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Isla Vista attack survivor says smirking Elliot Rodger looked ‘happy’

Students hug after a recent memorial service at UC Santa Barbara for six students slain May 23 in Isla Vista, Calif.
Students hug after a recent memorial service at UC Santa Barbara for six students slain May 23 in Isla Vista, Calif.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
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UC Santa Barbara student Bianca de Kock initially didn’t realize she had been shot by Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger.

“Honestly, first of all it didn’t seem real. I thought it was rubber bullets,” De Kock told ABC News on Friday. “And then I realized, ‘I’m bleeding. I’m in pain.’”

Rodger fled in his BMW after shooting De Kock, leaving her to die on a sorority house lawn. Bleeding and in a panic, De Kock called her mother to say her last goodbyes.

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“I just told her I’d been shot, and I don’t know what happened, it’s crazy but I love you,” she said, the memory bringing tears to her eyes.

De Kock said she hasn’t forgotten the look on Rodger’s face before he started shooting.

“He smiles at me, and just starts shooting,” she said. “It was a smirky, grimacy smile, but it was a smile. He wanted to do this. He looked happy about it.”

While De Kock and 12 others survived their wounds from last week’s rampage, six didn’t.

The victims were Christopher Michaels-Martinez, 20; Weihan “David” Wang, 20; Cheng Yuan “James” Hong, 20; Veronika Weiss, 19; Katie Cooper, 22; and George Chen, 19.

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