Elliot Rodger, the suspect in a rampage near UC Santa Barbara, outlined his intentions in a 137-page document that he sent Friday night, shortly before the killings, to someone he knew from an online body building forum.

The document was forwarded to KEYT-TV Channel 3 in Santa Barbara, which provided a copy to The Times.

WARNING: The document contains graphic language.

[The plan]


After going through every single fantasy I had about how I would punish my enemies, I started to detail all of my exact plans for how the Day of Retribution will play out.

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. 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. 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.

The Second Phase will take place on the Day of Retribution itself, just before the climactic massacre.

The Second Phase will represent my War on Women. I will punish 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.

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. 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 all 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 9:00 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!

The Final Phase of the Day of Retribution will be my ultimate showdown in the streets of Isla 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 … as she will be in the way. 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 even have to postpone the whole plan because of my fear that I might hesitate if I have to kill him. Once I’ve taken care of my brother and stepmother, I will switch over to the Mercedes SUV, and drive it back up to Isla 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 coupe.

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, assuming they would arrive within 3 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 I’ve always witnessed walking right in the middle of the road as if they are better than everyone else. When they are writhing in pain, their bodies broken and dying after I splatter them, they will fully realize their crimes.

Once I reach Del Playa Street, I will dump the bag of severed heads I had saved from my previous victims, proclaiming to everyone how much I’ve made them all suffer. Once they see all of their friend’s heads roll onto the street, everyone will fear me as the powerful god I am. I will then start massacring everyone on Del Playa Street.


I will pull up next to a house party and fire bullets at everyone partying on the front yard. I will specifically target the good looking people, and all of the couples. After I have destroyed a house party, I will continue down Del Playa, 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.

On the week leading up to date I set for the Day of Retribution, I uploaded several videos onto Youtube in order to express my views and feelings to the world, though I don’t plan on uploading my ultimate video until minutes before the attack, because on that video I will talk about exactly why I’m doing this. …


After only a week passed since I uploaded those videos on Youtube, I heard a knock on my apartment door. I opened it to see about seven police officers asking for me.

As soon as I saw those cops, the biggest fear I had ever felt in my life overcame me.

I had the striking and devastating fear that someone had somehow discovered what I was planning to do, and reported me for it.

If that was the case, the police would have searched my room, found all of my guns and weapons, along with my writings about what I plan to do with them. I would have been thrown in jail, denied of the chance to exact revenge on my enemies. I can’t imagine a hell darker than that. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, but it was so close.


Apparently, someone saw my videos and became instantly suspicious of me. They called some sort of health agency, who called the police to check up on me.

The police told me it was my mother who called them, but my mother told me it was the health agency. My mother had watched the videos and was very disturbed by them. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the full truth of who called the police on me.

The police interrogated me outside for a few minutes, asking me if I had suicidal thoughts. I tactfully told them that it was all a misunderstanding, and they finally left. If they had demanded to search my room… That would have ended everything. For a few horrible seconds I thought it was all over. When they left, the biggest wave of relief swept over me. It was so scary.

It was all because of the videos. I must have expressed too much anger in them.


I immediately took most of them off of Youtube, and planned to reupload them a few days before the Day of Retribution.

This incident made me realize that I needed to be extra careful. I can’t let anyone become suspicious of me. All it takes is for one person to call the police and tell them that they think I’m going to perpetrate a shooting, and the police will be coming to my door again, demanding to search my room.

For the next few days, I felt extremely fearful that they could show up anytime. I kept one of my handguns with a few loaded magazines near me just in case such a thing did happen. If they did show up, I would have to try to quickly shoot them all and escape out the back window. I would then have to perform a hasty mockery of my plans, with the police on my tail. That will ruin everything. Thankfully, all suspicion of me was dropped after I took down the videos from Youtube, and the police never came back.

During the last few 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 purchasing his first gun]

My first act of preparation was the purchase my first handgun. I did this quickly and hastily, at a local gun shop called Goleta Gun and Supply. I had already done some research on handguns, and I decided to purchase the Glock 34 semiautomatic pistol, an efficient and highly accurate weapon. I signed all of the papers and was told that my pickup day was in mid-December.

