Minutes after Robin Westman opened fire on a Catholic school mass packed with children, the shooter’s shocking manifestos spread across internet.
Videos posted to YouTube and notebooks scrawled with musings as unhinged as they were hateful provided uncommonly deep insight to the mass killer’s mind.
Westman, 23, appeared to be obsessively planning the massacre at Annunciation Catholic School and Church in Minneapolis for months.
The killer opened fire through the building’s stained-glass windows on Wednesday morning, killing two young children and wounding 18 others.
The deranged murderer took her own life at the end of the shooting, leaving only a trail of puzzling clues behind.
His mother, Mary Grace Westman, a former employee of the school who now lives in Naples, Florida, has refused to cooperate with investigators.
Despite the sickeningly detailed manifesto, which revealed serious mental health issues that went undetected for years, the are still numerous unanswered questions.
Robin Westman, 23, appeared to be obsessively planning the massacre at Annunciation Catholic School and Church in Minneapolis for months
Why did Westman do it?
Westman’s manifestos and diaries reveal much about the shooter’s planning and mental state well before the killings.
Much of them appear to be conflicting, stream-of-consciousness rantings that point to multiple potential motives.
This vacuum of clear answers led to people trying to use the tragedy for their own ends, such as claiming it was an anti-Catholic attack or focusing on Westman’s transgender identity.
Police now believe there was not one clear motive but several, likely stemming from Westman’s unaddressed mental illnesses.
Westman had a ‘deranged fascination’ with mass killings, particularly the Sandy Hook school shooting, and suggested in the manifesto that there was not a singular motive for the attack.
‘This is not a church or religion attack, that is not the message,’ Westman wrote. ‘The message is there is no message.’
Westman’s writings revealed inner turmoil over deep-seated desires to kill that she wrestled with – and ultimately gave in to.
‘I have a loving family and a good support system of people that want to see me thrive,’ she wrote.
Robin Westman recently ‘broke up with a significant and/or romantic partner,’ the killer’s father told police
Westman’s twisted manifesto offers some clues into what went through the alleged killer’s mind
‘For some reason, the fact that I have a pretty good life and the fact that I want kill people have never correlated to me.
‘Every school I went to, I have some fantasy at some point or another of shooting up my school. Even every job.’
Entries from early this year showed Westman deciding not to follow through with the shooting, because it would bring her family too much pain.
But months later, the shooter ranted about how a psychological need to kill prevailed.
‘I don’t want to f**king do this I hate myself. I cannot turn back. I cannot stop myself,’ Westman wrote.
From there, the planning intensified. Westman began assessing targets like a local brewery and a café but kept returning to the school.
The school had ‘more kids and family people’ to target, revealing a desire to kill innocent people, especially children.
‘The shooter wanted to kill children – defenseless children,’ Joe Thompson, Minnesota’s acting US attorney, said.
Westman shared the manifesto (pictured) in a video posted to a since-deleted personal YouTube account that appeared to show the layout of the church where the shooting unfolded
A disturbing drawing in Westman’s journal that was shown on her YouTube channel
‘I won’t dignify the shooter’s words by repeating them. They are horrific and vile. But, in short, the shooter wanted to watch children suffer.’
Westman also broke up with her partner recently, her father told police, without mentioning the partner’s gender.
A neighbor said Westman lived with a woman, but it wasn’t clear if that person was Westman’s partner.
Westman had been sleeping on a friend’s couch just before the shooting.
Westman penned a suicide note, addressed to ‘my family and friends,’ before carrying out the deadly attack.
The killer claimed to be ‘corrupted by this world’ and had ‘learned to hate what life is,’ according to the disturbing four-page note.
‘I have wanted this for so long. I am not well. I am not right. I am a sad person, haunted by these thoughts that do not go away,’ Westman wrote.
‘I know this is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I am severely depressed and have been suicidal for years. Only recently have I lost all hope and decided to perform my final action against this world.’
Westman penned a suicide note, addressed to ‘my family and friends ,’ before carrying out the deadly shooting
The killer claimed to be ‘corrupted by this world’ and had ‘learned to hate what life is’
Were red flags missed?
Had someone stumbled upon Westman’s secret notebook, the attack could easily have been thwarted.
The journal detailed her planning and homicidal ideations in meticulous detail over many months – even revealing the planned date of August 27.
It was in English, but written with Cyrillic letters like some Slavic languages including Russian, which she wrote was a ‘cypher’ to avoid her plans and homicidal impulses being detected.
‘I really just want a place to put my thoughts. I can’t talk to a therapist or family cause I will immediately be reported and put on a watchlist!’ Westman wrote.
The shooter wrote in an entry dated May 24 that she feared her disturbing YouTube history would be flagged and investigated by police.
‘I don’t think it is weird enough for law enforcement to step in,’ she wrote.
The same entry discussed simulating school shootings on video games and reenacting them using airsoft guns.
Westman’s planning progressed in the weeks before the shooting, when she visited the church on August 8 under the guise of reconnecting with her Catholic faith.
