Speaker 1: From the dark corners of the web, an emerging mindset I.
Speaker 2: Am a loser if also we know wouldn't pay me either.
Speaker 3: A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at
Speaker 3: a deadly tipping point.
Speaker 4: In Cells will be added to the Terrorism Guide Pelissea.
Speaker 5: A driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing ten people.
Speaker 6: Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which
Speaker 6: I will have my revenge.
Speaker 7: Is very angry, expressing a lot of hatred towards women
Speaker 7: and towards men who get all the women.
Speaker 8: I just told my husband I know she's dead.
Speaker 1: This is in Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Season one, Episode one. Begin at the ending. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 1: a producer at KATI Studios, with Stephanie Leideker, Gabriel Castillo,
Speaker 1: Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller. We've had the topic of
Speaker 1: in cells, which stands for involuntary celibates, on our radar
Speaker 1: for many years. There was an international media explosion after
Speaker 1: Elliott Rogers's mass shooting on May twenty third, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: in Ilavista, California.
Speaker 9: Twenty two year old Elliott Rogers stabbed his three roommates
Speaker 9: to death before embarking on a violent rampage which left
Speaker 9: three more people dead and fourteen injured. Roger eventually crashed
Speaker 9: his car and committed suicide.
Speaker 1: In the ensuing decade, the largely online in cell community
Speaker 1: has become wider spread and more insidious. A global pandemic
Speaker 1: and increased isolation fueled this vitriaulic fire, and we've been
Speaker 1: seeing an uptick in violence, including in the most recent case.
Speaker 1: Katie's Studios has covered the Idaho student massacre, where in
Speaker 1: cell ideology potentially played a.
Speaker 10: Part, sources saying that Coburger made chauvinistic and condescending remarks
Speaker 10: towards women at Washington State. Apparently, Coburger said that men
Speaker 10: would take women's jobs because they weren't as smart at
Speaker 10: one point.
Speaker 11: We've gotten to this point with Brian Coburger because we're
Speaker 11: still looking for a motive, and because these were attractive
Speaker 11: young women, one with their boyfriend. So I think it's
Speaker 11: not a foreign leap for a lot of people to
Speaker 11: question if Brian Coburger is an inseel.
Speaker 1: Here's Stephanie and crime analyst Body Moven.
Speaker 4: In cell stands for involuntarily celibate and the involuntarily is
Speaker 4: you know important here. They basically blame women for being celibate,
Speaker 4: that they're still virgins, that they haven't been given the
Speaker 4: right amount of attention from women for whatever reason they're
Speaker 4: social standing, maybe the way they look, the way they talk,
Speaker 4: the way they walk, any any number of reasons women
Speaker 4: are blamed for them being celibate. You know, some are
Speaker 4: just very lonely and you know, have a community online
Speaker 4: and where they can commiserate with other in cells and
Speaker 4: you know, maybe feel better about themselves that they're not
Speaker 4: alone in this world.
Speaker 2: We've been following in cells for many, many years, but
Speaker 2: it really exploded on the scene when Netflix had their
Speaker 2: documentary series Adolescence at its core that was about in
Speaker 2: cell ideology. We heard a tinge of it. When Brian
Speaker 2: Coberger was first arrested for the Idaho student murders, he
Speaker 2: too shared in similar ideology. He was never officially called
Speaker 2: an in cell but it really opened up the conversation.
Speaker 2: But suddenly it's here and we're seeing it in real time.
Speaker 2: It's a very sad situation, right. You don't want your
Speaker 2: kid to be sad to be you know this mentally
Speaker 2: entrenched in this subculture that basically says, you know that
Speaker 2: they're they're not good enough, So you do want to
Speaker 2: recognize it. Not only so they don't come, you know,
Speaker 2: violent against women, but you don't want, you don't your
Speaker 2: kid to end up this way. So it's important that
Speaker 2: we get into the stuff so that even mothers can
Speaker 2: start recognizing these things. Even as we're making this podcast now,
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk was just assassinated. He's a conservative analyst and
Speaker 2: his murderer allegedly was radicalized online.
