh he failed he tried to shove them over. He failed, and other boys pushed him over instead, and he said he was angry about that. Neighbors saw him come home crying. Interesting. I mean, you see all of these incidents that we now know about. But Dr. Carol Lieberman, what do they amount to? I don't think there's anything for police to have acted on. Well, the problem is that no one was really paying attention to him. I mean, all of these things were red flags. And, you know, when the police came to his door and, you know, decided that he was fine, they didn't even look around his

apartment. He had the guns in his bedroom. You know, that was his parents or his family doing too little too late. And it kind of reminds me of Nicholas Cruz, where the police came to his house a number of times, and they never arrested him, and they never committed him involuntarily to a psych hospital. So these were things, and, you know, he didn't really make a secret of it. Like his mother finally saw these things online.

He was writing all kinds of things online, posting. There were emails between him and his father. You know, it really wasn't so much of a secret. It was that you just had to look and you had to keep paying attention. And I guess worst of all, he was in therapy at different times in his life, and the therapist apparently didn't, you know, warn anybody. They did, at least one, wanted to prescribe some antipsychotic medication, and he refused to take it.

Well, you know, it's not clear how old he was at the time, but, you know, if you're a caring parent, you make your child take medication that certainly you realize there are problems with the child, and then if a psychiatrist says to take medication, you encourage him or make him take it. So there were all these steps along the way where he could have been stopped. You know, I was looking at the manifesto. Alan Duke, who's been on the story from the very, very beginning, he is also angry at one point that a black guy managed to get a girlfriend and not him.

He says, quote, I'm beautiful, I'm half white, and I'm descended from British aristocracy. And he's angry because somebody of a different race has a girlfriend. It's clearly, clearly he's got a very big misunderstanding of humanity. He also goes on to talk about how he had planned to kill his half-sibling, his half-brother and stepmother. Yeah, he resented his half-brother, who was the child of the actress, the Moroccan actress. His dad actually introduced him to one of his friends who was a screenwriter, and this is very Hollywood here.

Dale Lawner was the writer of the movie Blind Date, Love Potion No. 9, and Ruthless People. He actually hooked them up and loner was giving him advice on how to get a girlfriend that was the the advice that his dad gave him uh but it didn't work and in fact in that manifesto that diary that he wrote called my twisted world he says that there's no way that that advice would help him unless that they could hypnotize or change the minds of women because women just do not like me every night I go to sleep I wake up and I think of those young men and young women that have died, injured, and were terrorized. And my son did that.

My son caused so much pain and suffering for so many families. It's like a reverse nightmare situation. When you go to sleep normally, you have a nightmare and you wake up and oh, everything's okay. Now I go to sleep,, you have a nightmare and you wake up and, oh, everything's okay. Now I go to sleep, I might have a nice dream. And then I wake up and it's slowly, the truth of what happened dawns on me.

And my son was a mass murderer. There's no way I thought that this boy could even could have a plea. I mean, this is the most unbelievable thing. What I don't get is we didn't see this coming at all. This is the American horror story or the world's horror story. You have somebody who on the outside is one thing and on the inside is something completely different and you don't see it. That was the father of the so-called virgin killer Elliot Rogers. To Wendy Patrick, Troy Slayton, Vincent Hill, Dr. Carol Lieberman, and Alan Duke, Jackie Howard. You know, to Wendy Patrick, it makes me wonder if there are other victims we don't know about, not part of that day of violence.

But now that I know about him following a couple out of Starbucks and throwing coffee because he was jealous of them or trying to push a group of girls over a ledge at a party or throwing coffee on two girls that didn't smile back at him. It makes me wonder if there are other incidents in his background that we have not connected to him. Exactly, Nancy. You know what he's doing? You talk about a pathway to violence is he's testing the waters. He's practicing. He begins with the grievance, which he's expressed for the world to see, apparently for years online.

Now he's taking it to the next level. He's stepping up his game. He's actually engaging in physical activity directed towards others. And from there, we see some of the same type of threat assessments, exhibitionist activity, if you will, that he continues to prey upon others, not so much in a sense where he's become violent, but he's headed in that direction as evidenced by the incident you just explained. So when you say there's no red flags, if we look back through enough years of his life, we can see a slow but steady progression of these incidents that sadly ultimately culminated in him acting out as he said he would

in the most recent videos he posted online. I still do not see evidence of legal insanity. Alan Duke, what about the fact that their whole life was fake? And it was. It started out with some luxury, but then there was a divorce. And then the father made a business decision. As a filmmaker, he wanted to make this documentary titled, and can I say this? Oh my God. That was actually the title of the movie. And it bombed. It was a documentary and it was expensive. He lost a fortune. Child support papers show that he was not able to make his child support payments because of that. Elliot was very upset about that and the fact that his mother, who was a nurse, had taken a lower paying job as a research assistant for

film projects. So let me understand. You're telling me that their fancy home in Beverly Hills, they had to move, that they got a lower paying job. And it's my understanding he blamed his, quote, damnable mother for not marrying a rich man. Despite designer clothes, BMW, the L.A. Vista shooting perp, Elliot Rogers, wealthy surroundings were diminishing. His father, a director, went in debt. The mom took a job as a research assistant for a film company. And you're learning this from what their divorce documents? Well, he wrote this in his My Twisted World, 107,000 word story, the diary that he kept over

several years. But also divorce papers support that too.. So they still had all their rich friends, so they would get tickets to, for instance, the Katy Perry concert. And he writes, quote, I tried to pretend as if I was part of a wealthy family. I should be. That was the life I was meant to live. I would be. And he blamed his parents for his lack of money. He was angry at his mom, to Dr. Carol Lieberman. Alan is right.

