True Crime Campfire - Supreme Jackass: The Crimes of Elliot Rodger, Part 2

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

When we left you at the end of Part 1, angry man-child Elliot Rodger had dropped out of college to avoid contact with all the unattainable blondes on campus, and his plan to win the Mega Millions jackpot and lord it over everyone had failed. In his mind, he’d exhausted all possibilities for revenge against his “enemies,” except for the bloody ones. So he began planning what he called his “Day of Retribution”—a violent showdown with the sexy men and women who had made him feel so inferior all his life, by…I guess, not having sex with him instead of each other. Elliot was coming apart a little more each day, and he was determined to take as many people with him as he could. Join us for part 2 of this sad and infuriating story. Sources:BBC - https://tinyurl.com/yc6hewk5Daily News - https://tinyurl.com/3ey6xkhfElliot Rodger manifesto - https://tinyurl.com/2p8wmz4dBBC - https://tinyurl.com/3jk58y8cPeople - https://tinyurl.com/2s468t4jDaily Mail - https://tinyurl.com/mryvarm2Time - https://time.com/2798623/elliot-rodger-roommate/ABC's "20/20," episode "The Secret Life of Elliot Rodger"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. When we left you at the end of Part 1 campers, angry man-child Elliot Roger had dropped out of college to avoid contact with all the unattainable blondes on campus, and his plan to win the Mega Millions jackpot and lorded over everyone had failed. In his mind, he'd exhausted all possibilities for revenge against his enemies, except for the bloody ones.

So he began planning what he called his Day of Retribution, a violent showdown with the sexy men and women who had made him feel so inferior all his life by, I guess, not having sex with him instead of each other. Elliot was coming apart a little more each day, and he was determined to take as many people with him as he could. In July, Elliot decided that maybe he was being a tad dramatic, plotting bloody revenge. Maybe he'd, quote, give the female gender one last, chance to provide me with the pleasures I

deserved from them. He was feeling a little twinge of hope, as he put it, because his mom had just bought him a new BMW 3 series coupe. And to Elliot's weird little narcissistic brain, this meant his stock had gone up in terms of attracting the ladies. So he gave it a go.

This is a refrain you see from a lot of crybaby virgins on the internet, by the way, including one that is in a Romanian jail right now. I saw a TikTok two days ago from a dude that insisted that if he drove up to you and your girlfriend and his Maserati, he'd be leaving with your girlfriend, which while being a ridiculous premise really shows the way that these

warm-brained losers think of women as objects are like, I don't know, video games. They think if they get the combination of money, cars, and clothes right, like some sort of fucked up Konami code, women will start throwing themselves at him. It's so fucking weird. I do not get it. It's very weird. There's a guy in our neighborhood who has a Maserati. Funnily enough, I've managed not to leave my husband for him yet. Honestly, it's impressive. I'm shocked. I know.

I have to, I'm on the struggle bus every day. Believe me, not to just hurl myself at that man with my titty's out. So, Elliot went to a party with a bunch of college students, and after a few shots of liquid courage, aka vodka, he climbed up onto this sort of tall, like, ledge-like thing in the backyard and sat down in a chair. Some other students, mostly girls, were hanging out out there, too. but none of them talked to Elliot, probably because he was sitting there

in his own personal storm cloud as usual, just glaring at everybody. This lack of attention, of course, was unforgivable. Later, Elliot wrote, That was the last straw. A dark, hate-fueled rage overcame my entire being, and I tried to push as many of them as I could

from the 10-foot ledge. So he tried to physically assault these women for the crime of not coming over to talk to him. But because Elliot's a man-baby who sucks at pretty much everything he tries to do, he didn't manage to push anybody off the ledge, thank God. Instead, the girls pushed him back, and Elliot fell 10 feet to the ground and broke his ankle. Womp, womp, delightful. So he limped off into the night with his tail between his legs, but then he realized

his Gucci sunglasses were missing, and this was unacceptable. Because other than sex and throw in bougie coffee drinks at his enemies, Elliot's favorite thing in the world was designer fashion, so he figured somebody at the party must have taken his shades, and he was pissed. So, despite his broken ankle, he turned right around and limped back the way he'd come. But the thing was, he was too drunk to remember where the party was, so he found his way to a random front yard where another party was going on and demanded, in the kind of charming tone of voice we've come to expect from Elliot, I'm sure, that whoever took his sunglasses give them back to him immediately or else.

Now, shockingly, this didn't go over too well with the partygoers. According to Elliot, and I think we have to take this with a little grain of salt, considering the narrator, they started getting aggressive with him, calling him names and shoving him around. Later, he recounted it like this. A whole group of the obnoxious brutes came up and dragged me onto their driveway, pushing and hitting me. I wanted to fight and kill them all. I managed to throw one punch toward the main attacker, but that only caused them to beat me even more. I fell to the ground where they started kicking me and punching me in the face.

Well, should have just told him your mom's friends with George Lucas. I mean, easy fix, right? I mean, maybe you could get him some free jar jar merge. Who could resist? The Elliot managed to get away and make it back to his apartment where his neighbor, a guy named Chris, tried to talk him down. Elliot was in a hell of a state, Chris said. I'm going to kill them.

