Worship at the Feet of a Coward

Summary

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Incels Podcast – “Worship at the Feet of a Coward”

iHeartPodcasts | November 26, 2025
Season 1, Episode 10

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Episode Overview

This episode of Incels, titled “Worship at the Feet of a Coward,” explores the devastating impacts of the 2014 Isla Vista massacre and the ongoing influence of its perpetrator, Elliot Rodger, within the incel community. Through an emotional and deeply personal conversation with Jane Weiss—the aunt of one of Rodger’s victims, Veronica Weiss—the episode investigates the psychological underpinnings, cultural factors, and societal consequences of incel ideology, as well as the aftermath for survivors’ families. The discussion also addresses advocacy efforts for gun violence prevention and the urgent need for digital literacy and parental involvement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The 2014 Isla Vista Massacre and Incel Radicalization

• Background on the Event (05:12 – 06:56)
  • Sheriff Bill Brown recalls the night of May 23, 2014:
    “This was one of the worst crimes that was committed in our county’s history.” (05:12)
  • Elliot Rodger’s violent spree resulted in six deaths (including victims Veronica Weiss, Katherine Cooper, among others) and 14 injuries.
  • Rodger’s 137-page manifesto (“My Twisted World”) was highlighted as an “early influence into the incel and manosphere subculture." (05:50)
• Rodger’s Motivations and Incel Community Idolization (08:04 – 08:52)
  • Body Moving (crime analyst):
    “He stated women should not be given any rights and that their wickedness needed to be contained to avoid the risk of humanity falling into degener[acy]... Incels refer to him as St. Elliot Rodger, and when they say they’re going to attack women, they say they’re going to ‘er’ her.” (08:04)
  • Rodger’s rage specifically targeted couples and women expressing affection and happiness.

Memorable Quote:
“It’s always jarring. But I have sort of an understanding of these young loner, what do they call them, lone wolf shooters, that they hit a pattern over and over again... It happens over and over again, that somehow worships at the feet of a coward that killed my niece.” – Jane Weiss (15:23)

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II. Remembering Veronica Weiss

• Personal Stories and Character (10:00 – 11:03)
  • Jane describes Veronica’s sense of humor, brilliance, and athleticism:
    “She was a brilliant student, never let any boundaries slow her down... an amazing water polo player and an outstanding mathematician.” (10:14)
• Family Recollection of Tragedy (12:08 – 14:20)
  • Jane recounts learning about her niece’s murder and the early shock and chaos:
    “My immediate thought is, we have to get to California and we have to get there now. And within probably an hour, I started getting texts from friends who had seen things on the news that I never did see because I got busy trying to find airline tickets on Memorial Day.” (12:38)

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III. The Incel Subculture: Emergence and Patterns

• Discovery of “Incel” and Understanding the Subculture (14:25 – 16:15)
  • Jane admits she “had never heard it before,” recognizing later how deeply incel ideology is tied to gendered blame and hate.
  • The narrative describes how communities online cultivate resentment and encourage violent ideation among disaffected young men.

Memorable Quote:
“Realizing how the blame of women took hold of his mind and pushed him down that hole... that seems to be the rabbit hole that so many young men are going down.” – Jane Weiss (15:07)

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IV. Damage, Prevention, and Advocacy

• Jane’s Response: Gun Violence Prevention Efforts (19:57 – 21:01)

  • After Veronica’s death, Jane helped push Washington State’s Gun Violence Restraining Order, “extreme risk protection orders,” and worked with local officials:
    “When somebody sees a relative or a friend starting to spiral down and have some of those thoughts... we took it to the voters and passed it as an initiative which has kind of become a hallmark across the country.” (19:57)

• Elliot Rodger as Online Icon and Ongoing Threat (21:01 – 21:30)

  • Jane recounts a recent shooting where the perpetrator’s TikTok profile photo was of Elliot Rodger.
  • The phrase “Supreme Gentleman” and the use of “hero” with “er” capitalized are now signifiers in violent online subcultures.

