The man who police say shot and killed two women and injured five others at a Tallahassee, Fla., yoga studio before turning the gun on himself Friday had recorded racist, misogynistic videos and songs he posted online.
Police identified the gunman as 40-year-old Scott Paul Beierle. The two women killed were identified by police Saturday as Nancy Van Vessem, 61, a doctor, and 21-year-old Florida State University student Maura Binkley.
In a video posted to YouTube called “The American Whore,” Beirle, speaking in a bedroom, railed against interracial couples, calling white women who sleep with black men “deranged” and “degenerate.” In “My Fraulein,” he discusses a failed relationship and talks about how he assumes he will never get married.
The videos, posted in 2014, have since been taken down by YouTube.
He also reportedly expressed sympathy with Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger, according to the New York Times, whose manifesto and online videos described his disgust for women and called for involuntary celibates, or “incels” to punish them. Roger, driven by a desire to punish women for leaving him a self-described “kissless virgin,” killed six people and injured 14 others before killing himself in 2014.
BuzzFeed News reported that Tallahassee police Officer Damon Miller said he could not say if Beierle targeted women or if authorities are investigating his online activity.
“Everything that he has a connection to we’re investigating right now,” Miller said.
BuzzFeed also reported he posted songs to music streaming service Soundcloud within the last few months, including one in which he discusses chaining up a woman in his basement to rape her.
According to the Associated Press, Beierle was charged with battery in 2012 and 2016 after two separate incidents in which he grabbed a woman’s buttocks.
