As a teenager, Robin Westman claimed to have been suspended after discussing school shootings with classmates – later writing in a journal that the incident was the origin of a deep obsession with mass shooters.
A decade later, Westman returned to Annunciation Catholic School and carried out those dark fantasies, killing two children at a Mass on Wednesday morning and injuring 18 other people.
As Minneapolis reels from the shooting, officials are combing through Westman’s rambling writings – which the shooter shared in YouTube videos timed to go online around the same time as the attack – to search for a motive.
A CNN review of dozens of those pages – most written in Cyrillic letters to mask the disturbing content – raises questions about whether people in Westman’s life missed warning signs that could have prevented Westman from purchasing the array of firearms used in the killings.
Even as Westman carefully plotted out the attack, writing as recently as last week about visiting the church, diagramming the interior and testing out weapons, the shooter also hinted at a desire to be caught. After describing a family member who had remarked on “dark energy” surrounding Westman, the shooter wrote: “FIND ME I AM BEGGING FOR HELP, I AM SCREAMING FOR HELP.”
