The awkward 22-year-old was obsessed with exacting “retribution” for what he experienced as a lifetime of social and sexual isolation, and had planned meticulously to target as many people as possible, authorities say. But here again, he was denied access to those he felt should worship him.
So when no one answered after several minutes, Rodger improvised.
Walking around the corner, authorities say, he found a group of students and opened fire, then took off in his black BMW through the streets of a college beach town buzzing with end-of-school-year energy. Within 10 minutes, the rampage was over and Rodger was dead, apparently after shooting himself.
As authorities reconstructed the events, they would conclude that Rodger had stabbed three victims in his apartment, shot and killed three others at random, and injured 13 more either with gunshots or a car that he used as a battering ram against bicyclists and skateboarders.
The mayhem unfolded within just one square mile near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, but included 12 crime scenes.
The killings began with the stabbings in the apartment that Rodger rented, inside a two-story courtyard building fronted by palm trees. Authorities said Sunday that Cheng Yuan Hong, 20; George Chen, 19; Weihan Wang, 20, were killed Friday. All were from the San Francisco Bay Area and were students at the university. Hong and Chen were listed on the apartment lease, but it’s unclear if Wang was a roommate or just visiting.