• The Role of Schools and Parents (22:33 – 24:13)

  • Jane urges for more digital literacy and online safety education:
    “I wish we could talk more about the Internet and what kids are seeing and doing on the Internet... I just think parents are totally unaware. If the schools had an opportunity, the PTA had an opportunity to present that without making it scary—even though it is—parents might pay more attention to letting that Internet babysit their children.” (23:28)

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V. The Pervasive Impact of Social Media and Gun Access

• Social Media’s Influence and Legislative Action (24:13 – 26:35)
  • Discusses the “25-year-old brain” not being fully formed, the risks of young people accessing harmful content, and the necessity for stronger safe storage laws.
  • Jane joins groups including Moms Demand Action, Everytown Survivor Network, and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, emphasizing survivor stories’ power with lawmakers.

Memorable Quote:
“There are better things to do than to surround yourself in grief... Working to help other communities, help other families stay safe is a really important thing.” – Jane Weiss (27:17)

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VI. Guidance for At-Risk Youth & Reflection on Justice

• Advice for Struggling Young Men (28:20 – 29:00)
  • Jane:
    “Take a beat and to see what else you have in your life that's positive. It could be one class, it could be a book, it could be a person. It doesn’t have to be an online situation. And know that there are people who care about you, people who want the best for you... The social media is an addiction just like a drug or alcohol...” (28:20)
• What Veronica Would Have Said to Rodger (29:08 – 29:39)
  • “You didn’t need to do that. There were people that would listen to you, that would talk to you… There are lots of those people out there. But if you’re only looking for the bad, guess what? You’re only going to find bad. You get good at what you practice.” (29:08)

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VII. Veronica’s Legacy

• Hopes for Impact and Paying It Forward (33:06 – 35:48)
  • Jane hopes audiences “understand that she was completely innocent... that she deserved better than this.” (33:14)
  • Tradition of a “pay it forward” at Starbucks on Veronica’s birthday, a memory linked to their time together.
  • Jane:
    “Her legacy will be the love and the humor she had for everyone. She was always looking for the underdog.” (35:39)

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Notable Quotes

• “He is the coward at whose feet radicalized men worship.”
  – Courtney Armstrong (05:01)

• “Hatred isn’t going to do anything except eat you up... There are lots of those people out there. But if you’re looking only for the bad, guess what? You’re gonna only find bad. You get good at what you practice.”
  – Jane Weiss (29:08)

• “Bullets, they don’t judge, they just kill.”
  – Jane Weiss (33:14)

• “I always say... in Veronica's honor, I will always work to make communities safer and families more involved in gun violence prevention.”
  – Jane Weiss (34:08)

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Key Timestamps

• 05:12 — Sheriff Brown on the Isla Vista massacre overview
• 08:04 — Body Moving on Rodger's rage and manifesto quotes
• 10:00 — Jane Weiss describes Veronica
• 12:08 — Jane's recollection of finding out about Veronica's death
• 14:25 — Jane learns about “incel” for the first time
• 19:57 — Jane’s advocacy for gun safety and restraint laws
• 21:30 — Jane on incel idolization of Rodger in recent violence
• 23:28 — Jane on the need for digital literacy and online safety
• 26:55 — The importance of survivor advocacy with lawmakers
• 28:20 — Jane's message to struggling young men
• 29:08 — Jane on what Veronica would say to Elliot Rodger
• 33:14 — Jane's hopes for Veronica’s legacy

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The episode blends investigative reporting, survivor testimony, and policy advocacy with an earnest, urgent tone. Jane Weiss’s reflections are candid and heartfelt, providing a human face to the aftermath of hate-motivated violence. The host and contributors maintain empathy for victims, a critical stance toward incel subcultures, and a determined optimism regarding prevention and intervention.

Takeaways:

• The danger of online radicalization for isolated and vulnerable individuals, particularly young men.
• How figures like Elliot Rodger become mythologized within toxic online spaces.
• The ripple effects of violence on families and communities.
• The crucial roles of gun regulation, online safety education, and survivor advocacy in addressing such tragedies.
• The enduring legacy of victims, upheld through remembrance and positive action.

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Transcript

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[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

From the dark corners of the web an emerging mindset.

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I am a loser.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either. A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Narrator/Host]

Incels will be added to the terrorism guide.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

I see literally zero hope.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

This is Incels, a production of kt Studios and iHeart Podcasts. Season 1 Episode 10 Worship at the.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Feet of a Coward she wasn't in the wrong place. She was in very much the right place that night, doing all the right things and she deserved better than this.