Speaker 12: But why behind this? Again, we're all drawing lots of
Speaker 12: conclusions and how someone like this could be radicalized, And
Speaker 12: I think that those those are important questions for us
Speaker 12: to ask and important questions for us to answer.
Speaker 2: That is why we're covering it now, because it's happening here.
Speaker 2: It's the kid in the basement at the house next
Speaker 2: door who comes from a really nice family, went to college,
Speaker 2: has been alone for way too long, and is suddenly
Speaker 2: sucked down the wrong path. Boddy, this is something very
Speaker 2: close to your heart, all of ours. Frankly, it's such
Speaker 2: a complicated subculture now. These modern in cell groups often
Speaker 2: gather on like forums, like reddits, four chan and like
Speaker 2: they're having these discussions on the open Internet. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: a lot of the conversations in these forums are filled
Speaker 2: with like rage and anger, especially towards women that they
Speaker 2: see attractive, socially successful.
Speaker 4: You know that even men. The men are referred to
Speaker 4: as chads and the women are referred to as staceys.
Speaker 4: And these are the men and women that are successful
Speaker 4: in life. They're dating, they're having sexual intercourse with people
Speaker 4: they consider themselves like the nice guy. When you think
Speaker 4: of an inseel, think of somebody that thinks of themselves
Speaker 4: as nice and like but almost entitled to women.
Speaker 1: The chads are the men who are whatever percentage the
Speaker 1: in cels perceive of men who get all of the women.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of this interesting dynamic. It's both hate
Speaker 1: and an envy.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the scary part that the jealous her age. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the perfect intersection.
Speaker 4: Not all in cells are violent. Some are just lonely
Speaker 4: people and it is sad for them. You know, they
Speaker 4: feel ostracized from, you know, the rest of the world.
Speaker 4: They're lonely, they're celibate, they have no companionship, and the
Speaker 4: only friends they have are those online that they've formed
Speaker 4: in these communities. The problem is that those communities are
Speaker 4: fostering that feeling and it's pumping them up and make
Speaker 4: them even more, you know, the rahticas, making them more violent.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty violent ideology though to some of it
Speaker 2: his sense and guess what, on that little like forum,
Speaker 2: potentially there are some scary people who are kind of
Speaker 2: feeding off that as well, and air quotes grooming these
Speaker 2: young men to radicalize as well. It's undeniably a pretty
Speaker 2: radical group.
Speaker 4: But it's important to know that not every inseel is
Speaker 4: going to turn out to be violent.
Speaker 8: All right.
Speaker 4: There are some interesting studies coming out about who in
Speaker 4: cels are, and the average age is the mid twenties,
Speaker 4: around twenty six years old. They usually live with their
Speaker 4: parents or their grandparents. Twenty five percent do live alone.
Speaker 4: Only four percent of them are are employed full time.
Speaker 2: Seventy five percent living with mom and dad or grandparents.
Speaker 2: And by the way, post COVID, everybody was like locked
Speaker 2: in their basements. If you were already experiencing some level
Speaker 2: of loneliness or you were feeling disenfranchised, Now add you
Speaker 2: know a year and a half, two years of isolation
Speaker 2: to the equation, there's an uptick and I think it's obvious.
Speaker 4: Why Yeah, when when COVID happened, it was like kind
Speaker 4: of like the pressure cooker. It really kind of like
Speaker 4: expanded this movement. Fifty eight percent of them are white,
Speaker 4: forty two percent of people of color. Seventy three percent
Speaker 4: report moderate to severe depression, and they blame it on
Speaker 4: women for women not wanting them, you know, they're not
Speaker 4: socially attractive, or they're awkward in some way, or you know,
Speaker 4: or there's excuse after excuse after excuse, and so they
Speaker 4: feel that women are responsible for their depression and their loneliness,
Speaker 4: and that turns that can turn into rage, which can
Speaker 4: turn violence. One more thing too, Forty eight percent scored
Speaker 4: at the highest level on loneliness scales at arica alert
Speaker 4: dot org, which is interesting.
