On May 23, 2014, California college student Elliot Rodger went on a deadly rampage because he was angry that women didn't like him — and he left behind a chilling manifesto explaining his "revenge on society."
In May 2014, Isla Vista, California, became a hunting ground for Elliot Rodger. The 22-year-old went on a violent rampage that claimed the lives of six people and then died by suicide — all because he was angry that women didn’t like him.
YouTubeElliot Rodger posted videos to his YouTube channel about his frustration due to being unable to find a girlfriend and his deep-seated hatred toward women.
Just before the massacre, Rodger shared a chilling video on YouTube titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution” explaining his motives for the killings. In it, he ranted about how he wanted to hurt women for not having sex with him. He also said that he hated men who were successful with women because he felt that he was better than many of them.
In addition, Rodger left behind a 137-page manifesto that delved into his childhood and explored how he had come to harbor such anger. He wrote that he had “no choice but to exact revenge” on the society that had denied him a “happy, healthy life of love and sex.”
Perhaps most disturbingly of all, the 2014 Isla Vista killings sparked several copycat attacks by men who hailed Rodger as an “incel hero.”
Elliot Rodger’s Turbulent Early Life
Elliot Oliver Robertson Rodger was born in London on July 24, 1991. He was the son of British filmmaker Peter Rodger, who was a unit director of the popular 2012 movie The Hunger Games. His mother, Li Chin, was a Malaysian Chinese nurse.
The family relocated to Los Angeles in 1996. His parents divorced when he was seven, and his father later remarried Soumaya Akaaboune, a Moroccan actress. Elliot didn’t get along with his stepmother. They often argued, especially when she tried to discipline him, as he was not used to hearing the word “no.”
When Rodger started school, he faced severe bullying from the other students and had virtually no social life. He always longed to belong to the popular groups, but he struggled to fit in wherever he went.
Public DomainElliot Rodger called himself a “supreme gentleman” and was deeply upset about being a virgin at 22.
As Rodger reached his teen years, he desperately wanted a girlfriend, but no matter how hard he tried, girls didn’t want anything to do with him. He started to feel intense hatred toward couples and would become jealous whenever he saw them together.
“This was an all-boys school,” Rodger recalled in his manifesto. “How in the hell were those boys even able to meet girls to have sex with?… I hoped they were lying. I hoped against all hope.”
Rodger went on to recount an incident that happened at the end of his freshman year of high school:
“[O]ne of my obnoxious classmates named Jesse was bragging about having sex with his girlfriend. I defiantly told him that I didn’t believe him, so he played a voice recording of what sounded like him and his girlfriend having sex. I could hear a girl saying his name over and over again… He grinned at me smugly. I felt so inferior to him, and I hated him.”
Rodger’s parents transferred him to a different high school for his sophomore year — but things only got worse.
What Drove Elliot Rodger To Mass Murder?
Elliot Rodger left his second high school after just one week because he was bullied so severely. He then transferred to a small school with only 100 students, from which he graduated in 2010. Rodger enrolled in community college, but he left when he wasn’t able to make friends or meet girls.
He then attended Moorpark College, but he wrote in his manifesto that it, too, became “a place of loneliness and despair.” Rodger explained, “The breaking point was when I saw good looking couples walking along the area where I dreamed of walking with a girlfriend. To watch another boy experience it, with a beautiful girl who should be mine, was a living hell.”
By June 2011, Rodger’s parents had become concerned about his lack of a social life. He was spending all of his time playing the online computer game World of Warcraft. They moved him to Isla Vista, where they paid for his classes at Santa Barbara City College and covered the rent for an apartment.
On his first day at his new school, Rodger was excited to see the “pretty girls” he would be in class with. “I was sure I had an attractive appearance that day,” he wrote, “but those girls didn’t seem to notice it. Perhaps I was deluding myself.”
Facebook/Elliot RodgerElliot Rodger lived a privileged life, but he felt that society owed him more.
Over the next three years, Elliot Rodger became increasingly more hostile. On at least three separate occasions, he threw drinks at couples who were kissing in public and women who didn’t smile at him.
In July 2013, Rodger went to a house party in an attempt to lose his virginity. When no women would talk to him, he climbed up on a ledge and pretended to shoot people with an invisible gun. He then tried to push women off the ledge, but a group of men knocked him off instead. Rodger broke his ankle, and he later told the police that he’d been attacked unprovoked, though witnesses confirmed that Rodger had been the instigator.
This incident was the final spark that caused Elliot Rodger to plan his “Day of Retribution.” From August 2013 to May 2014, he painstakingly planned out his massacre.
In the months leading up to the 2014 Isla Vista killings, Rodger uploaded at least 22 videos to his YouTube channel discussing his frustration with his failed attempts at attracting women. He described himself as the “ideal magnificent gentleman” and couldn’t understand why women didn’t notice him despite his good looks, fancy clothes, and expensive car.
Then, on May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger carried out his “violent act of revenge” that he called “the final solution to dealing with all the injustices I’ve had to face at the hands of women and society.”
The 2014 Isla Vista Killings
On Friday, May 23, 2014, armed with three guns and two knives, 22-year-old Rodger started his terrifying attack by fatally stabbing his two roommates and one of their friends in their apartment. The Los Angeles Times reported in February 2015 that the three victims were Cheng Yuan Hong, 20; Weihann Wang, 20; and George Chen, 19.
Altogether, Rodger stabbed the men 134 times. He then changed his bloody clothes, went to Starbucks, ordered a vanilla latte, and returned back to his apartment. There, he wrote in his diary, “This is it. In one hour I will have my revenge on this cruel world. I HATE YOU ALLLL! DIE.”
YouTubeThe final journal entry Elliot Rodger wrote before going on his murderous rampage.
Rodger also emailed his manifesto to dozens of people, including his family members and therapists. He then uploaded a final seven-minute YouTube video in which he stated, “You girls have never been attracted to me… I will punish you all for it.”
Around 9:15 p.m., Elliot Rodger arrived at the Alpha Phi sorority house at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He targeted the house, he wrote, because it was “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.”
When he tried to enter the house, he discovered that the door was locked, and though he banged on it for several minutes, nobody opened it. Angry, Rodger returned to his car and started shooting people at random, killing 22-year-old Katherine Cooper and 19-year-old Veronika Weiss.
Rodger then began driving around Isla Vista, firing his guns and hitting people with his car. In less than eight minutes, he had injured 14 other people and killed 20-year-old Christopher Michaels-Martinez.
Wikimedia CommonsA memorial for the victims of the 2014 Isla Vista killings outside the store where Rodger shot Christopher Michaels-Martinez.
The police soon caught up with Rodger, and he exchanged gunfire with them before shooting himself in the head.
The Isla Vista killings were over — but they sparked several copycat attacks, including the 2018 massacre in Toronto that left 11 people dead. According to a report by the BBC at the time, just minutes before Alek Minassian drove a van through a group of pedestrians, he posted on Facebook: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”
In the final lines of his manifesto, Rodger had written, “I am the true victim in all of this. I am the good guy… Finally, at long last, I can show the world my true worth.” Instead, he took six innocent lives and left behind a legacy of hatred and anger that continues to haunt his loved ones and the families of his victims.
After reading about Elliot Rodger and the 2014 Isla Vista killings, learn about the Columbine High School shooting and the two teens who carried out the massacre. Then, go inside the 10 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