I'm going to kill them, he said, and I'm going to kill myself. Chris tried to calm him down, but it seems like he didn't really take him too seriously. He didn't call anyone about the suicidal comment. or anything like that as far as we know. The police did end up interviewing Elliot about the incident at the first party where he was trying to push the girls off the ledge and ended up pushed off at himself,

but he told them he wasn't the aggressor. Elliot wanted to press charges against the people who pushed him, but since there was no video of the incident or any evidence to support really one side over the other, the case went nowhere. So, so much for giving the females one more chance to adore him. Why he thought he'd accomplished this

by just going to a party where he apparently didn't know anybody, getting drunk by himself and sitting silently in a chair. I can't imagine, but anyway, it didn't work. Surprise, surprise. Later, Elliot wrote, The physician at the hospital put me in a temporary cast and gave me crutches. On top of all other things in the world that made me feel inferior,

I was now a cripple, charming language there. He is such a drama queen. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I know. You broke your ankle, relax. God. Anyway, continuing on, he said, I felt so defeated and broken, to my horror.

The physician said that I would have to be in crutches for the next six weeks, and I might have to get surgery. The leg that broke was my left leg, so I was still able to drive. Shortly after the incident, I drove home to spend the rest of the summer recovering. It was a depressing drive. I had never felt so defeated and wronged in my life. I had actually gone out. Every ten seconds.

That's the thing. It's literally a daily occurrence. He's always saying that. It was the worst thing. Like, you say that about everything, though. Yeah. Sorry. No, I'm never complaining ever again.

He'd never felt so defeated and so wrong in his life. Okay, this time, for the millions times, please continue. This is the time. This is it. Right. This is the one. It was a depressing drive. I'd never felt so defeated and wronged in my life.

I'd actually gone out to, a party in Ila Vista, hoping that I would be walking back to my room and triumph with a beautiful girl on my arm. But instead, I stumbled back to my room with a shattered leg and shattered hopes. And he was going to get this beautiful girl again by just sitting silently in a chair and getting drunk by himself. Just wow, man. So that was that. The big revenge plot was on and Elliott was more determined than ever to carry it out. This happens a lot with mass shooters where they get to that point of no return after some kind of big stressor.

Sometimes it's something external, like getting the shit kicked out if you had a party. And sometimes they kind of like engineer it themselves, kind of strip themselves with anything that might tie them to their lives and give them a reason to keep living. Maybe they lose their job, like Texas shooter Seth Ator, who went on a rampage in his truck after a routine traffic stop in August of 2019, or Nathan Dunlap, the Chucky Cheese Shooter, who killed four and injured one in Colorado in December of 1993. Maybe their parent dies, like with Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter.

Something happens that gives them permission to do what they've been fantasizing about all along. But revenge would have to wait now because Elliot had a broken ankle. He was working on a hit list in the meantime, people he especially wanted to destroy, and he added the ledge pushers to it. His two roommates were on there too, for some reason, probably because they had the nerve to just exist around him

and not kiss his ass. Later that summer, he filed a complaint against one of them, accusing him of stealing 20 bucks worth of candles. Boy. He has the weirdest complaints. I'm not saying, like, I don't think his roommate stole his candles for the record. I think Elliot burned them and forgot about it. But, again, it's 20 bucks worth of candles.

The roommates were Chen Yuan Hong, who went by James, and Weihon Wong, who went by David. They were both 20 years old, both studying computer science. James had grown up in Taiwan, and he'd been in the state since he was a young teenager. Neither of them knew Elliot very well. They weren't friends, just housemates. They sure as hell didn't know it was going on his head that summer. If they had, they'd have gotten as far away as they could get. In August, he wrote,

I made a new plan to set the ultimate and final date of the Day of Retribution to be at the end of the spring of 2014. The plan was to destroy the entirety of Isla Vista and kill every single person in it, or at least kill as many popular young people as I could before the police arrive and I'd have to kill myself. He thought about doing it on Valentine's Day, you know, because he's a huge fucking loser, but he decided he'd need more time to plan. And one hell of a plan it was. In Elliot's own words, it went like this. On the day before the day of retribution, I will start the first phase of my vengeance,

silently killing as many people as I can around Ila Vista by luring them into my apartment through some form of trickery. Very specific, Elliot. Even in his fantasy, he can't envision himself tricking anybody into his apartment. The first people I would have to kill are my two housemates to secure the entire apartment for myself as my personal torture and killing chamber. after that I will start luring people into my apartment knock them out with a hammer and slit their throats I will torture some of the good-looking people before I kill them assuming that the good-looking ones had the best sex lives

all of that pleasure they had in life I will punish by bringing them pain and suffering I have lived a life of pain and suffering and it was time to bring that pain to people who actually deserve it Jesus may he sounds like Hellraiser you know pinhead or whatever it is that's literally how he sounds like somebody summoned him with the little puzzle box thing.

Yeah, it absolutely does. It's really interesting to me because it's so different from when he actually ended up doing. Like the whole idea of luring people, like I said, back to his apartment and killing in there. It's very Hannibal Lecter.

Totally different, MO, from what he ended up doing. Oh, yeah, it's very serial killery. And this may have actually been his preference, like what he really would have liked to do. But I think at the end of the day, he knew he had about as much chance of luring a victim as he did of winning that Mega Millions.