Speaker 2: I think the Brian Coburger case, I think it's a
Speaker 2: real look at loneliness and it's really case scenario. You know,
Speaker 2: you know that he was an odd guy with very
Speaker 2: little social interaction in friends. Not that that just it, obviously,
Speaker 2: but if we're trying to unpack how to prevent these
Speaker 2: types of isolated killers on the loose or in the making,
Speaker 2: it's important stuff that we talk.
Speaker 1: About in the course of our reporting and even anecdotally
Speaker 1: in our lives, we found a shocking amount of people
Speaker 1: who've never even heard the word in cell. That's why
Speaker 1: we took on this project. We want parents, friends and
Speaker 1: families to understand what could be happening and what danger
Speaker 1: signs to look out for. The intent is not fear mongering.
Speaker 1: We're going to look into crimes committed in the name
Speaker 1: of in cells, share perspectives from different experts about in
Speaker 1: cell ideology, the seriousness of algorithms in social media, and
Speaker 1: just who is at risk for being radicalized. To understand
Speaker 1: all perspectives, we've infiltrated the in cell community to gather
Speaker 1: personal experiences with self identifying in cells. It's a complex
Speaker 1: issue and all aspects need to be understood to get
Speaker 1: to the root of the problem before we even begin
Speaker 1: looking for solutions. I spoke with investigative journalist Connor Powell
Speaker 1: about his experiences and online insell forums.
Speaker 7: To get a better sense of the in sell community.
Speaker 7: I started to all go onto different forums on different
Speaker 7: social media sites, and I sort of discovered that there
Speaker 7: were a couple different continuous themes. One is the one
Speaker 7: that I think most people associate with the inseell community,
Speaker 7: which is sort of very angry, expressing a lot of
Speaker 7: hatred towards women, towards people in power, towards men who
Speaker 7: they describe as chads who have money and just get
Speaker 7: all the women. And then there's another group that I
Speaker 7: think is a little bit less angry and more depressed,
Speaker 7: people who are genuinely looking for connection and answers to
Speaker 7: the feelings that they're having, to the issues that they
Speaker 7: are facing. There obviously is some in between, and there
Speaker 7: are people people who express anger and frustration that you
Speaker 7: see and also looking for help. But there really does
Speaker 7: seem to be this divide in the in cell community
Speaker 7: between these two groups, and you really see a playout
Speaker 7: on some of these forums where there is just vitriolic
Speaker 7: anger at women, at society, at people with what these
Speaker 7: groups and these people believe sort of all of the
Speaker 7: advantages of in the world that they they hate them,
Speaker 7: they want them gone, They joke about death, they joke
Speaker 7: about rape.
Speaker 6: Obviously, I had violent thoughts. I always held back, you know,
Speaker 6: in real life thoughts of like women that I did
Speaker 6: want to you know, Ripe, as a teenager, there was
Speaker 6: quite a few women that I did want to break
Speaker 6: their eyes, so they would be ugly and couldn't get
Speaker 6: a hot boyfriend.
Speaker 7: And then there's other Like I said, there's these other
Speaker 7: in cels who they don't want that conversation. They want
Speaker 7: a conversation about why is their life lacking the meaning
Speaker 7: they think it should have, And a lot of that
Speaker 7: revolves around inauthentic or a lack of relationships. They're looking
Speaker 7: for a way to have some connection, but they're also
Speaker 7: stuck behind the keyboard, behind computers. It feels like that's
Speaker 7: where they lack that sort of connection and they're looking
Speaker 7: for connection.
Speaker 1: I asked Connor if it seemed like the men simply
Speaker 1: felt more comfortable with the anonymity of being behind a
Speaker 1: computer screen, or if they didn't like how they were
Speaker 1: being received in public.
Speaker 7: I think it's the way that they feel that they
Speaker 7: aren't received the way that they think they should be.