Her diary described how she examined door handles to figure out how best to trap victims inside, and noted where teachers were sitting.
The notebooks were in English, but written with Cyrillic letters like some Slavic languages including Russian, which she wrote was a ‘cypher’ to avoid her plans and homicidal impulses being detected
Teachers said that Westman was a lonely child at school who did not seem to have any friends, and had behavior problems that often saw his mother Mary (seen together) called into the school
Three days later, Westman visited a gun range hours after buying an AR-15 rifle that was used in the attack.
Then, on August 20, she described a second scouting mission to the church to observe a training session for teachers.
‘I am sure they briefly went over safety and active shooter training. I am also sure they will NOT be expecting an attack in the very first week of school lmao,’ she wrote.
The killer planned to get inside and block the doors with planks of wood to prevent as many people from escaping as possible.
Had this gone to plan, the death toll could have been in the dozens instead of just two, but she was foiled as the church was locked once service began and she could only blindly shoot through the windows.
Westman stayed under the radar in her personal life, too, as classmates and teachers thinking she was just a bit odd.
Her neighbors said the killer appeared to live a normal life and did not exhibit any suspicious behavior before the shooting.
But there were a few instances that raised red flags, even if only in hindsight.
Police were called to Westman’s home on January 26, 2018, due to a ‘mental health’ call about a juvenile.
Police said there was no other recorded history of such issues.
Westman’s video also showed large pieces of wood with ‘No escape!’ written across them that she planned to bar the doors of the church with, trapping victims inside
Westman also passed background checks required to buy guns in Minnesota and obtained permits for the rifle and pistol.
‘There is nothing in the investigation so far that would lead us to believe that anything was missed,’ police said, noting that beyond a traffic ticket Westman did not have a criminal record.
But there were other signs that didn’t make it into law enforcement records.
Westman was suspended from school for a week after asking a girl ‘if there was a school shooting, where would you hide?’
‘I basically promised I didn’t mean anything… I don’t remember ever talking to a therapist,’ Westman later wrote about that incident.
‘I feel like my mom would have seen it coming due to my rocky past with violent threats.
‘The other day my stepmom… said she could feel a ‘dark energy’ around me… if only you know!’
A former school employee said after the attack that Westman was often sent to the principal’s office for disruptive behavior and didn’t have any friends.
The staffer said Westman’s mother expressed concern about her child’s behavior and social problems.
Some classmates recalled after the attack that Westman made Nazi salutes when teachers’ backs were turned and was verbally abusive to other students.
Others were shocked when they learned Westman was behind the massacre.
‘Many people do and say strange things in their teenage years, so many people just saw it as her just trying to be “edgy” or “funny,”‘ one told NBC.
‘It’s very hard to see the videos of what she planned and carried out. I was never very close with her, but this is still very heavy on my heart.’
Law enforcement raided the Minneapolis apartment complex where Westman was reportedly living. Neighbors at the complex say the killer appeared to have a female roommate
How did Westman get the guns?
Westman showed her stockpile of guns, three of which were used in the attack, in the YouTube videos.
They included an AR-15 rifle, a Mossberg 590 Cruiser shotgun, a Smith & Wesson M&P compact 9mm handgun with three magazines, and a Colt 38 Special police issue revolver.
Westman documented buying the AR-15 on August 8 and remarked how shockingly easy it was to buy guns from pawnshops.
Minnesota gun laws allow adults over 18 to buy rifles and shotguns and those over 21 to buy handguns.
Many guns like hunting rifles and shotguns don’t require a permit, just a quick background check done by staff at the counter.
But Westman would have needed a permit to buy the semi-automatic AR-15, as it was a military-style weapon, as well as the handguns.
This permit requires a more comprehensive background check that takes longer to process. Westman passed both checks and obtained the permits and guns.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Westman had no mental health diagnoses that would have stopped from her buying the guns.
As well as the warped letter, the video also showed a stash of gun cartridges, with white writing scrawled on them
A Smith & Wesson M&P compact 9mm handgun Westman used in the attack
Westman drew on the guns and ammunition magazines before the attack
What’s going on with Westman’s mother?
Mary Grace Westman fled her home in Naples, Florida, home and reportedly is refusing to speak to police about her son.
Why she was avoiding investigators is unclear, and police finally swarmed her home on Thursday evening.
Plainclothes FBI agents could be seen in video footage arriving at her condominium and banging on the door as the windows and shades were shuttered.
When they received no answer at the front door, the agents scurried to the back door – but had no success there either.
The feds were apparently not the only ones looking to speak with the mother in the hours after the mass shooting.
Vehicles from the local Collier County Sheriff’s Office were seen circling the Berkshire Lakes condominium complex.
It is now believed Mary Grace flew back to Minneapolis on Wednesday, and police there have not been able to speak to her.
She has retained criminal defense attorney Ryan Garry, known for his work with NFL star Colin Kaepernick in cases related to protests at the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Mary Grace Westman fled her Naples, Florida, home and reportedly is refusing to speak to police about her son