It just wasn't going to happen. Because he was just an arched little, weirdo and nobody liked him. He couldn't lure a stray cat. But he sure seemed to enjoy fantasizing about it. He gets very specific. I will cut them, flay them, strip all the skin off their flesh, and pour boiling water all over them while they are still alive, as well as any other form of torture I could possibly think of. When they are dead, I will behead them, and keep their heads in a bag, for their heads will play a major role in the final phase. This first phase will represent my vengeance against all of the men who have had pleasurable sex lives while I've had to suffer.

Things will be fair once I make them suffer as I did. I will finally even the score. Elliot Roger or Gargermill from the Smurfs. The second phase will take place on the day of retribution itself, just before the climactic massacre. Interesting choice of words. The second phase will represent my war on women. I will punitive all females for the crime of depriving me of sex. They have starved me of sex for my entire youth and gave that pleasure to other men. In doing so, they took many years of my life away. Huh? What? How? Anyway, I cannot kill every single female on earth, but I can deliver a devastating blow that will shake all of them to the core of their wicked hearts. I will attack the very

girls who represent everything I hate in the female gender, the hottest sorority of UCSB. After doing a lot of extensive research within the last year, I found out that the sorority with the most beautiful girls is Alpha Phi sorority. I know exactly where their house is, and I've sat outside it in my car to stalk them many times. God, that's freaking creepy. Alpha Phi sorority is full of hot, beautiful, blonde girls, the kind of girls I've always desired but was never able to have because they all look down on me. They are spoiled, heartless, wicked bitches. They think they are superior to me. and if I ever tried to ask one on a date, they would reject me cruelly.

I will sneak into their house at around 9 p.m. on the day of retribution, just before all of the partying starts and slaughter every single one of them with my guns and knives. If I have time, I will set their whole house on fire. Then we shall see who the superior one really is. Oh, wow. Okay. Look, smelly it. First of all, Bundy already covered this one, okay? You're not doing anything new here. And second, aren't these people for real when they say?

say shit like this. Now you'll see who the superior one really is. Is that what they seriously think? Because if you're an Elliot Roger and by some miracle you're listening to this right now, please hear me. This is horse shit. Right? The only people who will consider you superior for doing something like this are the losers exactly like you. Okay? Like 0.0 is like a parking lot's worth of zeros and then a 1% of the population. Everybody else will think you are a dribbling Looney Tune and asshole. And then they will forget you ever existed because now we live in a world where this shit happens literally every day. All right? So it's not even unusual anymore. So how about we do something really badass and get some therapy instead? Face those demons and kick their

asses. Do the hard work. That's the kind of thing that makes you a superior human. This mass murder shit just makes you a fucking coward. A thousand percent. We have spent an episode and a half now discussing Elliot's, all of Elliott's monumental failures and how he did exactly zero work at self-improvement. If that doesn't tell you that he doesn't deserve to be admired, I don't know what else will. Yeah. And by the way, I don't remember him talking about hinting on girls like hardly ever. No. Like, it really just seems like he just decided that they wouldn't go out with him and didn't even try, which reminds me a whole hell of a lot of the whole skateboarding debacle when he was younger, like tried it a couple of times, wasn't immediately good at it, and quit and then

got mad at the whole sport for existing. That's what he did. That's what he did. And that's what he did. I'm 30-something years old, and I can tell you that to this day, I'm like, I sit there and I'm like, is that person flirting with me? Because, like, you really don't know. Like, you have a feeling. You're like, I'm viving with this person. And, like, you're like, but are they flirting with me? Are they just being nice to me?

It's like that whole, like, it's a coin flip every single fucking time. You absolutely never know. Like this hot girl could be sitting across from you thinking, oh, he's too cute. I can't, you know. You never know, especially somebody like Elliot who actually was like he had the cheekbones for days and everything. So just shut the fuck up. Anyway, all right. So I'm so pissed at this little turd. I can't even. It's the worst. So he goes on on this little description of what he wants to do. The final phase of the day of retribution will be my ultimate showdown in the streets of

Ila Vista. On the morning before, I will drive down to my father's house to kill my little brother, denying him of the chance to grow up to surpass me, along with my stepmother Sumaya, as she will be in the way. Ugh. My father will be away on one of his business trips, so thankfully I won't have to deal with him. If he didn't go away on that trip, I might have to postpone the whole plan because of my fear that I might hesitate if I have to kill him, which is very fascinating, in my opinion, because I can't tell if it's because he loves his dad or because he's scared of being

stopped. Scared of taking on a grown man, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. He'll kill a little boy and a woman, but not his dad. Eddie. Once I've taken care of my brother and stepmother, I will switch over to the Mercedes SUV and drive it back up to Ila Vista. I will use it as one of my killing machines against my enemies. An SUV will cause a lot more damage than my BMW coop. Let us once again point out, Elliot, that these enemies you keep mentioning do not even know you exist. Don't know you're a person. I'd also like to mention that he took the time to describe the make of his and his father's cars just to underline the fact that they're expensive. Oh, yeah.

He literally could not help himself from acting like a smug douche. He could have just said my dad's SUV and my coo. No, it's a Mercedes and a BMW. Get it right. Okay, carrying on. After I have killed all of the sorority girls at the Alpha Phi House, I will quickly get into the SUV before the police arrive. Good fucking luck. Assuming they would arrive. I would arrive within three minutes. I will then make my way to Del Playa, splattering as many of my enemies as I can with the SUV and shooting anyone I don't splatter. I can only imagine how sweet it will be to ram the SUV into all of those groups of popular young people who have always witnessed walking right in the middle of the road as if they're better than everyone else.

