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.”
Authorities confirmed to CNN on Thursday that Westman had recently visited Annunciation’s church, pretending to be interested in reconnecting with the Catholic faith. In the journal, Westman describes looking at door handles, calculating how to best lock victims inside, and noting where teachers were located.
While police have described the writings as a “manifesto,” CNN’s review found that the hand-written entries are less a coherent statement of purpose or political declaration and more a jumbled, stream-of-consciousness window into the shooter’s troubled state of mind.
“This is not a church or religion attack, that is not the message,” Westman wrote. “The message is there is no message.”
The journal entries provide a disturbing and extensive look at Westman’s private thoughts. The shooter described working to avoid detection, writing the entries in Cyrillic script as a “cypher” in case someone found the notebook.
“I really just want a place to put my thoughts,” Westman explained. “I can’t talk to a therapist or family cause I will immediately be reported and put on a watchlist!”
Westman had suffered from depression and faced suicidal and homicidal thoughts for years, according to the journal.
“I have a loving family and a good support system of people that want to see me thrive,” Westman wrote. “For some reason, the fact that I have a pretty good life and the fact that I want kill people have never correlated to me.”
“Every school I went to, I have some fantasy at some point or another of shooting up my school,” Westman added. “Even every job.”
That started with the incident in seventh grade, Westman wrote. It’s unclear what school Westman attended at the time – one former classmate told local news station KSTP that the future shooter attended seventh grade at a school in Saint Paul, and recalled disturbing behavior, including Westman praising Hitler.
At the time, according to a journal entry, Westman asked a girl, “if there was a school shooting, where would you hide?” But after the student told adults, Westman was suspended from school for a week, the journal says.
“I basically promised I didn’t mean anything,” Westman wrote, adding, “I don’t remember ever talking to a therapist.”
Four classmates who attended Annunciation Catholic School with Westman in eighth grade told CNN that they didn’t remember the future shooter saying anything violent or having any disciplinary problems at that time. Westman would have attended Wednesday Mass with other students at the school, they said.
Westman was “different” for an eighth grader, former classmate Mason Wille said, “but I didn’t think anything of it,” adding that Westman seemed to get along with everybody.
Hearing the news that Westman was suspected as the Annunciation shooter was a shock, Wille said. “I would have never seen this coming.”
Nathan Bergstrom, another former classmate, said he vaguely remembered Westman “would get mad sometimes, maybe more angry than a normal student would,” but no major incidents. At the time, Westman stuck out for often wearing Heelys – shoes with a wheel on the bottom – Bergstrom said.
A fifth former classmate, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation, said she did remember Annunciation taking disciplinary action against Westman at one point, but she did not know details about what happened.
“There was some drama around it,” she said. “The students and parents never really found out what it was.”
Several former classmates remembered Westman frequently carrying around a notebook – and one of the former students said she recognized Westman’s handwriting in the videos posted online.
After graduating from Annunciation’s grade school in 2017, Westman attended at least two Minneapolis high schools, including an all-boys private military-style prep school. It’s unclear if Westman graduated from any high school.
In 2019, Westman’s mother filed to legally change the shooter’s name from Robert Paul Westman to Robin M. Westman, court documents show. A judge who approved the petition in January 2020 wrote that Westman “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”
Westman had no past criminal record, according to police and court records.
The journal includes discussions of other mass shooters, and dark fantasies about Westman reveling in killing children and following in the footsteps of murderers like Adam Lanza, who gunned down 26 people – including 20 children – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
The entries are also full of racist and antisemitic slurs and sentiments.
Earlier this year, even while indulging in fantasies about mass violence, Westman described deciding not to carry out an attack to spare family members the pain. But that changed in recent months. In a more recent entry, Westman wrote, “I don’t want to f**king do this I hate myself. I cannot turn back. I cannot stop myself.”
Westman zeroed in on Annunciation – and specifically the all-school mass on Wednesday – after finding an online school schedule, the journal shows. The next month, Westman described making a trial run by going to Mass in the morning and testing doors.
At one point, Westman expressed surprise that family members didn’t expect the coming violence.
“I feel like my mom would have seen it coming due to my rocky past with violent threats,” the journal states. “The other day my stepmom… said she could feel a ‘dark energy’ around me… if only you know!”
Westman’s family have not responded to requests for comment from CNN.
Police are still investigating where Westman obtained the guns used in the attack, which authorities said included a rifle, a handgun and a shotgun. One of the YouTube videos posted the day of the attack showed antisemitic and racist slurs painted on an array of weapons.
In the journal, Westman mentions a plan to try to buy a rifle from an acquaintance, and also opines on how it “should be harder for people like me to carry out these attacks.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference Thursday that authorities are not aware of Westman having any prior mental health diagnosis or mental health commitments, which could have prevented Westman from purchasing firearms.
The journal entries continued up to just days before the shooting. In one entry dated last week, Westman wrote about plans to go to a shooting range, and described visiting Annunciation to “scout one last time.”
Pages later, Westman scrawled a diagram of the inside of the church – with pews, windows and aisles clearly marked – before stabbing the drawing on camera with a knife.
“Went to church this morning,” Westman wrote, adding that the teachers “will not be expecting an attack in the very first week of school.”
CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Thomas Bordeaux, and Arit John contributed reporting.
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