After I picked up the handgun, I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. I was now armed. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches

[On buying additional weapons]


I had enough extra money saved up to live comfortably and indulgently before I die. I didn’t spend all of it though, for I still needed supplies that were vital to my plans. First, I needed to buy a third handgun, just in case one of them jams. I needed two working handguns at the same time, as that was how I planned to commit suicide; with two simultaneous shots to the head. I also needed to buy magazine clips and ammunition, as well as knives and carrying cases for my equipment.

[On interracial relationships]

How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more. I tried not to believe his foul words, but they were already said, and it was hard to erase from my mind. If this is actually true, if this ugly black filth was able to have sex with a blonde white girl at the age of thirteen while I’ve had to suffer virginity all my life, then this just proves how ridiculous the female gender is. They would give themselves to this filthy scum, but they reject ME? The injustice!

[On Santa Barbara]


So far, Santa Barbara was not working. I dreaded how horrible it would be to continue suffering my miserable, lonely, celibate life in such a beautiful city where everyone else experienced the pleasures of sex and love. That would be the darkest hell. And that was exactly what was in store for me.

[The sight of an attractive couple ‘caused a scar’]

On one of my very last days as a teenager, as I was sitting at my usual place at the food court outside Domino’s, I saw a sight that shattered my heart to pieces. A tall, blonde, jock-type guy walked into one of the restaurants, and at his side was one of the sexiest girls I had ever seen. She too was tall and blonde. They were both taller than me, and they kissed each other passionately. They made me feel so inferior and worthless and small. I glared at them with intense hatred as I sat by myself in my lonely misery. I could never have a girl like that. The sight was burned into my memory, and it caused a scar that will haunt me forever.

[Women are drawn ‘to the wrong type of male’]


When I dropped my college classes, I crossed a threshold that I knew existed, but never actually believed I would cross. It completely ended all hope I had of living a desirable life in Santa Barbara. I realized that I would be a virgin forever, condemned to suffer rejection and humiliation at the hands of women because they don’t fancy me, because their sexual attractions are flawed.

They are attracted to the wrong type of male. I always mused to myself that I would rather die than suffer such an existence, and I knew that if it came to that, I would exact my revenge upon the world in the most catastrophic way possible. At least then, I could die knowing that I fought back against the injustice that has been dealt to me.

Thinking about for a long time: Ever since my life took a very dark turn at the age of seventeen, I often had fantasies of how malevolently satisfying it would be to punish all of the popular kids and young couples for the crime of having a better life than me. I dreamed of how sweet it would be to torture or kill every single young couple I saw.

[On planning a ‘Day of Retribution’]


Then I came up with a name for this after I saw all of the good looking young couples walking around my college and in the town of Isla Vista. I named it the Day of Retribution.

It would be a day in which I exact my ultimate retribution and revenge on all of the hedonistic scum who enjoyed lives of pleasure that they don’t deserve. If I can’t have it, I will destroy it. I will destroy all women because I can never have them. I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to. And I will slaughter them like the animals they are.

If they won’t accept me among them, then they are my enemies. They showed me no mercy, and in turn I will show them no mercy. The prospect will be so sweet, and justice will ultimately be served. And of course, I would have to die in the act to avoid going to prison.

That is when I realized that this threshold existed, and if I crossed it, I will have to carry out this Day of Retribution.


[On losing a friend]

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. 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.

My situation was indeed horrible. I couldn’t leave the house without seeing a young couple walking around somewhere. Everywhere I went, I was all by myself, while other young people had friends and girlfriends. I was ashamed to show myself to the world. Even though I wore expensive designer clothes, what was the point if girls still weren’t attracted to me? No one respects a man who is unable to get a woman.


[‘If only one girl had given me a chance’]

I wanted answers. I wanted to know why it had to come to this. If only one pretty girl had shown some form of attraction to me, the Day of Retribution would never happen. I’d never even consider it. The Day of Retribution is mainly my war against women for rejecting me and depriving me of sex and love. If only one girl had given me a chance, tried to get to know me, let me take her out on a date.

