Robin Westman scoffed at religion, idolized the nation’s most notorious mass shooters and fantasized about carrying out a public massacre where children would be at their most vulnerable.
That combination of factors led Westman, 23, to Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, where the transgender woman opened fire Wednesday as teachers and students attended Mass. Two children were killed, and 18 students and adults were wounded.
Westman, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene, knew the layout of the pre-K-8 parish school well.
Westman attended Annunciation as a child and graduated from the eighth grade in 2017. Westman’s mother worked there as a parish secretary before retiring in 2021.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said Thursday that Westman “wanted to watch children suffer.”
“More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children, defenseless children,” Mr. Thompson said at a press conference in Minneapolis. “The shooter was obsessed with the idea of killing children. The shooter saw the attack as a way to target our most vulnerable among us while they were at their most vulnerable, at school and at church.”
Investigators are combing through hundreds of pages left behind by Westman, including journals written in a combination of Cyrillic and English, a now-removed YouTube video and a four-page farewell letter to “my friends and family.”
“I do apologize for the effects my actions will have on your lives,” the letter said. “Please know I care for all of you so much and it pains me to bring this storm of chaos into your lives.”
The sentiments offer a jarring contrast with Westman’s video, which displays a row of firearms and rifle magazines with scrawled racist and antisemitic slurs, as well as “Kill Donald Trump,” “For the Children” and “Where is Your God?”
At one point in the video, a person thought to be Westman holds bullets and says in a singsong voice, “Tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry to my family, but that’s it, that’s the only people I’m sorry to,” the voice says. “F—- those kids.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau is investigating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism and an anti-Catholic hate crime.
“Subject left multiple anti-Catholic, anti-religious references both in his manifesto and written on his firearms,” Mr. Patel said on X. “Subject expressed hatred and violence toward Jewish people, writing ‘Israel must fall,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ and using explicit language related to the Holocaust.”
FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: SH00TER WANTED TO K*LL CHILDREN
Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson says the gunman left “hundreds of pages” filled with hate—His writings revealed one obsession: targeting defenseless children in school and church. pic.twitter.com/U352vOsmMo
— Real America’s Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) August 28, 2025
Mr. Thompson said Westman “expressed hate toward almost every group imaginable,” including Blacks, Hispanics, Christians and Jews.
The one group that Westman admired: school shooters and mass murderers.
“The shooter appeared to hate all of us. The shooter’s heart was full of hate,” said Mr. Thompson, adding that he refused to use the perpetrator’s name.
The 11-minute video starts by showing a picture of Jesus Christ wearing the crown of thorns in the center of a printed shooting target with the message: “He came to pay a debt He didn’t owe/Because we owe a debt we cannot pay.”
The video then shows someone leafing through a notebook and stopping at a hand-drawn diagram of the interior of a church, presumably the Annunciation chapel. The person then stabs the page with a knife.
The journals’ odd combination of Cyrillic script and English words makes them difficult to decipher, but multiple social media accounts and the New York Post have translated parts of the manifestos using AI.
In one journal, Westman expresses regret over transitioning from male to female. She changed her name from “Robert” to “Robin” in 2020 at age 17 as part of a gender transition, according to a court document posted online.
“I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” said Westman, according to the New York Post translation.
Westman later wrote: “I regret being trans. … I wish I was a girl. I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today. I also can’t afford that.”
In an AI translation by the Trump White House Updates account on X, the shooter expressed admiration for other mass shooters, including Adam Lanza, who killed 20 children and six adults in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.
“I recently heard that James Holmes, the Aurora theater shooter, may have chosen venues that were ‘gun-free zones,’” the translated entry said.
The journal continued: “Holmes wanted to make sure his victims would be unarmed. That’s why I and many others like schools so much. At least for me, I am focused on them. Adam Lanza is my reason.”
The Washington Times has not verified the accuracy of the translations.
The shooter used three firearms — a rifle, a shotgun and a handgun — all of which were obtained legally, Minneapolis police said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Thursday that the chapel doors were locked from the inside after Mass began, preventing Westman from entering.
“There’s no question that the fact that the doors were locked likely saved lives,” Chief O’Hara said.
The shooter instead fired at the students from outside the church building.
“What’s particularly heinous and cowardly about this is that these children were slaughtered by a shooter who could not see them,” Chief O’Hara said. “He was standing outside of the building firing through very narrow church windows on the level where they would line up with the pews.”
