Parents of California gunman Elliot Rodger living ;hell on Earth...

USPA News - The parents of Elliot Rodger, the man who went on a stabbing and shooting spree in his California college town over his hate towards women, is living "hell on Earth" knowing that their son was responsible for last week`s tragedy, they said in a statement on Thursday. The written statement by the parents, "The Hunger Games" assistant director Peter Rodger and Chin Rodger, was read by family spokesman Simon Astaire when he appeared on NBC`s TODAY show on Thursday morning.

It comes nearly a week after the killing spree that claimed six innocent lives, plus Elliot Rodger himself, and injured thirteen others. "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 said. "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." Astaire, a long-time family friend, said the parents have been left devastated by last week`s events. "I`ve seen them since Saturday and, um, they have diminished. They`ve gone down in size, they`re virtually unrecognizable," the spokesman told TODAY, adding that the parents had not yet read their son`s 141-page manifesto titled "My Twisted World". "It`s just awful. It`s an awful piece of writing and they`re going through absolutely enough at the moment. They are mourning the victims more than they are mourning their son," he explained. Astaire also provided an insight about how the parents found out about last week`s deadly rampage in Isla Vista, a town near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He said mother Chin Rodger became aware of what was happening after her son`s social worker called her and told her about the manifesto they had received by email. "She opens it up, she reads the first three or four lines of the email, and then she automatically, instinctively, goes to YouTube," Astaire said. "She looks at YouTube and there was his retribution video. And within 30 seconds she rings up her ex-husband, Peter Rodger, and he looks at this YouTube [video] that was posted. And Peter says, `we have to go there. We have to get to him.`" But before the parents reached Isla Vista, their son had already carried out his killing spree, which was being reported on the radio that evening. "It`s being reported there is a shooting. Mass killings and that a black BMW is involved. And they`re living their nightmare, they are hearing their son is murdering people," Astaire said. The motive behind the killings became quickly apparent with the discovery of a 141-page manifesto titled "My Twisted World" sent to family members and a TV station plus various video recordings posted to Rodger`s YouTube channel. A number of recent comments had also been posted on various websites, showing his extreme hatred for women. "Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity. Against all of you," Rodger said in his last video, shot inside his car at sunset. "For the last eight years of my life, ever since I`ve hit puberty, I`ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires. All because girls have never been attracted to me." Rodger added: "I`m 22 years old and I`m still a virgin, I`ve never even kissed a girl. I`ve been through college for 2.5 years, more than that actually, and I`m still a virgin. And it`s been very torturous. College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. In those years I`ve had to rot in loneliness, it`s not fair." The gunman continued his rant in the nearly 7-minute video, wondering why women were not attracted to him and displaying extreme narcissism, even referring to himself as the "supreme gentleman." He also explained his plan of wanting to enter a sorority house, possibly referring to Alpha Phi where no one answered when he banged on the front door, leading him to shoot three people in front of the sorority house. "I`m going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde slut I see inside there," Rodger said, speaking calmly and smiling at times. "All those girls I`ve desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them while they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes. I`ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you." In his lengthy written manifesto, Rodger continued to vent about his hatred against women, calling them "vicious, evil, barbaric animals" for sleeping with "degenerate" men. He went on to explain his wishes for an "ideal world" where sexuality is outlawed with the purpose of making humanity "pure and civilized." Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown previously said investigators quickly became aware of the manifesto and the videos after the stabbing and shooting spree came to an end. "In reading this 141-page rambling autobiographical, almost a combination of an autobiography and a diary, it`s very apparent of the severe extent of how disturbed Mr. Rodger was," the sheriff said.