When they're writhing in pain, their body's broken and dying after I splatter them. They will fully realize their crimes. Bullshit. All they'll realize is that a waste of space they've never met has just assaulted them for no reason. They don't know why you're doing it, dumbass. You'll have accomplished exactly nothing for your dipshit ideology. And by the way, this splattering thing he's talking about. This is precisely what his buddy from the insult forums, Alec Manassian, actually did four years later in Canada. Yeah. Once I reach Del Plias Street, I will dump the bag of severed heads I have saved from my previous victims, proclaiming to everyone how much I've made them suffer. Once they see all of their friends' heads roll onto the street,

everyone will fear me as the powerful God I am. Uh, horseshit. You mispronounced unhinged man baby again, man. That's right. Also, I love that he's just assuming that everyone's going to know everyone. It just really feeds into his delusions. How he's like, they're going to know that all of the people that I've killed. Will they?

Yeah. Okay. It's nonsense. I will then start massacring everyone on Del Plias Street. I will pull up next to a house part. and fire bullets at everyone partying on the front yard. I will specifically target the good-looking people in all of the couples. After I've destroyed a house party, I will continue down Del Pliya, destroying everything and

everyone. When I see the first police car come to their rescue, I will drive away as fast as I can, shooting and ramming anyone in my path until I find a suitable place to finally end my life. To end my life, I will quickly swallow all of the Xanax and Vicodin pills I have left, along with an ample amount of hard liquor. Immediately after imbibing this mixture, I will shoot myself in the head with two of my handguns simultaneously. If the gunshots don't kill me, the deadly drug mixture eventually will. I will not suffer being captured and sent to prison.

I must plan this very efficiently. Nothing can go wrong. It needs to be perfect. This is now my sole purpose on this world. My plans will come to fruition, and I mustn't let anyone stop me. In April of 2014, Elliot finally finished his manifesto. He also uploaded a video to YouTube titled, Why Do Girls Hate Me So Much? Standing in the Sunshine wearing his favorite shirt, the one he described in his journal entry as his extravagant Hugo Boss shirt, which will never not be hilarious to me.

Elliot spilled out his grievances. Girls have never seemed to have any interest in me, he said, and I want to know why. I'm such a perfect, beautiful, fabulous guy. I should never have had any problems with girls, but I do, and I find that ridiculous. This video is a re-upload. I had to take the last one down because it gained too much negative attention. I'll keep uploading it until I get at least one honest answer from an actual girl. Okay, hang on, Homeboy.

So you took the last one down because it got negative attention. Now you're putting it back up in hopes of an honest answer from an actual girl. Something told me you probably got a whole lot of honest answers. first time. You just didn't want to hear them. I'm sure girls gave you plenty of honest answers over the years, but you either ignored them or filtered them through the weird, entitled narcissist prism in your brain and distorted them all to fuck. And if by any chance you're thinking, maybe this poor guy just didn't have good social skills and nobody was ever willing to be patient enough to really get to know him, let me give you a little snapshot of how

Elliot dealt with the people in his life. Now, this isn't about a girl, but I still think it gives us a pretty good little peek at how he handled relationships. Elliot had a long-time friend named James Ellis. They became buds when they were little kids. They bonded over Pokemon cards and World Warcraft, and Elliot describes him in some of his writings as his only friend. Called him King Arthur Kid because of his long blonde hair. They got along really well for the most part, though Elliot was weirdly possessive about James. Like he'd get really mad anytime James wanted to invite any other guys to hang out with them. James would be happily hanging out with everybody like you do and Elliot would just go off in a corner and cry. Yikes.

But they were close anyway. Lots of sleepovers and video games and late-night conversations about the girls they liked and how frustrating it was when the girls didn't like him back, Elliot perceived James as having the same problems he did when it came to the opposite sex. But as the two got older and Elliot started developing the poisonous, misogynist worldview that would eventually lead to all this awful shit we're talking about, James became more and more disturbed by his old buddy. Elliot started confiding in him about wanting to attack good-looking couples. I imagine he probably told him about some of the coffee-throwing incidents too. And just like Peter had been, James was horrified. He tried to talk to Elliot about it

a few times, of course, like, man, what are you doing? You can't really believe all this noxious stuff you're saying, right? But it was clear that Elliot did believe it. After what James's dad later described to reporter Richard Allen as a few alarming incidents in restaurants, God only knows, probably mouthing off to pretty girls or threatening them. Or throwing various drinks at them. Right. James basically started avoiding Elliot. And then finally, in the spring of 2012, he ended their friendship. This is how Elliot wrote about it in his journal. In the month of April, James Ellis officially ended the friendship between us.