Speaker 7: There is this perception that I keep seeing in this
Speaker 7: continual theme, which is that everyone else sort of gets
Speaker 7: the looks in the room in terms of like the
Speaker 7: positive looks, whereas I only get the negative looks, or
Speaker 7: if they even bother to look at me. There's this
Speaker 7: perceived notion that there is a group of people sort
Speaker 7: of what they call the chads, the men who are
Speaker 7: they get all the advantages, they have all the advantages.
Speaker 7: They're muscular, they're full head of hair, and the in
Speaker 7: cell community has like you can see that there's just
Speaker 7: a lack of self confidence with a lot of these people,
Speaker 7: and the confidence I think is missing for a lot
Speaker 7: of different reasons.
Speaker 1: I mentioned learning about some self identifying in cells describing
Speaker 1: being out in the world as feeling like being inside
Speaker 1: of a video game versus feeling more alive when they're
Speaker 1: alone in their homes.
Speaker 7: There is this sort of feeling that their real life
Speaker 7: for them is behind the keyboard on a social media forum,
Speaker 7: whether it's discord or the in cell community forms, or
Speaker 7: even read it to some extent. And then you also
Speaker 7: do see these themes where there are people who think
Speaker 7: the real world is sort of the fake world for
Speaker 7: them because they just they don't feel comfortable in it,
Speaker 7: they don't know how to interact with people. You see
Speaker 7: this regularly on in cell forms, which is that the
Speaker 7: real world is the inauthentic relationships and the online form
Speaker 7: world are the more true the authentic relationships, and that
Speaker 7: these online community forms are where in cells can sort
Speaker 7: of be themselves without any of the social pressure that
Speaker 7: they would face out in the real world.
Speaker 1: I asked if there seemed to be a clash between
Speaker 1: the men going onto forums looking for a glimmer of
Speaker 1: hope for their situations versus others spewing vitriolic hate speech.
Speaker 7: You sort of see these comments pieced together, which is
Speaker 7: like the world is efed up, society's fed up, everything
Speaker 7: is screwed up. And then just screw the women rape them.
Speaker 7: And then there's these other men. A lot of them
Speaker 7: are just teenage boys or young adolescent men, and they're struggling,
Speaker 7: they're asking for help. They often don't have direction. There
Speaker 7: are some of these in cells who want relationships, and
Speaker 7: then these other ones who are just like, screw it,
Speaker 7: it's never going to happen for me. I don't care.
Speaker 7: It's everyone else's fault. I can't change it. But ultimately
Speaker 7: they are all so people who jump in there and
Speaker 7: on these forms that are just like, it's never going
Speaker 7: to change for you. You are what you are. Don't
Speaker 7: try to change the world should change for us.
Speaker 1: I asked Connor if anything specific stood out or surprised
Speaker 1: him during his time on the in cell forums.
Speaker 7: I think what shocks me is the it's not the
Speaker 7: level of just sort of awful discussions racist behavior, sexist behavior,
Speaker 7: you know, just that you can sort of see anywhere
Speaker 7: on social media. It's the balancing back and forth between the, Ah,
Speaker 7: we're just joking, you know, this is just we're just
Speaker 7: saying this for effect, and then there's other people who
Speaker 7: are like, no, no, we're really saying this. And you can
Speaker 7: see where a young, impressionable male can really get caught
Speaker 7: up in what is this real? Should I be embracing
Speaker 7: this as real? Or is this just people having fun?
Speaker 7: And you can see this playing out in real time
Speaker 7: where there is this continual debate between you know, we're
Speaker 7: just being stupid, and the other flip side of that is,
Speaker 7: oh no, no, we're deadly serious. And these guys who
Speaker 7: can a violence, there are heroes.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. On May twenty fourteen, self described in cel
Speaker 1: Elliott Roger went on a killing spree at the University
Speaker 1: of Santa Barbara in Ila Vista, California. He injured fourteen
Speaker 1: innocent people and killed six more. Chang Hong, George Chen
Speaker 1: Weihan Wang, Catherine Cooper, Veronica Weiss, and Chris Michaels Martinez.
