At a Saturday evening press conference, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office explained that three of Santa Barbara drive-by shooter Elliot Rodger’s six victims were not shot down in the street, as previously thought, but stabbed to death in the 22-year-old’s Isla Vista home. Meanwhile, the other three people killed by Rodger have been identified as UC Santa Barbara students Veronika Weiss, Katie Cooper, and Christopher Michael-Martinez. All three died from gunshot wounds. The number of people reported injured by Rodger during his Friday night rampage has climbed to 13.
In a statement to the press, Michael-Martinez’s distraught father, Richard Martinez, expressed his frustration with politicians, the National Rifle Association, and what he called the “madness” that caused his son’s death. “Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live? When will this insanity stop?” Martinez asked. “When will enough people say, ‘Stop this madness!’ Too many have died. We should say to ourselves, ‘Not one more!’”
Indeed, police found three guns in Rodger’s apartment, all of which had been purchased legally. The New York Times reports that deputies pulled dozens of bags of evidence from the apartment complex with labels like “handwritten journal,” “2 machetes, 1 knife, 1 hammer,” and “Bags of empty Ammo boxes found under bed.”
Among the evidence was also a 141-page document titled “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger.” Similar to the collection of videos found on Rodger’s YouTube channel, the manifesto contains the biographical details of his life, descriptions of loneliness, alienation, and violent rage at his peers, particularly women.
Passages include explanations like: “ … women’s rejection of me was a declaration of war,” and “I was desperate to have the life I know I deserve; a life of being wanted by attractive girls, a life of sex and love. Other men are able to have such a life … so why not me? I deserve it! I am magnificent, no matter how much the world treated me otherwise. I am destined for great things.”
Perhaps most alarming is Rodger’s detailed plan for the rampage he carried out on Friday: “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 Isla Vista by luring them into my apartment through some form of trickery.”