[Narrator/Host]

If you were a woman and a man in love and showing it publicly, it would just anger him to the point where he would need to toss things at you.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

We're getting in there and they're getting information and seeing things that they don't know how to.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Courtney I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo, Connor Powell and Carolyn Miller. We began the series hearing from Colleen Weiss, Veronica Weiss's mother. In this episode we hear from Jane Weiss, Veronica's aunt who has dedicated her life to activism. Veronica was a 19 year old college freshman at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was senselessly killed during the Isla Vista shooting spree on May 23, 2014. The perpetrator, Elliot Rodger. His name has come up multiple times, brought up by experts, incels and in relevant news clips. The frequency of the mentions has to do with his place in the incel community. He is the coward at whose feet radicalized men worship. Briefly, here are the details of what happened on the day of the killing spree. This is a news report From News Channel 312.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

Friday, May 23, 2014. It was a very dark evening indeed. This was one of the worst crimes that was committed in our county's history.

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Sheriff Bill Brown remembers the night Elliot Roger Went on a mentally disturbed deadly attack.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

A 22 year old suspect embarked on a violent rampage throughout Isla Vista. He began by killing his two roommates and a visitor. He then got into his vehicle, a black BMW and he went basically hunting people in Isla Vista.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Here's crime analyst body moving Elliot Rogers.

[Narrator/Host]

He was a British American mass murderer who is known for killing six people and injuring 14 others during the 2014 Isla Vista killings. The murders he committed, his suicide and his manifesto have been cited as an early influence into the incel and manosphere subculture. And his manifesto was 137 pages. It was titled My Twisted the Story of Elliot Rogers. He killed his two roommates, then drove over to the sorority house and he was going to take his revenge out on these beautiful sorority girls. Elliot believed that he was going to purify the world and it's necessary to remove love and sex from the human existence.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Again, News Channel 312.

[Guardian Bikes Advertiser]

Two sorority girls were killed and their friend was wounded while they walked down.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

The street, went past the Alavista market, did a drive by, shooting in there at people that were running for cover and he ended up killing a young man who ran into the market. He then proceeded to just go on this wild rampage all around town, striking people, pedestrians, people on bicycles.

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[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Segovia and Del Norte.

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911 calls lit up dispatcher's screens. Shots were being fired on several streets and deputies in the area found the shooter.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

The deputies returned fire. He was wounded in that exchange of gunfire. He then drove off, accelerated, then put the gun to his head, committed suicide.

[Guardian Bikes Advertiser]

As the weeks of investigative work unfolded, there was a written manifesto and other signs of years of mental issues coming out.

[Sheriff Bill Brown / News Reporter]

He had had basically projected all that he was going to do. He was a very sick individual.

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Sheriff Brown spoke with all family members and said it's hard because you can't make sense out of a senseless situation. As they remembered Christopher Ross, Michaels Martinez, Veronica Weiss, Katherine Cooper, Cheng Huan Hong, George Chen and Weihan Wang.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Information later revealed that leading up to the attacks, he had been showing clear signs of instability and escalating rage. Here again, crime analyst body moving.

[Narrator/Host]

In fact, prior to him doing this, he would often attack couples that were, you know, maybe on the beach holding hands or in their car, maybe making out and he would throw coffee at them. If you were a woman and a man in love and showing it publicly, it would just anger him to the point where he would need to toss things at you. He stated women should not be given any rights and that their wickedness needed to be contained to avoid the risk of humanity falling into degener. Elliot said women's refusal to accept him was a declaration of war, and he hoped his attacks would reshape humanity. So Elliot is really the grounding point for Incels. They refer to him as St. Elliot Roger, and when they say they're going to attack women, they say they're going to er her.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Disturbingly, his actions have been lionized by some segments of the Incel community. His name now used as a rallying cry to push others toward violence. Body continues referencing his aforementioned manifesto.

[Narrator/Host]

On page 118 it says this. It came to a point where I had to set a date for the day of Retribution. That is what Elliot Roger calls the day that he went on his spree killing. I originally considered doing it on the Halloween of 2013. That's when the entire town erupts in raucous partying. There would literally be thousands of people crowded together who I could kill with ease. And the goal was to kill everyone to utterly destroy that wretched town. But then after seeing footage of previous Halloween events on YouTube, I saw that just too many cops walking around, it would be too risky. So the day of retribution would have to be on a normal party weekend.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

