People close to Elliot Rodger were not surprised that the turned to a serial killer.
In Yesterday’s New York Times there was a long story about the killer Elliot Rodger and the article basically sums up the idea that many people who knew Rodger as a kid were not surprised that he ended up killing six people.
The New York Times pointed out that it all started in 1999 when Elliot Rodger’s parents were trying to solve their son’s psychological problems, Elliot was only 8 years old.
Mr. Rodger’s mother, Li Chin, filed an affidavit describing Elliot as a “high-functioning autistic child,” and said she needed more child support to care for him. His father, Peter Rodger, countered with a Beverly Hills doctor, Stephen M. Scappa, who challenged that diagnosis, saying it failed to acknowledge the possibility of “depression or anxiety.” Dr. Scappa said that Elliot, almost 8 at the time, should be sent to a child psychiatrist for more examination and treatment.
The article continues to point out that Elliot Rodgers grew up as a lonely and introverted kid. They would try to set him up on play dates and take him to numerous counselors to therapists and urged him to take antipsychotic medication as he was moved from school to school. But, none of this seemed to help. Elliot Rodger’s mother would later buy him the now famous, Black BMW, to help “improve his stature”.
Many people where not surprised by the actions and noticed that he had an extremely dark side. A poster on a bodybuilding forum told Rodger to his face that he came off like a murderer.
As Mr. Rodger’s “Day of Retribution,” as he called it, approached, there were signs of what he was plotting. One poster on Bodybuilding.com, another website where he shared his views, noted that Mr. Rodger had taken down a video titled “Why Do Girls Hate Me So Much?” This person said the video had made him look like a serial killer. “I’m not trying to be mean, but the creepy vibe that you give off in those videos is likely the major reason that you can’t get girls,” he wrote.
Overall it appears as though Elliot Rodger had a very dark childhood.
Simon Astaire, an author and agent who has been a family friend for over 10 years and has been acting as the family’s spokesman, described attending a Christmas party at Peter Rodger’s hillside home in Woodland Hills and wandering out into the cool night to come across Elliot, then 12, staring into the black sky. He said Elliot had lowered his head and started sharing his loneliness before turning back wordlessly toward the heavens.
“He wasn’t just a little withdrawn,” Mr. Astaire said. “He was as withdrawn as any person I ever met in my life.”
But, at the end the day it is hard to blame anyone that knew Elliot before the tragedy. His parents were very much aware of his mental state and attempted to give him professional help. A number of people who met Elliot Rodger saw something like the shooting in the future, but no one could stop it from happening, and it seems that no one can be at fault.
The New York Times pointed out that “Most people who go through these steps never act out in a violent way, never go beyond contemplation of it,” said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist in San Diego and an editor of the International Handbook of Threat Assessment. “You can’t predict who will and who won’t.”
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