[An exchange of insults at a party leads to ‘a truly horrific’ beating]

They only laughed at me and started insulting me back. That was the last straw, I had taken enough insults that night. 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. My main target was the girls. I wanted to punish them for talking to the obnoxious boys instead of me.


It was one of the most foolish and rash things I ever did, and I almost risked everything in doing it, but I was so drunk with rage that I didn’t care. I failed to push any of them from the ledge, and the boys started to push me, which resulted in me being the one to fall onto the street. When I landed, I felt a snap in my ankle, followed by a stinging pain. I slowly got up and found that I couldn’t even walk. I had to stumble, and stumble I did. I tried to get away from there as fast as I could.

As I stumbled a few yards down Del Playa with my shattered leg, I realized that someone had stolen my Gucci sunglasses that my mother had given me. I loved those sunglasses, and had to get them back. I vehemently turned around and staggered back towards the party. At that point, I was so drunk that I forgot where the party was, and ended up walking onto the front yard of the house next to it, demanding to know who took my sunglasses. The people in this house must have been friends with the ones I previously fought with, for they greeted me with vicious hostility. They called me names … typical things those types of scumbags would say.

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. Eventually, some other people from the street broke up the fight. I managed to have the strength to stand up and stagger away.

It was the first time in my life that I had been truly beaten up physically to the point where my face was bruised up. I had suffered a lot of bullying in my life, but most of it wasn’t physical. I had never been beaten and humiliated that badly. Everyone in Isla Vista saw what happened, and it was truly horrific.


The worst part of this whole ordeal was not getting beaten up, oh no. It was the fact that no one showed any concern. There was only one group who helped me to the end of Del Playa, but after that they abandoned me.

Not one girl offered to help me as I stumbled home with a broken leg, beaten and bloody. If girls had been attracted to me, they would have offered to walk me to my room and take care of me. They would have even offered to sleep with me to make me feel better. But no, not one girl showed an ounce of concern for me. They didn’t care. No one cared about me. I was all alone. ….

Two police did interview me, and I told them that those boys deliberately pushed me off of the ledge after I acted “cocky” towards them. I didn’t mention the girls at all. I expressed to the police of my wishes that they should all be punished for this. The police then went to interview them, and they had their own version of the story. Since there was no actual evidence, the whole case was shortly dismissed.

[‘A car hierarchy’]


To make me feel more confident, my mother provided me with a better car to drive in Santa Barbara, a BMW 3 series Coupe. I had always wanted this, since I cared a lot about my appearance. I had been asking my parents for a more upper-class car ever since I found out that there was a car hierarchy, and that some students at my college drove better cars than others. Now I was one of the students with a better, high-class car.

[How his injury delayed the rampage]

My broken leg was a setback, of course. Even with surgery, I’d have to be in crutches for six weeks, and even after that it would take a while to be able to walk normally again. I figured I won’t be walking normally until October. There was no way I’d be well enough to prepare for the Day of Retribution by November. There was too little time. I made a new plan to set the ultimate and final date for the Day of Retribution to be at the end of the Spring of 2014. This would give me plenty of time to prepare.

[A cold postponed the rampage again]

As April 26th drew ever closer, I prepared myself to the fullest extent. All I had left to do was finish writing this story and film my final video. But then, on Thursday, April 24th, I woke up with a terrible cold. I rarely ever get colds! I’ve always had a strong immune system. It was as if fate itself was trying to stop me from doing it. But what other reason do I have for living? Alas, there was no way I could carry out my plans if I had a cold. Everything had to be perfect. In addition, I found out that father had arrived home two days earlier than he originally said he would, so if I had indeed went forth with my plans, I would have had to kill my father, which I wouldn’t be mentally prepared for.


I hastily decided to postpone it …. I would definitely be fully recovered from my cold by then.

[How he chose this weekend]

There is no postponing it anymore, no backing out. If I don’t do this, then I only have a future filled with more loneliness and rejection ahead of me, devoid of sex, love, and enjoyment. I have to do it. It’s the only thing I can do. May 24th, is the absolute last weekend in the Spring semester in which I can carry out this plan efficiently. After May 24th, the Spring semester at SBCC [Santa Barbara City College] will end, and all of the SBCC students will go back to their hometowns, which means less enemies to kill in Isla Vista. Sure, UCSB would still be in session, but I want to kill both UCSB and SBCC students. The Day of Retribution is my sole purpose on this world, and I am ready.

