Elliot Rodger: The Killer Incel

Killer Psyche

Wondery | Treefort Media

True Crime, Exhibit C

4.6 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Retired FBI agent and criminal profiler Candice DeLong examines the chilling case of Elliot Rodger, the self-described “supreme gentleman” whose violent resentment toward women exploded into a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, California, in 2014. While frequenting self-validating incel forums online, offline, Rodger struggled with social rejection, mental-health crises, and a growing obsession with punishing the people he believed had wronged him. By the time the violence erupted, six people were dead and fourteen more injured. Candice explores how alienation, narcissism, and extremist online communities converged to create a perfect storm; and how Rodger’s attack marked a turning point in understanding grievance-based violence, misogynistic extremism, and the psychology behind modern lone-actor killers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, killer psyche listeners.
0:02.2	Ever wonder what really drives someone to kill?
0:05.3	Join us on Patreon and get early access to new episodes,
0:09.5	exclusive deep dive episodes that take you further into the minds of the most dangerous criminals
0:15.3	and add free listening.
0:19.6	A listener note, this episode contains adult content and is not suitable for everyone.
0:26.1	Please be advised.
0:35.9	It started with a camera, a keyboard, and a young man who thought the world owed him everything.
0:44.8	By 2014, Elliot Roger had become something new, a creature born not just of loneliness and anger, but of the internet itself.
0:57.2	Online, he found a community that did not soothe his pain.
1:02.1	It sharpened it.
1:03.7	Each video he watched, each forum he entered, told him the same lie,
1:09.9	that he was the victim and that women were the enemy.
1:16.3	In a dark corner of the web, grievance was no longer a feeling. It was a philosophy. And with every
1:25.8	post, every echo of outrage bouncing back at him through the algorithm,
1:31.3	that grievance metastasized. Elliot Roger called himself the supreme gentleman. To the world,
1:40.5	he was a privileged college student in California. But inside his head, he was a martyr in waiting,
1:49.0	destined to punish those who did not see his greatness.
1:55.0	And in May of 2014, he did exactly that.
2:00.0	Killing six innocent people and injuring 14 more,
2:04.6	Elliot Roger left behind a legacy of pain and an online ecosystem
2:10.6	that is still poisoning young men today.
	...

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