Speaker 1: The ripple effects of this violin is far reaching and
Speaker 1: for some lifelong. For this first episode, we decided to
Speaker 1: begin at the ending and to look into the inevitable
Speaker 1: fallout after online radicalization leads to senseless violence. Here's producer
Speaker 1: Carolyn Miller speaking with Colleen Weiss, the mother of nineteen
Speaker 1: year old Veronica Weiss. This is the first time she's
Speaker 1: speaking out publicly.
Speaker 8: I'm Colleen Weiss, and my daughter is Veronica Weiss. She
Speaker 8: was killed by Ella Roger in Ila Vesta, May twenty third,
Speaker 8: twenty fourteen. Veronica loved to be involved in everything. She
Speaker 8: liked to try new things. Her freshman year, she played
Speaker 8: four sports and figured out she really wanted to play
Speaker 8: water polo, so she then proceeded to play water polo
Speaker 8: every year throughout high school. She always made anything that
Speaker 8: we did fun. I also have two sons that were
Speaker 8: very close in age to her. They were just two
Speaker 8: and three years younger than her, and we would have
Speaker 8: people tell us that who has the best arm in
Speaker 8: the Wise family, and they'd say Veronica. So she was
Speaker 8: tough too.
Speaker 6: She was.
Speaker 8: You know, she was a competitor and very fierce about
Speaker 8: protecting her friends and being a great friend.
Speaker 3: And her favorite color was purple.
Speaker 8: Oh one hundred percent. She made that known to us
Speaker 8: when she was two or three, and she carried that forward.
Speaker 8: Everyone knew that that was her favorite color. She was
Speaker 8: just independent from a very early age. I remember when
Speaker 8: she was five years old, we were living in California,
Speaker 8: and she absolutely wanted to go visit her grandmother and
Speaker 8: her aunts in Seattle. So we put her on a
Speaker 8: plane by herself and she got up there and I
Speaker 8: just I remember talking to her on the phone and
Speaker 8: I asked her, do you miss me? And she said, oh,
Speaker 8: well no, because I know I'm going to see you again.
Speaker 8: And she was always just in the moment and that
Speaker 8: was just her And it's just always kind of warmed
Speaker 8: my heart because I know that she was just enjoying
Speaker 8: everything that she was doing. Really loved life, life, friends
Speaker 8: and family, and very inclusive of any type of person.
Speaker 8: There was no boundary or limits to you know, who
Speaker 8: she would be friend or be kind to.
Speaker 3: You've never interviewed about her before, have you?
Speaker 8: I have not?
Speaker 3: No, Why did you decide to do it?
Speaker 8: Now after ten plus long years, I'm finally in kind
Speaker 8: of that acceptance and able to just really appreciate her life.
Speaker 8: So I'm in a much better place.
Speaker 3: How about her brothers and her dad? Are they doing? Okay?
Speaker 8: I think we're we're kind of all coming to that.
Speaker 8: It has been i'd say a long I want to
Speaker 8: really use tortures as the word, but that's that's how
Speaker 8: it felt at many points.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's go back to that day in May
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. Yes, how did that day play out for you?
Speaker 3: How did you find out what happened? And Veronica was
Speaker 3: involved in this?
Speaker 8: Well, it was Memorial Day weekend and we had a
Speaker 8: lot of plans that weekend. What actually happened is the
Speaker 8: weekend before that, my husband had some ski passes for
Speaker 8: Mammoth and I had told her about it, and she
Speaker 8: just jumped at it and said, yes, I'll go with
Speaker 8: you guys, just with me and my husband, her dad,
Speaker 8: but going to Memorial Day, and this is what will
Speaker 8: kind of you know, you don't you can't regret or
Speaker 8: question this, But most likely she might have come home
Speaker 8: Memorial Day weekend if she had if we hadn't gone
Speaker 8: to Mammoth two weekends before. So it was Friday, Friday night.
