Dayton shooter was obsessed with drugs, mental illness and Lucifer, wrote about 'hunting' down students
Connor Betts, 24, the suspected gunman who went on a shooting spree at Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, August 4, killing nine people including his own sister and injuring others at Ned Pepper's Bar before being shot dead by the police, was obsessed with Satanism, massacres, drugs and mental illnesses, according to morbid thoughts he jotted down in a friend's journal.
According to Ian Himes, 25, who befriended Betts five years ago and frequently hung out with him, the shooter jot down his thoughts in a journal that he maintained around 2017. After hearing news of the shooting, Himes dug out the pages of his notebooks, which were obtained by the Daily Mail.
The jottings of Betts, whom Himes described as a loner but not as a racist or someone interested in weapons, reveal a troubled mind that was obsessed with morbid aspects of life, including hunting down people and obsession with the devil.
Pictures of the pages, as published by the outlet, shows bold declarations in all-caps letters, his handwriting almost undecipherable at times. Satanic symbols often grace the pages of his journal with phrases like "Hail Lucifer" and "Strike fear into the hearts of children of God; Show them the hell that waits below."
In one of the pages, Betts scribbled, "I need drugs for now and later," "Wake and bake" and "how can we get moolah for speed?" which were obvious references to illegal drugs.
Himes told the outlet that the two of them often hung out at each other's places and played pool and smoked hookah.
"He was very consistent with the methamphetamine. I don't know if he got into slamming with needles, but he was pretty much smoking it every day when we were hanging out. Coke was also a strong factor but he couldn't afford it so much. It was either that or medications like Adderall or Vyvanse, anything to keep him up for days on end," he said about his former friend.
At one point Betts fascinated about "hunting" down someone from the University of Dayton. "We take a b***h, a person, man, convince them to come with us then poof, gone lol down?" he wrote.
Many of his entries were incoherent and consisted of jumbled thought processes that were strung together as one - this pattern was noticed especially when he pondered about schizophrenia and mental illness.
"Anti-social personality disorder. Don’t listen to romantic advice, sociopath," he jotted down. "Seek and destroy. Still haven’t eaten enough so…very ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), paranoid, schizophrenic, strong, bipolar. I am Azrael and this is my human Connor. This human body has so many stupid limits lol. Why? Makes me look less than 'average'."
His journal was also filled with dark drawings of the Grim Reaper and what appeared to be the lyrics of a song or a poem.
The verse read: "Beasts of darkness called upon from fiery pits. Armies massing, soon to shed blood. The struggle eternal vying for souls to fuel their war machines, order versus chaos, good versus evil (a matter of perspective). The chosen, champions of their house, some are chosen, some choose, champions clash. I am the servant of the serpent evil incarnate, flesh consumer, light destroyer, fueled by hate, rage my strength, distrust my shield. Their screams music, their pain my pleasure. May the night reign eternal. The light forever eclipsed. A champion of wrath, predatory state, to hunt and to kill my greatest escape."
Himes said that he never really paid attention to Betts' bizarre journal entries till he heard what his friend allegedly did on the news.
"When I heard what happened I shouted out 'are you fucking kidding me?' I was in a room by myself, I was stunned, my stomach dropped," he said. "I remembered that I had these pages he’d written so I started tearing my room apart to try and find them and I sat down to decipher them properly for the first time... I wish I had have known what he was writing at the time and how serious he was. I wish I could have warned his family."
As for what was the motive behind the mass shooting carried out by Betts, police are yet to confirm anything. However, a number of media reports have pondered whether killing his 22-year-old sister, Megan, was the intended target of the shooter. Himes said that he did not believe that was the case.
"As for his sister, I met her once, she was definitely more sociable," he said. "She wasn't part of the drugs scene. She was very preppy. They were polar opposites but he loved his sister. I just don't see him mapping it out like that to seek her out and kill her. I just can't explain it."
Himes was also confused as to how his friend managed to get his hand on a firearm. "I knew his dad had some guns for protection but I didn’t know that he had guns of his own," he said.