On June 29, a 20-year-old man named Wess Roley allegedly set a brush fire on Canfield Mountain near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with the suspected intention of luring in firefighters to ambush them. He killed two firemen and injured one other. Roley, who reportedly wanted to be a firefighter, was found dead at the scene, likely from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Investigations are reportedly ongoing, but Liz Wheeler, BlazeTV host of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” fears that law enforcement’s probing will be insufficient. “What law enforcement and politicians alike are not interested in investigating is why these mass shootings happen in our country,” she says.

In a prior episode, Liz listed the factors that are nearly always present in the backgrounds of individuals who seek to commit mass atrocities but are often ignored by investigators. Those factors, she said, are: They come from “a broken family,” are “victims of abuse,” and subscribe to “revolutionary ideologies” like “trans ideology, critical race theory, communism, socialism, [and/or] Marxism.” They also usually have a history of “marijuana use,” “mental health [issues] and treatment by the modern medical model,” and “violent video game playing.” Lastly, their lives and beliefs are nearly always marked by “godlessness.”

In her most recent episode, Liz conducted her own “dynamic investigation” into Roley’s past. What she found was deeply disturbing and proof that her list is merited.

Broken family, victim of abuse

“[Roley] came from a broken family. His parents were divorced, and they divorced during his formative years when Wess was ten years old,” says Liz, adding that the split was “particularly contentious.”

“His father, in fact, threatened to commit a very similar crime to the crime that Wess committed” when “during the divorce proceedings … his father threatened to burn down [their] home and shoot the family with a sniper rifle,” according to Wess’ mother’s testimony, Liz notes. A “protection order” was enacted, and his mother was given temporary custody of Wess. The violence he witnessed by his father, which also included “[punching] holes in the wall,” made young Wess a “victim of abuse.”

Prior 'run-ins' with law enforcement

While numerous reports have indicated that Roley “had no criminal history,” law enforcement in Kootenai County, Idaho, reported they had minor interactions with him on five different occasions.

“Now, I actually don't believe in categorizing run-ins with police as minor,” says Liz. “These quote-unquote minor run-ins with law enforcement often precede a major run-in with law enforcement, so when you let a young person who is committing a so-called minor act off the hook for that minor act, well, it just allows them or enables them to commit a major act.”

Mental health issues

Currently, no reports indicate that Roley was being treated for psychiatric disorders or had been formally evaluated for his mental health; however, “anecdotally, people around Wess Roley reported indicators of mental health disturbance,” says Liz.

“His grandfather, a man named Dale Roley, described Wess as quote-unquote ‘nervous and high-strung,’” and as a “'kind of a loner,'" although “he dismissed these as quote ‘normal issues for kids these days,'” she says.

“I agree that they are common issues for kids these days, but they're not normal,” Liz counters. “A 20-year-old young man should not be nervous and high-strung and kind of a loner. That is a result of our unhealthy culture.”

Further, Roley’s former roommate, T.J. Franks Jr., reported that Roley made what Franks described as "gang signs" at an interior security camera in their shared apartment in Sandpoint, Idaho, prompting him to call the police. Roley moved out after the incident with no further issues.

“Two former classmates at a school [Roley] attended in Phoenix, Arizona … said that he occasionally lashed out in anger and did isolate himself,” says Liz. “One of his classmates described a journal that Wess Roley kept that contained what he called ‘concerning images of weapons and hate symbols.”’

Social media history

This is the “really damning part about Wess Roley’s background,” says Liz. “His social media history reveals disturbing radical ideology that he was taking part in that clearly impacted the formation of his mind and the perception of humanity.”

While Roley’s social media accounts, particularly his Instagram, have been disabled or wiped by unknown entities, enough content surfaced prior to the scrubbing to paint a dark picture of his strange proclivities.

“The TikTok that we believe belonged to Wess Roley showed a disturbing footprint of the types of things Wess Roley was interested in,” says Liz.

One of those things was “anime,” which “is rife with woke themes” like “gender fluidity [and] gender ideology” and employs a lot of “pornified imagery,” she says.

Another interest of his was “the ‘Brony’ movement,” which translates to “bros [men] who are interested in My Little Ponies” — the media franchise for young girls centered around colorful, magical ponies in the imaginary land of Equestria. “By all indications from his social media, [Roley] was deep into the Brony movement,” says Liz, noting that “bronies are known to pretend to be the horses themselves, not just play with these toys.”

“You wonder, is this disordered? Is this perverted? Is there a sexual element to this? And the answer to that is, in the case of Wess Roley, yes,” she says, playing a TikTok video of Roley, who is wearing makeup or using a filter that digitally applies makeup, sharing a snapshot of a My Little Pony character with the caption “my life revolves around her.” One of the hashtags on the video reads “#furry,” likely referring to the “furry movement” where adults “dress up in animal costumes as a sexual fetish.”

Other hashtags on the video include “#isellorgans” and “isellorgansontheblackmarket.”

“Whether it's the pornified images in anime, whether it's bronies and their cosplaying as the ponies themselves as they play with little girls' toys, whether it's furries … there's no sidestepping the fact that that is a disordered sexual fetish. This is all part of the transgressive gender ideology,” says Liz.

Liz suspects that “as more information about him comes out … we'll find even more information to substantiate the fact that these factors played into his motivation to commit the hideous murders in Idaho.”

To hear more of Liz’s analysis and more details from her personal investigation, watch the episode above.

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