Speaker 8: We're having a great time holiday weekend, and we had
Speaker 8: actually gone to bed somewhat early, about ten o'clock and
Speaker 8: about eleven thirty, I got a call on my cell
Speaker 8: phone and it was one of Veronica's sorority sisters and
Speaker 8: she just said, I'm not sure if you know what's
Speaker 8: going on up here. There's been some shootings and they
Speaker 8: just wanted to know have you heard from Veronica? And
Speaker 8: I just said no, and I got a little bit
Speaker 8: more information. Of course, we turned on the TV started
Speaker 8: calling some hospitals after I tried to call her multiple times.
Speaker 8: And I mean, right at that point, I knew something
Speaker 8: was wrong. I just I knew right away that if
Speaker 8: she could contact us, she would have, and I knew
Speaker 8: she was right around the campus that night doing the
Speaker 8: sorority functions. So at that point, my sons had come home,
Speaker 8: and I just remember one of my sons saying to me,
Speaker 8: who would want to kill Veronica? Like this is don't
Speaker 8: be like this, just can't. She's going to be fine.
Speaker 8: And so we my husband and I got into the
Speaker 8: car and drove up to UCSB or we drove to
Speaker 8: the hospital around UCSB and there we found some of
Speaker 8: the sorority sisters who were there with one of the
Speaker 8: girls who had been shot, who was with Veronica, but
Speaker 8: there was no Veronica there, and at that point we
Speaker 8: were able to track her. I found and we could
Speaker 8: see that her phone was sitting at one of the
Speaker 8: locations that they had indicated on the news that there had,
Speaker 8: you know, been a shooting. So we drove over to
Speaker 8: where as close as we could to where the phone
Speaker 8: was and found a police officer over there said what
Speaker 8: my daughter's name was? And I could just tell he
Speaker 8: just looked at the name and just said, okay, well,
Speaker 8: you know there's we need. You can sit in your
Speaker 8: car and we'll come get you, you know when we can.
Speaker 8: So it's just I I just told my husband, I
Speaker 8: know she's she's dead.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another break.
Speaker 8: We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 1: We're continuing the conversation between producer Carolyn Miller and Colleen Weiss.
Speaker 1: Colleen Weiss is the mother of nineteen year old Veronica Weiss.
Speaker 8: I remember we sat in the car close to the
Speaker 8: location almost all night. We knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 8: And they didn't tell us much other than Veronica was killed.
Speaker 8: There weren't really any details. It is so hard to remember.
Speaker 8: The only thing that stuck in my mind was one
Speaker 8: of the police officers said to me, this is the
Speaker 8: hardest part of my job, and I just thought, okay,
Speaker 8: thank you, I'm sorry for you. You know. I don't
Speaker 8: know why that just stuck with me. And I wouldn't
Speaker 8: say I was emotionless, but I just I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 8: I just kind of sat there.
Speaker 3: Did you get the chance to see her after that?
Speaker 8: Well, they told us right away, something like this is
Speaker 8: not like you see on TV. We have a way
Speaker 8: of identifying bodies without you, don't you know, you don't
Speaker 8: have to come in. And I did not want to
Speaker 8: see her. I didn't. I didn't want any memory like that.
Speaker 8: And it maybe seems odd, but I am so glad
Speaker 8: that I never have to go back and have that
Speaker 8: picture mind, because I only have beautiful memories and I
Speaker 8: know it was a terrible thing that happened to her.
Speaker 3: How was your husband and your sons that night? How
Speaker 3: did they react?
Speaker 8: I mean, my husband just immediately broke down. We went
Speaker 8: kind of straight home after this happened. We wanted to
Speaker 8: get home to the boys and we just I remember
Speaker 8: we just all got into our bed and we were
Speaker 8: just kind of holding each other or just laying there.
Speaker 8: It just was terrible.
Speaker 3: The next couple of days after Veronica was killed, how
Speaker 3: do you all together get each other through it?
Speaker 8: Not very well? Not very well at all. I do
Speaker 8: remember I was in shock for i'd say at least
Speaker 8: a couple of days. And then we started having all
Speaker 8: these this family coming in and people contacting us, and
Speaker 8: it was it was chaos.
Speaker 3: Knowing that the perpetrator that we still don't know anything about,
Speaker 3: did you know at that point that he had taken
Speaker 3: his own life, that he had shot himself.
