California killings: Fox News expert says 'homosexual impulses' could have caused Elliot Rodger's killing spree

Dr Robi Ludwig said Rodger could have carried out shootings because he "didn't feel like a real man"

Rodger detailed his hatred for the girls who he blamed for his being a virgin at the age of 22, and the boys who they chose instead of him

A guest speaker on Fox News has suggested that Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger could have been acting upon “homosexual impulses” when he targeted his victims.

Dr Robi Ludwig, a licensed pyscotherapist, was appearing on the channel’s Justice With Judge Jeanie programme when she made the remarks.

She says she read the 22-year-old gunman’s 137-page manifesto in which he vows to exterminate the majority of women, and came up with a new theory about the origin of Rodger’s rage.

“When I was first listening to him, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s angry with women for rejecting him’,” Dr Ludwig said.

“And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses? Was he angry with women because they were taking men away from him?”

Dr Ludwig continued: “Was he angry at the men for not choosing him? This is a kid who was just angry in general and probably felt rejected. He couldn’t connect. He could not feel loved. He couldn’t feel successful. Maybe he didn’t feel like a real man?”

In his rambling part-memoir, part-manifesto, Rodger described what he calls “My Twisted World”, his anger at the women he claims kept him a virgin his whole life and his vow for revenge against the men they chose instead of him.

During Friday’s rampage, Rodger stabbed his three flatmates to death before shooting dead two young women outside a sorority house and then killing a young man inside the local deli in the student beach community of Isla Vista.

Rodger, who according to the document was born in the UK and moved to California with his parents at the age of five, also posted a video to YouTube in which he says: “I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you.”