James hadn't contacted me at all since the Christmas party, and I felt extremely offended by this. For the first few months of 2012, I had been trying to contact him, demanding to know why he continued to act so cold and distant to me. I thought that after we spoke with each other at the party, things would get better between us. I was dead wrong. I got hold of him on the phone in February, and he said a few words to me before quickly making an excuse to hang up. A month later, I messaged him on Facebook to tell him how rude he was on the phone,

and in April I received a response from him. He blatantly said he didn't want to be friends anymore. He didn't even deign to tell me why. After he said the fateful words, he refused to talk to me ever again. That was the last time I ever spoke to him. It was the ultimate betrayal, you know, since breakfast, I guess. since the one of breakfast. I thought he was the one friend I had in the whole world who truly understood me,

who truly understood my views and the reasons why I thought the way I did about the world. I confided everything to him because I thought we were on the same page. To be betrayed in such a manner wounded me deeply, though I never admitted to anyone. Yeah, that's part of your problem, man, never admitting shit to anyone. Look, make no mistake about it, anger is an outward manifestation of pain. and this kid was in a world of it. Exactly. If he'd ever reached out to somebody really reached out and asked for help, things might have

gone totally different for Elliot. But his M.O. from childhood on was just to get angry at anything that scared or hurt him and then nurture that anger, whatever kind of bizarre mental pretzels he had to do to bend his mind to justify it. Right. And I get it. Like to reach out for help, you have to make yourself vulnerable. And being vulnerable is scary.

I mean, it's a lot easier to blame everybody else for whatever's wrong in your life. But it sure as hell wasn't making him happy, was it? And I don't get the feeling any of these guys on the in-cell forums are happy either. Like, it's just, I mean, I can't even spend more than 10 minutes because you can just feel the blackness, like just this throbbing, toxic pain. Yeah, I feel like these are a bunch of dudes in really deep pain. Just try and like hell to find any path they can find away from any real self-examination, because if they're wrong, if women aren't avoiding them because women are evil or shallow or stupid

if it's not the women then that means there's something they need to do differently and maybe they don't know how and that scares the shit out of them in addition to that our society does a shit job of teaching men how to deal with scary feelings it doesn't do a great job of teaching anybody

but it does an extra shitty job of teaching men and then they're made to feel like big wussies if they show the tiniest shade of vulnerability even to the extent of saying this scares me or I'm lonely or I'm sad like it sucks and it's not fair frankly a lot of it is perpetuated

by guys like Elliot you know dudes that are so far in their own fantasy worlds that they believe that the media they consume or the porn that they watch are based in reality in real life when someone wrongs you

you don't get to drop a barb and suddenly everybody is begging for forgiveness in real life the woman you wink at doesn't just take her top off because you tell her that she's hot the person that wrong you probably doesn't think they did anything wrong the people you're attracted to don't just throw themselves at you because you acknowledge their existence human interactions are not video games where like i said before you enter the konami code and get what you want like i'm sorry that strips people of their free will other people are not extras created to add depth to your world yeah you don't just insert like niceness tokens and sex comes out that's my favorite that's my favorite quote it's so it's so true because it's to a lot of these guys, it's like, well, I'm not doing anything wrong. Okay, but like, you're not doing anything right either.

Yeah, and that doesn't equal supreme gentleman. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could rant about this forever. Mm-hmm. Anyway, Elliot had driven off his one true friend with all his in-cell ranting.

Another bridge was in flames. Now it was two years later and Elliot was neck deep in planning his day of retribution. The big day was supposed to be April 24th, of course. but when Elliot woke up that morning, he had the sniffles and a cough. Aw, poor puppy. So naturally, he decided to postpone his revenge another month. It was as if fate itself was trying to stop me from doing it, he wrote. But what other reason do I have for living?

Alas, there was just no way I could carry out my plans if I had a cold. Everything had to be perfect. I just, I cannot. I can't engage in the sloth. of innocence, if you've got the sniffles. Oh. The worst. My God.

He picked May 24th for the reschedule because it was the last weekend he could feasibly do it before the students started going home for the summer. On April 30th, a little more than a month before the murders, Elliot's mom, Lee Chin found his angry videos online, and she knew immediately that this went way beyond venting. This was scary. She called the police and requested a wellness check at the apartment Elliot shared with his roommates. Officers arrived, but as Peter pointed out later in his interview with Barbara Walters, Elliot could be a smooth talker when he needed to be. He downplayed the videos. Just

harmless venting, just trying to get attention, blah, blah, la. And the officers bought it. They didn't feel the need to search the apartment. If they had, they would have found three handguns, ammunition, and a 137-page manifesto where Elliott wrote about his plan to kill everyone in Ila Vista to utterly destroy that wretched town. If they had run a background check on Elliot, they would have found where he'd purchased the guns. The cops didn't even watch the videos that had worried Elliot's mother.

Jesus. How many times have we seen at Campers? Another tragic missed opportunity. Another case where the system failed us. Where responding officers chose to take one person's word over another's. Apparently, just because the guy was a good talker. It's a testament to what a good liar Elliot was. sure, but it's more than that.

These officers failed to take the most basic action to investigate Lee Chen's concerns. If they'd just done those few things we mentioned, lives might have been saved that day, including Elliot Rogers' own. But the visit from the police must have made something of an impression on Elliot because he took down the videos shortly thereafter, including the magnum opus. Why do girls hate me so much? He'd uploaded it again later shortly before the murder spree. In May, Elliot's been a few weeks just kind of driving around town. He wrote, during the last few years.

weeks of my life, I continued my daily adventures around town, trying to experience as much of the world as I could before I die. On Friday, May 23rd, he wrote, This is it. In one hour, I will have my revenge on this cruel world. I hate you all. Die. Then he googled, quiet, silent kill with a knife, and apparently practiced a while, which we know from stab and slash marks in some of his pillows and bed sheets. Shortly thereafter, he ambushed his roommates. Elliot attacked James, Hong and David Wang, probably separately, and stabbed each of them several times. Evidence text later found signs that Elliot had cleaned up the scene, likely in order to prevent future victims from knowing there was anything wrong. At some point during that

process, one of James and David's friends, a guy named George Chen showed up just to hang out, just an innocent guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Elliot stabbed him 94 times. David Wang had been his parents' pride and joy. At the time of his murder, he was planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park for later that summer. He was kind and smart and well-loved by pretty much everybody who knew him. He would have turned 21 in a couple months. His mother later told the press that she wished she could give her own life in exchange for her sons. His murder had shattered her heart.

