Rodger's Parents Knew He Was Mentally Ill by Age 8

For the parents of Elliot Rodger, their son's mental health was always a concern, those close to them tell the New York Times. As his parents were divorcing when he was approaching age 8, his mother, Li Chin, sought additional child support for her "high-functioning autistic" son, while a doctor allied with his father, Peter Rodger, called for psychiatric treatment for possible "depression or anxiety." The mother of one of Rodger's childhood acquaintances showed little surprise at the massacre he perpetrated: "If I could have picked anyone who would have done this, it would have been Elliot," she says.

"He was as withdrawn as any person I ever met in my life," adds a family friend. Rodger went to three different high schools; at the first two, he reported being bullied. At the second, he was paralyzed by an anxiety attack in the hall and seems never to have gone back. The final school had just 100 students, and some sought to protect Rodger; a staffer called him "our Elliot" upon learning of the shooting spree, the Times reports. In college, he withdrew increasingly into an online world. About a year ago, after he said he'd tried to push a woman off a ledge at a party, a neighbor spoke to him. "He started saying: 'I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill myself.'" Click for the full piece. (More Elliot Rodger stories.)