Drive-by killer vowed ‘revenge’ against ‘stuck-up’ women

A London-born student who killed six people in California on Friday evening had posted a YouTube video vowing “a day of retribution” and “revenge against humanity”.

Elliot Rodger, 22, whose father was an assistant director on the Hunger Games movie series, fired dozens of shots from his black BMW as he drove through the student quarter of Santa Barbara.

Rodger, who died minutes after the killings in a shootout with police, said on the video posted before his rampage: “I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a girl. I’ve been through college for two years and I’m still a virgin.”

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He added: “Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity. Against all of you.”

He issued a chilling warning to the “spoilt stuck-up blonde” women who he said had rebuffed him. "You throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men," he said, "instead of me - the supreme gentleman - I will punish all of you for it."

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown described the attacks as a "chaotic, rapidly unfolding convoluted incident" that involved multiple crime scenes.

Rodger’s family said the student had been receiving psychiatric care and had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

In what he described as a “manifesto” published on the internet, Rodger had written of his childhood in London and the first Sussex. "This was a time of discovery, excitement, and fun. I had just entered this new world, and I knew nothing of the pain it would bring me later on," he wrote.