‘I am the servant of the serpent’: Friend of Dayton shooter Connor Betts produces disturbing notebook writings, claims gunman frequently used meth and other drugs

A man who says he was friendly with Dayton shooting suspect Connor Betts had claimed that Betts was a habitual drug user and wrote disturbing messages in the friend’s notebooks and journals.

The Daily Mail reportedly obtained the journal pages of Ian Himes, 25, who said he met Betts about five years ago and at one point spent time with him on nearly a daily basis. Himes claimed that Betts “consistently” smoked methamphetamine and other uppers, including cocaine, and that Betts would sometimes write in the pages of Himes’ own journals.

“Sometimes he would go quiet and take my notebooks and start writing random stuff in them,” Hines told the Daily Mail. “I never paid much attention to what he’d written until now.”

The chaotic writings, which appear to be largely incoherent, reportedly make reference to Satan and Lucifer.

“I am the servant of the serpent evil incarnate, flesh consumer, light destroyer, fueled by hate, rage my strength, distrust my shield,” Betts allegedly wrote, Hines claimed.

According to the report, the notes include an apparent reference to Betts’ mental health.

“Seek and destroy. Still haven’t eaten enough so…very ADHD, paranoid, schizophrenic, strong, bipolar,” he allegedly wrote.

There is no indication in the report that the Daily Mail confirmed the pages were in fact written by Betts.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, a number of former friends, girlfriends, and acquaintances have come forward to various media outlets with disturbing anecdotes about the suspected gunman, who killed nine people in a Dayton entertainment district early Saturday morning before police fatally shot him as he was near the entrance of a popular bar.

Betts’ sister Megan Betts, 22, was among those killed. A former friend of Megan’s told an Ohio news outlet that Betts strangled her during a middle-school sleepover at the Betts home, after she reportedly defended Megan against her older brother’s bullying. According to the woman’s account, Betts’ mother witnessed the incident and begged Connor to stop, while in tears.

A former friend of Connor’s reportedly said that the suspect pointed a gun at his head months before the deadly shooting. 

Multiple sources have said that Betts created a “hit list” and a “rape list” in high school, naming fellow students he intended to target. He was also in a hardcore band that produced songs with violently misogynistic lyrics.

Police have not publicly commented on a possible motive for the shooting.

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