Speaker 5: After yes, okay, yes, okay, so we we knew pretty quick.
Speaker 5: And I that is one thing that I also, you
Speaker 5: find everything to be grateful for.
Speaker 8: I'm grateful that it wasn't unknown or that we had
Speaker 8: to go through a trial.
Speaker 3: Were you angry at all?
Speaker 8: I never had those feelings. I never, I never did.
Speaker 8: I know, everyone has circumstances, and I just I thought
Speaker 8: this kid, I'm going to call him a kid, but
Speaker 8: he wasn't a kid. Well, he was very young. He
Speaker 8: was in so much pain, and I look and say,
Speaker 8: my daughter was so happy, so focused on what she
Speaker 8: was doing and what she wanted to do. That it
Speaker 8: just no, I did not I didn't feel angry. I
Speaker 8: never had that.
Speaker 3: So would that all media coverage? How did that affect
Speaker 3: your grieving process?
Speaker 8: During that whole period, I felt like I was still
Speaker 8: in some kind of shock and I just was going
Speaker 8: through the motions. They put together a memorial at Weslake
Speaker 8: High School immediately, I think it was the Monday after
Speaker 8: it happened, so we needed to go up to the
Speaker 8: high school and and it was just packed and it
Speaker 8: was it was beautiful what they did. And then I
Speaker 8: know when we were leaving, I saw all the water
Speaker 8: polo girls all got in the pool afterwards, which was
Speaker 8: pretty cool.
Speaker 3: I read an article about that and how everybody showed.
Speaker 8: Up wearing purple yes yes in honor of her.
Speaker 3: How proud does that make you of Veronica?
Speaker 8: Oh? Immensely, immensely. It just it was. I mean, it
Speaker 8: gave me a lot of warmth. And I know she
Speaker 8: would have loved it too.
Speaker 3: So what was the hardest part of navigating that immediate aftermath?
Speaker 8: Many days of just not wanting to be around, not
Speaker 8: wanting to feel that pain, just seeing how it affected
Speaker 8: the boys and my husband and I just didn't know
Speaker 8: how we would ever go back to normal. I didn't know.
Speaker 8: I couldn't see a path forward, and it just felt
Speaker 8: very desperate. It's very hard.
Speaker 3: Let's get into what we know about Elliott Roger? Yes,
Speaker 3: how did you learn about him?
Speaker 8: Just by reading things on the internet? And I remember
Speaker 8: reading a couple pages of the Manifesto at one point
Speaker 8: and again just kind of turned away from that. I
Speaker 8: just I spent many years where I didn't want to
Speaker 8: hear anything about him. I really didn't. So it has
Speaker 8: only been recently, in the last year that I've learned
Speaker 8: just how much he's revered or whatever it is. And again,
Speaker 8: that's just very sad, very sad.
Speaker 3: He was considered what they call an in cell. Yes,
Speaker 3: had you ever heard that term before? No, no idea
Speaker 3: what that even is?
Speaker 8: No? Not at the time.
Speaker 3: How much of that did you get into when you're
Speaker 3: learning about Elliott Roger?
Speaker 8: Very very high level. I just wanted to focus on
Speaker 8: her memory, but you couldn't. Throughout the years, it became
Speaker 8: where you couldn't watch a movie or a TV show
Speaker 8: without it became like, oh, well, yeah, this is just
Speaker 8: part of our culture now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he committed to the side. Afterwards, you didn't
Speaker 3: get to get a guilty verdict, he didn't get a
Speaker 3: prison sentence. Did you ever feel robbed of that?
Speaker 8: Absolutely not. I thought that was probably the best ending
Speaker 8: for him. I knew enough to know how how long
Speaker 8: he had suffered from different problems and never been accepted
Speaker 8: or just different things like that. And no, I do
Speaker 8: think about the people that have to face their sons
Speaker 8: or their daughters killer in court, and that would be
Speaker 8: the last thing I would want to do when there.