A normal party weekend is exactly what the Friday of Memorial Day, May 23, 2014 was. We're honored to have spoken with Jane Weiss, Veronica Weiss's aunt. We asked Jane what people should know about Veronica.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Well, her sincere love for all of her friends and family and her wicked sense of humor. Always looking for the humorous side of things. If her father was getting a little too loud in the car, she'd tell him it's time to play the quiet game. Always had something witty to say and could converse with anyone. And I think that will always stand out and be willing to take a stand on something that you believe in really marked her. She was a brilliant student, never let any boundaries slow her down. She played boys baseball. She ran track and cross country. She was an amazing water polo player and an outstanding mathematician and very wise young woman.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane describes a memory from a trip Veronica took to visit her in Seattle. It was the August before starting her freshman year at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was nine months before the rampage.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

I took her all over Seattle and we went to the Fremont Troll, which is a big deal in Seattle. I would never personally climb it. She climbed up it so she could get what she liked to refer to as awkward photos. And so we'd go any place and take just weird pictures for her collection. And when I was teaching, I taught second grade. She would text me and once she started college and they would always start with how's the weather? Which I really learned quickly was, can I have some more Starbucks money, please? The tech started with how's the weather? It was going to end with, I really want to go to Starbucks. You never know what trauma does to people over time. But it impacted me and that I was close to retiring and knew very little about guns or anything along those lines. And it push me to do something in my retirement that I would be proud of working in gun violence. Because what happened to her should never have happened.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane is Veronica's aunt on her father's side. We asked Jane to describe how she heard about what happened to Veronica.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

It was the Friday night of Memorial Day, and as a second grade teacher, I was exhausted and knew that I was going to work on my report cards all weekend. So I'd gone to bed early. So I did not hear about it that night. And when I woke up on Saturday morning early, I was watching things that I had taped. So I didn't have the television live on, still hadn't heard about it. And about seven o' clock, my sister called and she had just gotten a call from my brother and she just said, sit down. Which I was sitting and told me what happened or what she knew about what happened. And my immediate thought is, we have to get to California and we have to get there now. And within probably an hour, I started getting texts from friends who had seen things on the news that I never did see because I got busy trying to find airline tickets on Memorial Day, and my sister got busy trying to find hotel rooms. And we were down in California by 3 o' clock that afternoon.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane continues recalling those early days and the staggering scope of what began to unfold.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

We didn't know a lot that first day, but on the Sunday, we drove up to Isla Vista and we met people from the college, the dean and the chancellor. And that day they were finding out about the other young men that he had killed in his apartment and realized, this is going to go pretty big. And I remember going to the store that night and seeing the People magazine and it already had that on the COVID And we learned over the few days that his parents had known that he was struggling and that they had sought a wellness visit about a month before, and they had known he was probably going down a spiraling behavior. And we didn't want to blame him because mental health happens all over the place. Veronica had no knowledge of him or anything. And trying to understand what was happening took quite a while before they were able to uncover all of it. But he had been posting videos and manifestos and all kinds of things that we found out about over the course of the next week.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We asked Jane if up until that point, she'd ever heard the term incel.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

I had never heard it before, and I'm not really sure if I heard it until I was back in Seattle. But articles started coming out everywhere, and the stories of previous encounters with law enforcement had started coming out and pieces of his manifesto had been started to be released. So we were just starting to piece together that. But knowing that he had attempted to get in the sorority that Veronica and her sorority sisters were passing because he wanted to kill all the pretty girls in that sorority that night, and they didn't let him in. The information kept coming and has even to this day about that subculture. And it's everywhere. It's the dark Internet, chat rooms. And realizing how the blame of women took hold of his mind and pushed him down that hole to the point where it didn't matter who, it mattered that it was a female. And that seems to be the rabbit hole that so many young men are going down. And learning that it's part of the subculture of so many mass shootings and other incidents is just terrifying. It's always jarring. But I have sort of an understanding of these young loner, what do they call them, lone wolf shooters, that they hit a pattern over and over again. And when you hear people talk about, oh yeah, he was a loner, he was watching the Internet, all of those things. And it just sets off a little spark in my brain that this is going to be another one that somehow worships at the feet of a coward that killed my niece over and over again. It happens.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane describes searching for a way to channel her grief. Very shortly after returning from Veronica's memorial, Jane found her purpose. Helping push the Gun Violence Restraining Order, the gvro, across the finish line.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