She started dating wealthy men after she and the dad were divorced, which gave the son, the shooter, hope. And he began to beg her to marry one of the rich guys. He says, and I'm quoting, I will always resent my mother for refusing to do this. If not for her sake, she should have done it for mine. Joining a family of great wealth would have truly saved my life. I would have had a high enough status to attract beautiful girlfriends

and live above all of my life. I would have had a high enough status to attract beautiful girlfriends and live above all of my enemies. What is that, Dr. Carol Lieberman? Well, he's feeling kind of desperate and feeling like he needs this to get girls to love him and to have sex with him primarily. What's so interesting is that he's displacing his rage towards his biological mother, the woman he wants to marry, a rich man, and towards his stepmother, who alienated his father from him. And his anger towards these women, I mean, besides the fact that they wouldn't have sex with him or go out with him, he was also getting back at his mother and his stepmother by killing them. Well, his own mother was working so hard,

but she was very generous to him. She was paying his rent and gave him the BMW that allowed him to live in that community and basically show off. Then how, Alan Duke, did he afford to buy three handguns? Because they gave him an allowance of several hundred dollars that he put away for years because he was planning this. Not only the handguns, but his final plan before killing people was if he could win the Powerball lottery, all of his troubles would be done. So he would drive. He would drive hundreds of miles to Nevada across the border in order to buy lottery tickets. And it was finally after he exhausted thousands of dollars doing that four trips to buy them that he decided that he was not going to be a wealthy man. And he wasn't

going to be another Mark Zuckerberg because he couldn't invent something, so he had to kill. What about that to Vincent Hill, private investigator? How do you go about tracking that someone was trying to play California's Mega Millions lottery whenever the jackpot would rise like about $100 million? How do you track him? He would actually drive to Arizona multiple times to buy Powerball lottery chances. And then he would go into a rage whenever he didn't win, which was every time, of course. Vincent, how do you go about tracking those movements? Yeah, it's very difficult, Nancy. First, you'd have to be tipped off to anything that he may be

up to. Then you may have to get a subpoena to look at credit card receipts for gas, anything like that, video surveillance. All of that is very painstaking. But first, you have to be tipped off that this person is planning something or up to no good. You know, he's been described as an evil genius. But Troy Slayton, when you look at what he's saying, he says, I had no talents. It was impossible for me to become a professional actor, musician, or athlete. I mean, the idea of just working, working for a living, and saving your money and living a normal life, I guess I would call it. How does that escape someone that is actually so intelligent?

Did it ever occur to him he could actually work for a living? I mean, how many crimes are connected to people that just don't want to work? They don't want to punch a clock. They don't want to show up. They want easy money. on antipsychotic medications. That means he displayed such emotions, he displayed such an affect that those around him wanted to medicate him. And there were some reports

that he did receive some counseling and medications at some point. So this is not somebody who had a normal brain chemistry. And whether or not that would rise So this is not somebody who had a normal brain chemistry. And whether or not that would rise to the level of insanity in court, I'm not sure. But it's a very good possibility. To Wendy Patrick, you know what? If you go online, you can see all these pictures that people post of, I mean, have you ever looked at rich kids of Instagram?

I mean, have you ever looked at rich kids of Instagram? I mean, really? Or people online like laying on the bed full of money and it's like get rich or die. And they've got guns and money. Everybody wants, not everybody, but there is a group in our world that wants quick money, easy, without working for it. And the way to do that is through crime. This love of money, not money, the root of evil, but the love of money is a root of evil, Wendy. I mean, you got to see it all the time. Oh, absolutely. And I think everybody sees it all the time when you really think it through. There are some philanthropists that are generous with their money. They understand that the best things in life are free and they live accordingly. But you're also correct that, gosh,

one glance on Instagram will also show you that showing off wealth is seen as a status symbol. And to somebody like Elliot Rodger, who had a taste of wealth but never knew the other, sadly, although it looks like he did grow up with loving parents, you're right that mental issues certainly complicate the analysis of, did he know what he was doing. But when you look at his intelligence level, you understand he clearly knew right from wrong.

But the entitlement mentality that he exhibited won out and caused the behavior, sadly, that ended the lives of so many. Take a listen to the devil in his own words. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It's an injustice, a crime, because I don't know what you don't see in me. I'm the perfect guy. And yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it. of the so-called virgin killer, George Chin, James Hong, David Wang, Catherine Cooper,

Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, Veronica Weiss, Megan Carlotto, Antoine Cherchian, Keith Chang, Bianca DeCock, Patrick Egert, Jen Fu, Victor Garcia, Elliot Gee, Christopher Wang,

Mitchell Lubarski, Bailey Maples, Nick Papashuk, Matthew Smith, Aaron Zaglin, Elliot Roger. I hope you're enjoying tea with Satan right now. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide. Have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody? Suspect that a partner of cheating? Worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may need Truthfinder. Truthfinder may reveal court records, bankruptcies, contact

information, social, dating profiles, assets, and a lot more. You get it all in one easy-to-read report. Why fork out thousands of dollars to a private eye when you can do the job yourself? Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. This is an iHeart Podcast.