Speaker 3: Is a trial. You know, there's graphic photos that they
Speaker 3: show from crime scenes, and that was one thing you
Speaker 3: said you never wanted to see.
Speaker 8: I didn't if I could just add as a mother,
Speaker 8: you know, sometimes you question yourself, like I thought, what
Speaker 8: mother would not want to see every part of their
Speaker 8: child or what had happened to them or so I
Speaker 8: questioned that for a little bit, but then had to
Speaker 8: go back to, well, no, this is me personally, this
Speaker 8: is I have to deal with this, and I shouldn't
Speaker 8: feel bad about not wanting to do that and not
Speaker 8: doing it.
Speaker 3: You know, you said you have nothing but great, beautiful
Speaker 3: memories of her, and that's what that's what's important, that's
Speaker 3: what matters.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, so knowing this.
Speaker 3: This world that he was in and now he's become
Speaker 3: like this martyr for this community because there have been
Speaker 3: other incidents where people have gotten very violent, there's been
Speaker 3: other murders and would use his name as like a
Speaker 3: hero and they looked up to him. How does that
Speaker 3: make you feel when you know that people are putting
Speaker 3: him on a pedestal for something so evil even.
Speaker 8: I mean again, I feel sadness for those people. I
Speaker 8: just feel sadness for them, sadness for their parents. I mean,
Speaker 8: I could have a child that ended up being like that.
Speaker 8: You know, you don't. You would hope not, but you
Speaker 8: never know. And again, I just it's it's very sad,
Speaker 8: very sad.
Speaker 3: A lot of people would be just mad and angry
Speaker 3: and cursing in every which way. But you said you
Speaker 3: said that you felt sorry for him.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think about it seemed twenty four to
Speaker 8: seven for this person. I mean, you don't know that,
Speaker 8: but he was feeling desperate, sad. Just I don't want
Speaker 8: anyone to feel like that. I don't naturally have that emotion.
Speaker 8: I do get mad, but at things, but when it
Speaker 8: comes to people and what they do. I mean, this
Speaker 8: life can be very difficult and people look experience very
Speaker 8: bizarre things, and this world is more and more challenging
Speaker 8: each day, and the Internet and it's it's very complicated.
Speaker 3: Do you keep any trinkets of hers around?
Speaker 8: I do? I do? Can I grab it?
Speaker 3: Yes? Please?
Speaker 5: Do?
Speaker 8: Okay? So, I mean her freshman year, she wasn't good
Speaker 8: enough to play water polo at UCSB, which didn't bother
Speaker 8: her at all. Just a week before she died, she said, Mom,
Speaker 8: I really I'm going to start swimming again, but I
Speaker 8: don't have a cap or goggles. So I said, we'll
Speaker 8: just order them on our Amazon get you know, get them.
Speaker 8: And I remember it was a week before. When we
Speaker 8: went to pack up her room, it was so organized
Speaker 8: and neat, like everything was in its place. But I
Speaker 8: found her little sport bag with goggles and her and
Speaker 8: a cap that she already had, and it just like
Speaker 8: when she said she was going to do something, it
Speaker 8: just it was done. And so these are actually right
Speaker 8: on my bed. So it's like little things like that
Speaker 8: that really warm your heart.
Speaker 1: Next time on in cells it is.
Speaker 7: Absolutely a recipe to stay home, not go out, only
Speaker 7: have online community.
Speaker 3: He had planned this.
Speaker 2: There's clear evidence at least a week prior, including a
Speaker 2: note in his notes heap on his phone entitled murder suicide.
Speaker 11: Most of their anger, most of their hatred is actually
Speaker 11: reserved for the women.
Speaker 4: So this idea of six six six six feet tall
Speaker 4: six figure incomes six inches plus.
Speaker 7: That's the ideal man.
Speaker 1: For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at KT Underscore Studios. In Cells is
Speaker 1: produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Additional producing by Connor Powell and Carolyn Miller, editing by
Speaker 1: Jeff Tooi music by Vanikore Studios. In Cells is a
Speaker 1: production of KAT Studios and iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.