When somebody sees a relative or a friend starting to spiral down and have some of those thoughts and it's as much homicide as it is suicide, honestly, I know California went first passing their GVRO, the Gun Violence Restraining Order in 2014. And weirdly, we had a senator in Washington who grew up in Santa Barbara and knew about the shooting and was very affected by it and reached out and they as our state legislature tried to pass an extreme risk protection order in 2015 and again in 2016. And when it wouldn't go through our legislature, we took it to the voters and passed it as an initiative which has kind of become a hallmark across the country. And so being involved in that has been really important because it gives me a chance to speak out about these young men going down those paths and seeing that coming. And we have a fantastic unit in King county that is all women that goes in and removes the guns. And I'm so proud to have been a part of getting that passed. In Washington.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane talks about how despite some changes, violence still happens. With Elliot Rodger used as a twisted inspiration, she references a specific crime that happened shortly before our interview. A 16 year old suspect named Desmond Holly was identified as the gunman in the Evergreen High School shooting. He had been active on a violent Gore site that glorifies previous killers. And his most recent TikTok profile photo was of Elliot Rodger.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Yeah, I've seen Supreme gentlemen. I've seen the word hero spelled with the capital er in the middle to make sure that we know it's him. It was in the news twice this weekend. I saw an article on Friday about the shooter in Evergreen High School in Denver had a picture on his wall of Veronica's shooter. And there was an article and Mother Jones this morning talking about the Netflix series Adolescents and that they somewhat left out that the parents need to be looking at what their kids are seeing online. And being super aware is important for mom and dad. What do you see? What can you get to all of that? And I don't know that that's in everybody else's frontal lobe as a parent that that's got to be looked at.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We asked Jane what she wants people to understand about how far the damage from these acts of violence through families, through communities, and whether schools should be actively educating young people about the dangers.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

It's a good question. I wish we could talk more about the Internet and what kids are seeing and doing on the Internet. We just had a 13 year old arrested, I think he's out now, who had a school shooting all planned down to minutia and they were able to intervene. But I don't know how to help parents more than getting the word out much more clearly that the Internet isn't a safe place for kids and isn't a safe place for kids who feel the least bit lesser than or not as good as, or any of those sorts of things because they start looking for places where they're encouraged. Well, we started teaching online safety right as I was leaving teaching in 2017. I was the librarian and we did Internet safety classes, but I don't think we addressed that particular issue. But I do know that when you get into junior high and high school, that definitely needs to be part of the kids education as well as the adult's education. I think we can't ignore it any longer. It's gotten large and kids are having access at so much younger ages. I just was reading today that there's so many more juvenile arrests and I think they like to pose online with guns and do all those things. And I just think parents are totally unaware. And if the schools had an opportunity, the PTA had an opportunity to present that without making it scary. Even though it is, parents might pay more attention to letting that Internet babysit their children.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane continues speaking about the pervasive impacts of social media on developing minds and what actions can be taken.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

I'm not positive how you can share shut it down, but kids having to say I'm 18 is not working. They're getting in there and they're getting information and seeing things that they don't know how to process. I mean it is that 25 year old brain that doesn't even completely finish forming and we see this 22, 21. Yeah, they're a legal age, but they aren't completely formed mentally yet. And somehow we have to take that into account. I've been part of the Be Smart program with Everytown talking about the risk of teen suicide and understanding that and modeling that safe storage. It's keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, be it suicide, which is close to 75% of the gun deaths in Washington state. And the only group it's ticking up in is Juveniles. People don't realize how that fast decision, that five second decision is rarely given a second chance. And storing guns safely. We're working to make our safe storage law in Washington stronger.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We asked Jane to fill us in on her wide ranging advocacy work.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

I had seen in the news that we had a group in Washington called the alliance for Gun Responsibility that was working to pass an initiative for universal background checks. And then an online forum, Everytown for Gun Safety, was starting up a huge nationwide campaign to send postcards to your senators. Not one more was the theme. And I sent an online postcard and then I received a phone call asking if I would like to deliver postcards to my senators. And I did on July 1. And somebody connected me up with another survivor who was the citizen sponsor of our initiative. And so I worked that summer with her doing house parties, raising awareness, telling Veronica's story in hopes of getting our initiative passed. And that one thing led to another. And that summer I was invited to California with my brother because they were debating the gun violence restraining order in Sacramento. And this fellow stood up and said, this kid, speaking of Elliot, was not a criminal. This is a no brainer. I moved to pass the gun violence restraining order in California, which gave me the momentum to feel like, okay, we can do something. That's huge.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Jane is now active in multiple advocacy groups, Moms Demand Action, the Everytown Survivor Network, and the alliance for Gun Responsibility. She's traveled to support gun safety legislation and knows that nothing shifts lawmakers more than the power of lived experience.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