James Hong had spent his childhood in Taiwan, and he was thriving in his new adopted country. He was a quiet guy, but friendly and sincere, and he loved helping people any chance he got. George Chen, the friend who just accidentally happened upon this horror show that day, was also studying computer science. He was great with kids and volunteered as a camp counselor. His family moved from Canada to San Jose when he was younger, and he had a wide circle of family and friends who adored him. We would die a hundred times, a thousand times, but we don't want our kids to get hurt, George's mother told the press. This shouldn't happen to any family. After the carnage at the apartment, Elliot uploaded his final video and emailed his manifesto to his parents.

He loaded up his BMW with the guns and ammo he'd collected and drove straight to the Alpha Phi sorority house at UCSB. He pounded on the front door, but the girls, thank God, didn't answer. So he never made it inside. But to the horror of several eyewitnesses, he shot three young women outside the house. Veronica Weiss, Katie Cooper, and a third young woman who hasn't been. identified, I assume, because she was the sole survivor. Veronica and Katie both died almost immediately. The third victim was rushed to the hospital.

Veronica Weiss was a freshman at UCSB. She was a tomboy, and in high school she was on the cross-country, swimming, and water polo teams. She got straight A's in school. She was especially great at math. She was kind and friendly and had a ton of friends at the Delta Delta Delta sorority. After news came out of the shooting and they couldn't find their daughter, Veronica's parents used the Find My iPhone feature to look for her, only to realize it was at one of the crime scenes. Katie Cooper was a senior, a trite alt just like Veronica.

She was smart and outgoing and kind. She'd majored in art history and archaeology. She had a ton of energy and loved ballroom dancing. Two more lives. Cut off cold. Leaving the three women lying in their own blood on the sorority house lawn, Elliot next drove to the Isla Vista Deli Mart, where he got out of his car and shot 20-year-old Christopher Michaels Martinez. Before Elliot snuffed out his life, Chris had been an English major with plans to go to law school. He had a reputation for warmth, an unusual ability to make

people feel comfortable and welcome. He loved to write, and he was a force on the basketball court. He'd spent the last full day of his life at a beach cleanup, trying to make his little corner of the world better for everybody. And my guess is if Chris had had a class with Elliot, he'd have probably tried to make friends with him. He was just that kind of guy. People spoke about it at his funeral what a heart of gold he had. But of course, Elliot had no interest in knowing any of the people he murdered. They were just tools to him. NPCs in a story where he was the star. But Elliot still wasn't done. He got back in his car and took off again, firing rounds at two more people walking on the sidewalk. He missed, thank God. But then he shot a couple who were coming out of a

pizza shop, that a woman on a bike injuring all three. He kept driving. He kept driving. firing from the driver's side window, swerving into the wrong side of the road to shoot at a woman. He missed her, but hit a pedestrian on the side of the road. He made a quick U-turn and headed west. By now, of course, law enforcement was on his tail, and a sheriff's deputy fired a shot at his car. Elliot shot back, and in the process hit two more pedestrians with the car. Elliot turned north to try to get away from the deputy, and he kept on shooting. He wounded three more people with the gun, then hit a skateboarder.

and two more people on bikes with the car. Turning the car around, he struck another skater and shot and injured two more men. At this point, there was no rhyme or reason to any of this. It seems like Elliot was just firing blindly at anybody he thought he could hit. Turns out that when you're not fantasizing, like you're a character in a video game, people don't just stand still and wait to be shot. Shocking, I know. By this point, cop cars were closing in on him.

He exchanged shots with a few more sheriff's deputies, and this time one of them hit him in the hip. Bleeding from the gunshot wound with cops on his tail, Elliot sped away, hitting yet another bicyclist with his car as he tried to escape from police. But it was a no-go. He crashed the car into several parked cars

near the intersection of Del Playa and Camino Pescadaro Road, and when the deputies caught up to his car, it was all over. They found Elliot Roger dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. In the car, they found a small arsenal of weapons, three handguns, nyes, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. All told, Elliot had killed six people, not including himself, and injured 14 more. Well, injured physically. The emotional damage went a lot, lot further.

Elliot's rampage was one of 273 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2014. And, of course, it didn't take long for investigators to find his manifesto and the hateful, misogynist videos he'd posted online. As shocked and devastated as Elliot's family was to learn the full extent of what had been going on in his mind in the last years of his life, not everybody was surprised. One of his former roommates, film student Chris Rugg, told reporters he'd been afraid of something like this happening. Chris had lived with Elliot about a year before the murders. He told Time Magazine, I had my opportunity living with him when I knew things were up that I could have called in and it was my opportunity to help and I didn't. Chris had moved out after he started, quote, getting really uncomfortable living there.

