Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
According to family friend and spokesman Simon Astaire, the parents of UCSB shooter Elliot Rodger “are mourning the victims more than they are mourning for their son.” According to Astaire, the parents have still not read the angry, hateful, 137-page manifesto left by their son after he allegedly killed six people. He also read the first public statement from the family since the tragedy, which read in part, “We are crying in pain for the victims and their families. It breaks our hearts on a level that we didn’t think possible. The feeling of knowing that it was our son’s actions that caused the tragedy can only be described as hell on earth.” The parents reportedly found the manifesto and the now-famous YouTube video of the 22-year-old promising retribution and death to UC Santa Barbara sorority girls just minutes before the shooting. En route to campus, they learned about the shootings on the radio. “It is now our responsibility to do everything we can to help avoid this happening to any other family. Not only to avoid more innocence destroyed, but also to identify and deal with the mental issues that drove our son to do what he did,” continued the rest of the statement.