[On his birth and family background]


On the morning of July 24th, 1991, in a London hospital, I was born. I breathed in the first breath of

life as I entered this world, weighing only 5.4 pounds. My parents must have been filled with happiness

and pride that day. They had just witnessed the birth of their first child, and they named me Elliot Oliver Robertson Rodger.

I was born to young parents. My father, Peter Rodger, was only 26 when he impregnated my mother, Chin, who was 30. Peter is of British descent, hailing from the prestigious Rodger family; a family that was once part of the wealthy upper classes before they lost all of their fortune during the Great Depression.


My father’s father, George Rodger, was a renowned photojournalist who had taken very famous photographs during the Second World War, though he failed to reacquire the family’s lost fortune. My mother is of Chinese descent. She was born in Malaysia, and moved to England at a young age to work as a nurse on several film sets, where she became friends with very important individuals in the film industry.

[On his parents’ divorce]

Very shortly after my seventh birthday, the news came. I believe it was my mother who told me that she and my father were getting a divorce; my mother, who only a few months before told me that sucha thing will never happen. I was absolutely shocked, outraged, and above all, overwhelmed. This was a huge life-changing event.

My father was to stay at the round house, and my mother would move to another smaller house in Topanga. It was arranged that me and my sister will mostly be living with our mother, and we would go to father’s house on the weekends. My father was required to pay child support to my mother so that she can look after us.


My life would change forever after this. The family I grew up with has split in half, and from then on I would grow up in two different households. I remember crying. All the happy times I spent with my mother and father as a family were gone, only to remain in memory. It was a very sad day. Just like the move to the U.S., it would be like starting a whole new life with a new routine. …

Because of my father’s acquisition of a new girlfriend, my little mind got the impression that my father was a man that women found attractive, as he was able to find a new girlfriend in such a short period of time from divorcing my mother. I subconsciously held him in higher regard because of this. It is very interesting how this phenomenon works… that males who can easily find female mates garner more respect from their fellow men, even children. How ironic is it that my father, one of those men who could easily find a girlfriend, has a son who would struggle all his life to find a girlfriend.

[‘Feelings of inferiority’]

The first frustration of the year, which would remain for the rest of my life, was the fact that I was very short for my age. As Fourth Grade started, it fully dawned on me that I was the shortest kid in my class – even the girls were taller than me. In the past, I rarely gave a thought to it, but at this stage I became extremely annoyed at how everyone was taller than me, and how the tallest boys were automatically respected more.


It instilled the first feelings of inferiority in me, and such feelings would only grow more volatile with time…. When I played basketball at school, some boys would join me, and when they did I saw that they were much better at the sport than me. I envied their ability to throw the ball at double the distance than I could. This made me realize that along with being short, I was physically weak compared to other boys my age. Even boys younger than me were stronger. This vexed me to no end.

By nature, I am a very jealous person, and at the age of nine my jealous nature sprung to the surface. During play dates, [a friend] would have other friends over as well, and I would feel very jealous and upset when he paid more attention to them. Feeling left out, I would find a quiet corner and start crying.

…Jealousy and envy… those are two feelings that would dominate my entire life and bring me immense pain. The feelings of jealousy I felt at nine-years-old were frustrating, but they were nothing compared to how I would feel once I hit puberty and have to watch girls choosing other boys over me. Any problem I had at nine-years-old was nirvana compared to what I was doomed to face.

I also started to examine myself and compare myself to these “cool kids”. I realized, with some horror, that I wasn’t “cool” at all. I had a dorky hairstyle, I wore plain and uncool clothing, and I was shy and unpopular.


I was always described as the shy boy in the past, but I never really thought my shyness would affect me in a negative way, until this point. …This revelation about the world, and about myself, really decreased my self-esteem. On top of this was the feeling that I was different because I am of mixed race. I am half White, half Asian, and this made me different from the normal fully-white kids that I was trying to fit in with.