One of their other roommates had told Chris about Elliot's gun, and it freaked him out, especially when Elliot started dry fire in the thing in his bedroom. He told Time he would click the gun over and over, and the way the room is set up, you could see the silhouette of everything that's going on there. Elliot struck Chris as an awed dude, angry and aloof. He seemed to avoid being sociable with anybody else, but then he'd get frustrated that nobody wanted to hang out with him. Chris felt that Elliot's anger was developing a dark, unsettling edge.

And later, after the murders, he felt what a lot of people feel in the aftermath of something like this, guilt. He told the time reporter, for situations like this, it's a community's responsibility to help these people before something like this happens. And in Elliott's case, I guess we failed. But if we take from this and move forward, hopefully we can identify these people before anything happens in the future. And no doubt, it's important to keep an eye out for warning signs and try and intervene the way Lee Chen did, the way lots of people have tried in the past to warn parents or schools or law enforcement agencies before a mass murder occurred. Sometimes people listen and take the right steps and disaster is averted. I'm sure there have been cases that we'll never hear about where that

happened as well. Sometimes like in Elliott's case, they don't listen. But I hope Chris and everybody else knows that what this sniveling little snot stain did, he did by his own choice, and it's nobody's fault but his own. All I ever wanted was to love women, he wrote in his manifesto, and in turn to be loved by them back. Their behavior towards me has only earned my hatred, and rightfully so. I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy. Humanity struck at me first by condemning me to experience so much suffering. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. I didn't start this war. I wasn't the one who struck first, but I will finish it by striking back. I will punish everyone, and it will be beautiful. Finally, at long last, I can show the world

my true worth. Well, you definitely did that, Elliot. You definitely showed us your worth. And by the way, you wouldn't know love if it's shit in your hair. But here we see his victim mentality and its full flower, once again, just like it was when his friend finally got sick of his creepy bullshit and ended the friendship, just like it was when he whines about not getting the first piece of cake at a birthday party when he was three years old, which I swear to God is one of the stories in the manifesto. And we talked about this a little bit in part one, that there's this myth that's managed to worm its way into the public consciousness that mass shooters are just poor bullied kids who couldn't take it anymore and snapped, but it bears repeating and repeating

and repeating again, these assholes are not the victims. More often than not, the mass shooters are the bullies. The Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, are the perfect example of this. Columbine was one of the first mass shootings that really captured the world's attention. And in the aftermath, as everybody was looking for a reason why, people latched on to the idea that Eric and Dylan did what they did because they'd been bullied. But that could not be further from the truth. Eric and Dylan were bullies. They terrorized freshmen. They tossed around gay slurs, and they were generally antisocial dickheads that got off on having power over other people. Like, I hope they're fucking rolling in their graves of the idea that they're pathetic losers who lash out of the bullies.

They loved the idea of the power that they'd wield. They wanted to turn to. Columbine into a crater. And like we've said before, like, don't get us wrong. Bullying is a horrible thing to do. I was bullied throughout my school days. Whitney, so were you. I would never say that it's not wrong to be a bully. But putting the responsibility of what amounts to a terrorist attack on the victims is

supremely fucked up. Amen to that. Nicholas Cruz is another example of that. Kids didn't want to hang out with him because he was mean. Yeah. If Elliot was telling the truth about the way. he was bullied, that's 100% awful and the school should have stepped in. But girls not wanting to have sex with you or calling you skater boy is not a reason to kill anyone. This is a way more

complex issues than that. Oh yeah. People didn't like Elliot because he was a selfish, egomaniacal little rage gremlin. And that was nobody's fault but his own. And like you were saying, he cast himself as the victim no matter what was going on. So how the hell do we know when he was actually being bullied or when he was just being an out of control narcissist monster. Exactly. Like, if you read the manifesto, which I would not really

suggest anybody do, because it's pretty much the emotional equivalent of a colonoscopy without the anesthesia. He does this thing over and over again where he'll be like, and then the most traumatizing thing in the history of time happened. And it's always

something like, my friend got a girlfriend and he kissed her in front of me. Like, yeah, exactly. That minor a thing, something that someone with a stronger sense of self and better emotional control wouldn't think twice about. And it was just devastating for Elliott, life ruining, a betrayal. We could go on all day, y'all. And we are actually planning another episode for our Patreon subscribers on all this in-cell stuff with some interesting slash terrifying stuff about mass shooters thrown in. I read like four books.

It's horrible. But I think the best way to wrap up the Elliott Roger story might be to share just a snippet of the ideal world he wanted us all to live in. This is from my twisted world. And be aware, it's gross. If you're not in a place where you can handle some seriously fucked up misogynistic rhetoric today, then you should listen another time. Women are like a plague. They don't deserve to have any rights. Their wickedness must be contained in order. to prevent future generations from falling to degeneracy. Women are vicious, evil, barbaric animals, and they need to be treated as such. Now, this is his suggestion for fixing the problem,

totally abolishing sex. And understand, this isn't unusual rhetoric for in cells. This shit is par for the course on those forums. Oh, very much so. All men will grow up fair and equal, because no man will be able to experience the pleasures of sex while others are denied it. The human race will evolve to an entirely new level of civilization,

completely devoid of all the impurity and degeneracy that exists today. On today's episode of dipshits who don't know what evolve means... In order to completely abolish sex, women themselves would have to be abolished. All women must be quarantined like the plague they are, so that they can be used in a manner that actually benefits a civilized society. In order to carry this out, there must exist a new and powerful type of government under the control of one divine ruler, such as myself. The ruler that establishes this new order would have complete control over every aspect of society in order to direct it towards a good and pure place. At the disposal of this government, there needs to be a highly trained army of fanatically loyal troops in order to enforce such revolutionary laws.

