US massacre: Woes began at Brit school, 'twisted' manifesto reveals

Bill Brown.

London-born Elliot Rodger claimed in his online "manifesto" that his feelings of rejection from society began with his days at a British prep school in the Sussex countryside.

Rodger chronicled his anger, alienation and murderous plans in a bizarre 141-page manifesto entitled "My Twisted World" that he sent out to family and acquaintances just before he killed six people in California.

In the manifesto he laid bare the anxieties, insecurities and rebellious traits dating back to his childhood in England that he claimed would shape his murderous future.

His memories were of growing up in a large red brick house in the West Sussex countryside called the Old Rectory. But despite the seemingly idyllic upbringing, his feelings of isolation began aged just 3.

From his first day at Dorset House, a picturesque prep school in the village of Bury in the South Downs, Rodger complained about being "forced" to wear knee-high socks and wrote how his nerves reduced him to tears.

"I didn't like the school at Dorset House very much. I found the rules to be too strict."

When Rodger was 5, the family moved to California so his father Peter could pursue his career as a photographer and film-maker.

Bill Brown, the Santa Barbara County sheriff, confirmed that Rodger had been seen by a variety of health care professionals but that he had convinced them that despite having problems, he was not a threat to the community.

"When you read his autobiography ... it's very apparent that he was able to convince many people for many years that he didn't have this deep, underlying, obvious mental illness that ultimately manifested itself in this terrible tragedy," Brown said.

Peter Rodger's sister told Sky News the family were "in total shock" and she condemned United States gun laws.

France-based Jenni Rodger said: "I can't imagine how awful this must be for the families of those killed. My heart goes out to them. I don't know how on earth a sick, disturbed young man was able to get hold of a gun. He was always a disturbed child ... Something has to be done about gun laws in America.

"Pete is absolutely broken. He is such a sensitive being. I can't see how he'll ever recover from this."

Rodger was diagnosed with "highly functional Asperger's syndrome" as a child. By his teens, he was obsessed by his inability to find a girlfriend.

That all-encompassing obsession took over his life by the time he went to college in Santa Barbara. He described his fury at meeting a black student with a white blonde girlfriend.

"How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me?" he wrote. "I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves. I deserve it more."

That sense of entitlement turned into a resentment of all those around him. He described frequent feuds with his parents and his step-mother Soumaya Akaaboune, a Moroccan-born actress.