I envied the cool kids, and I wanted to be one of them. I was a bit frustrated at my parents for not shaping me into one of these kids in the past. They never made an effort to dress me in stylish clothing or get me a good-looking haircut. I had to make every effort to rectify this. I had to adapt.

My first act was to ask my parents to allow me to bleach my hair blonde. I always envied and admired blonde-haired people, they always seemed so much more beautiful.

My parents agreed to let me do it, and father took me to a hair salon on Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills. Choosing that hair salon was a bad decision, for they only bleached the top of my head blonde. When I indignantly questioned why they didn’t make all of my hair blonde, they said that I was too young for a full bleaching. I was furious.


I thought I looked so silly with blonde hair at the top of my head and black hair at the sides and back. I dreaded going to school the next day with this weird new hair.

When I arrived at school the next day, I was intensely nervous. Before class started, I stood in a corner franticly trying to figure out how I would go about revealing this to everyone. … My new hair turned out to be quite a spectacle, and for a few days I got a hint of the attention and admiration I so craved.

[On Asian Americans]

There were about one hundred people at that party, and everyone was socializing with a group of friends except for me. I walked around in my drunken confidence for a few moments, helped myself to the beer they had, and tried to act like a normal party-goer.


I soon became frustrated that no one was paying any attention to me, particularly the girls. I saw girls talking to other guys who looked like obnoxious slobs, but none of them showed any interest in me. As my frustration grew, so did my anger. I came across this Asian guy who was talking to a white girl.

The sight of that filled me with rage. I always felt as if white girls thought less of me because I was half-Asian, but then I see this white girl at the party talking to a full-blooded Asian. I never had that kind of attention from a white girl! And white girls are the only girls I’m attracted to, especially the blondes.

How could an ugly Asian attract the attention of a white girl, while a beautiful Eurasian like myself never had any attention from them? I thought with rage.

I glared at them for a bit, and then decided I had been insulted enough. I angrily walked toward them and bumped the Asian guy aside, trying to act cocky and arrogant to both the boy and the girl. My drunken state got the better of me, and I almost fell over to the floor after a few minutes of this.


They said something along the lines that I was very drunk and that I needed to get some water, so I angrily left them and went out to the front yard, where the main partying happened. Rage fumed inside me as I realized that I just walked away from that confrontation, so I rushed back into the house and spitefully insulted the Asian before walking outside again.

I stood awkwardly in the front yard for a bit, realizing how pathetic I looked all by myself when everyone was partying around me. To calm down, I climbed up onto a wooden ledge that bordered the street and plunged down on one of the chairs there.

Isla Vista was at its wildest state at that time, and I saw lots of guys walking around with hot blonde girls on their arm. It fueled me with rage, as it always had. I should be one of those guys, but no blonde girls gave me that chance.

[On his housemates]


Two new housemates moved into my apartment for the Autumn semester. They were two foreign Asian students who attended UCSB. These were the biggest nerds I had ever seen, and they were both very ugly with annoying voices. …

These two new ones were utterly repulsive, and one of them had a very rebellious demeanor about him. He went out of his way to start arguments with me whenever I raised the issue of the noise he made. …

I knew that when the Day of Retribution came, I would have to kill my housemates to get them out of the way. If they were pleasant to live with, I would regret having to kill them, but due to their behavior I now had no regrets about such a prospect. In fact, I’d even enjoy stabbing them both to death while they slept.

[On being bullied]


After being bullied so much in Eighth and Ninth Grade, I became more shy and timid than I ever was in my life. I felt very small, weak, and above all, worthless. I cried by myself at school every day.

[Conclusion]

I am not part of the human race. Humanity has rejected me. The females of the human species have never wanted to mate with me, so how could I possibly consider myself part of humanity? Humanity has never accepted me among them, and now I know why. I am more than human. I am superior to them all. I am Elliot Rodger… Magnificent, glorious, supreme, eminent… Divine! I am the closest thing there is to a living god. Humanity is a disgusting, depraved, and evil species. It is my purpose to punish them all. I will purify the world of everything that is wrong with it. On the Day of Retribution, I will truly be a powerful god, punishing everyone I deem to be impure and depraved.