Oh, this sounds fun. Jesus. The first strike against women will be to quarantine all of them in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death. That would be an efficient and fitting way to kill them all off. I would take great pleasure and satisfaction in condemning every single woman on earth to starve to death. I would have an enormous tower built just for myself, where I can oversee the entire concentration camp and gleefully watch them all die. Okay, wow. Can I say? now? I've been avoiding the comparison until now. I think I'm allowed to say it. Hitler much?

Hitler, definitely. If I can't have them, no one will. I'd imagine thinking to myself as I oversee this. Women represent everything that is unfair with this world, says the poor little rich kid who grew up going to Hollywood parties and living in his daddy's lavish house. And in order to make the world a fair place, they must all be eradicated. A few women would be spared, however. Well, then they're not all eradicated, are they? He's a terrible writer. That's part of what irritates me about him.

Just part of that. He's terrible. A few women would be spared, however, for the sake of reproduction. These women would be kept and bred in secret labs. There, they will be artificially inseminated with sperm samples in order to produce offspring. Their depraved nature will slowly be bred out of them in time. Future generations of men would be oblivious to these remains. women's existence, and that is for the best. If a man grows up without knowing the existence of

women, there will be no desire for sex. Sexuality will completely cease to exist. Bro, I don't know how to tell you this. That's the funniest part right there that people, we just won't, we just won't think about. Please, ask the fucking ancient Greek and Roman soldiers about that little premise, would you please? Ask people in prison. Exactly. There's a reason, there's a reason there's the whole gay for the stay thing like that's yeah okay sexuality does not cease to exist you fucking turnip god he's an idiot just wait for this next part love will cease to exist there will no longer be any imprint of such concepts in the human psyche it is the only way to purify the world so there you have it um this is what comes of thinking of women as something you get rather than people you get to know

when you let fear win morph itself into anger and lash out at anything that scares you if eliot had just been brave enough to open himself up a little figure out what it means to give something to other people instead of just expecting it to be given i don't think we'd be sitting here talking about this today like did he ever stop to think how would i feel if i was forced to have sex with somebody i didn't find attractive if some annoying woman considered me evil just because i wasn't interested in her you know the greatest irony to me about this whole in-cell thing is how they've convinced themselves that they're the only ones with their eyes open, that everybody else is just a sheep and following along with the status quo, when really all they

need to solve their whole dilemma is just some gritty-ass, fearless self-examination. Marcus Parks from last podcast on the left said something once that's stuck with me ever since. If every woman you come into contact with hates you, it's your fault. If women are repulsed by your presence, it's your fault. Yes. And I would say that to anybody, like don't even put gender lines on. it. Like if you can't get along with anybody, it's you. It's you. It's you. It's you. Because the common denominator is you. It's so simple, but it's true. You know, Elliot turned people off because he felt

like everybody owed him something. He never stopped to consider what he might offer them in return. You know, I'm not saying I'm the hottest thing going, okay, but I could have probably been considered a Stacey in my day. In fact, except that I'm not blonde. I think I probably was a Stacey. And I've never dated Chad one. Okay? I'm attracted to sweet dudes who are funny. like Mystery Science Theater 3,000, and treat me with respect. British accent, a plus. And look, most of the men I know would rather break their own arms than treat women the way Smelly it did.

Thankfully, these people are in the extreme minority, but they're out there. Make no mistake about it. Working each other into a latherer in these internet groups, feeding each other poison. Elliot's toxicity led to Alec Menassian's toxicity four years later. And they're missing out on the best parts of life because at the end of the day, they're scared to death. And honestly, I feel for him. I'm sad for them. Yeah, I hate that I pity them, but I do.

It's sad as hell. I want to hug them all and be like, who hurt you, man? Like, you don't have to do this. It's really sad. You know they'd cop a feel if you tried to hug them. That's the worst part. It's like they don't want our pity. They don't want our sympathy.

No, I know. They're so full of anger. It's just awful. It's baffling. It's baffling. And dudes like this will always say, I'm nice. I would treat a woman like a princess, but those bitches don't care about that. They only want rich handsome men who treat them like shit.

And I just want to say that being nice isn't a reason for somebody to sleep with you. Being nice to people is like the bare fucking minimum of human interaction. Like take your niceness and go treat a barista like a human, okay? Further, it's not nice to treat somebody kindly with the expectation that they will eventually fuck you. That's not nice behavior. And what else are you bringing to the relationship, aside from the niceness? Are you going to get along with my friends? Are you going to do things that I enjoy even though they're not your thing?

Are you going to listen to and empathize with my problems? Are you going to hold my hair back when I'm throwing up with food poisoning? Or do you consider me to be a doll that should be fuckable upon command without any needs or expectations of my own? I suspect it's the last thing. And that's not very fucking nice at all. And that, fellas, is the truth. Put that pill in your pipe and smoke it. So that was a wild one, right, campers?

You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Esther, Sarah, Jessica, Kim, Ruth, Anne, Rebecca, and Stacy. That's appropriate. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out.

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