I was invited to New York to train with Everytown as a survivor fellow. And that connected me to a lot of survivors of shootings like Sandy Hook and the Aurora, Colorado and Las Vegas hadn't happened yet, but later met some of those people and we kind of have formed a network of almost family all across the United States. Through that, I've connected with a lot of survivors in Washington and several of them have accompanied me back there. And a lot of the times you hear from the senators and representatives, we need more of these stories. They help us tell the stories when we're bringing out initiatives or bills. There are better things to do than to surround yourself in grief. It's not going to bring the child back. And working to help other communities, help other families stay safe is a really important thing. And I do see a lot of survivors that are ready, speak up, speak out. And that that wasn't happening much before 2014. And those voices definitely matter. The legislators tell us over and over that it matters because those are real people behind the statistics.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We asked Jane what she would say to a young man struggling with the same things many incels describe. And knowing what can happen when that pain turns with violent to take a.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Beat and to see what else you have in your life that's positive. It could be one class, it could be a book, it could be a person. It doesn't have to be an online situation. And know that there are people who care about you, people who want the best for you and getting away from that, shutting some of that down. I heard the governor in Utah talk about that, that the social media is an addiction just like a drug or alcohol or something else along those lines. That to take a beat because it is something that is preventable. You don't want to be responsible for other people's lives.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We also asked what Jane thought Veronica would say to the man who killed her and five other innocent people.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

You didn't need to do that. There were people that would listen to you, that would talk to you, that would understand you, that would support you. If you just looked for those people, hatred isn't going to do anything except eat you up. And she would have been one of those people to reach out to him and be nice to him. There are lots of those people out there. But if you're looking only for the bad, guess what? You're gonna only find bad. You get good at what you practice.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Lets stop here for another break. We'll be back in a moment.

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[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

We asked what Jane hoped people take away from Veronica's story and what she hopes will be achieved through sharing Veronica's legacy.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Well, I hope people understand that a she was completely innocent. She wasn't in the wrong place. She was in the very much the right place that night doing all the right things. As a 19 year old college freshman at 9 o' clock would be doing and that she deserved better than this. And I see people, when they hear about her and see her picture, that they realize this could be their child because bullets, they don't judge, they just kill. And I see that. I see tears. I sometimes see my own tears. But I do believe people are moved to realize that she was just a normal 19 year old college girl doing what a normal 19 year old college girl would be doing. I always say when I speak that in Veronica's honor, I will always work to make communities safer and families more involved in gun violence prevention. It's the guns and I totally believe it's the guns. You can't throw bullets at somebody and hurt them. Stabbing is much more intimate and we're seeing more of that all over the place. But I do believe that the guns and their access and people not recognizing the lethality of some of these guns. Most of the people I talked to was like, we've never touched a gun or something like that. But everybody says that the survivors hold the moral ground because they've experienced it firsthand. I really just believe that knowledge is power and advocating for what works is powerful. And I know Colleen would say Veronica would hate if we were all moping around feeling sorry for ourselves. She had much more humor than that. She wanted us to live life and do everything we possibly could while we're here. And her legacy will be the love and the humor she had for everyone. She was always looking for the underdog.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

Finally, we asked Jane to share how she keeps Veronica's memory alive.

[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

Well, every year on her birthday, I do a pay it forward at Starbucks. One of the places we visited the summer before she started college was the Starbucks in Pike Place Market at Seattle, the original one. I have a few pictures of her there. I've done a pay it forward in New York, in New Orleans, any place I am on her birthday, I have a picture of her and I think about her when I'm tutoring a high school student right now, getting her to read some good books. And I'll say, hey, my niece loved this book. Why don't you read this book? So she's alive and a part of me all the time.

[Courtney Armstrong (Producer/Narrator)]

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram. TStudios Incels is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo and me, Courtney Armstrong. Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller Editing by Jeff to music by Vanicore Studios Incels is Pretty a production of KT Studios and iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

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[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

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[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

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[Jane Weiss (Veronica's Aunt)]

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