What a would-be assassin’s internet history looks like

Months before ever beginning to target Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Nicholas Roske was obsessed with finding someone to assassinate.

In January 2022, Roske was doing Google searches on mass shootings and visited websites for “games where you play as a serial killer and try to get away with murder.”

Later that spring, Roske was also on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers, where posting that they could never “just hurt a random person” but had “violent thoughts towards people I feel are bad.” Roske also probed online for information about some high-profile shootings, did a Google search for “best place to find video of school shooting” and several others that sought how to buy guns.

The assassination plans crystallized in May, after someone leaked a Supreme Court draft of what would become the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. That’s when Roske started exploring “best way to break into a house,” “how much force do you need to stab someone’s neck” and “most effective way to silently kill someone.”

Roske, who now identifies as Sophie Roske, began doing a deep online dive into the backgrounds of at least four justices, eventually settling on Justice Kavanaugh as his target. At one point, Roske posted to Reddit.com asking if having Justice Kavanaugh “removed from the SC would help women long term.”

The disturbing string of activity was revealed in federal prosecutors’ new filing ahead of Roske’s upcoming sentencing, where prosecutors sought at least a 30-year prison term and used the extensive internet activity as evidence that Roske’s plans weren’t a spur-of-the-moment thing.

But they also add chilling new evidence to the emerging conversation about social media platforms and their role in egging on assassins.

The slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has raised the same troubling questions, after authorities said Tyler Robinson, charged with the killing, bragged about it on Discord.

That sparked a new interest in trying to lower the temperature of online platforms where hate and encouraging political violence fester.

FBI Director Kash Patel, in testimony to Congress, urged lawmakers to rewrite Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which for nearly three decades has granted protections to computer services shielding them from liability for what people post on their platforms.

“We need to work on Section 230. It’s been too long since we’ve addressed it. Nobody’s being held accountable. They’re making money and our youth is dying,” Mr. Patel said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seemed eager to take up the call.

“It’s crazy what’s going on on the social media platforms,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, Florida Democrat. “And so if we want to do something, then we should talk about Section 230.”

Mr. Patel said Mr. Robinson was part of a Discord chat where he talked about the killing. Discord said it hasn’t seen evidence that he talked about his plans ahead of time, but he did seem to admit to it afterward, and posted about where he stashed the weapon.

In announcing Mr. Robinson’s arrest, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called social media “a cancer on our society” and said the gruesome images of Kirk’s slaying playing out on phone screens were just too much.

“We are not wired as human beings. Biologically, historically, we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery,” he said. “I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass.”

Pressure to tackle Section 230 has been growing for years, but there’s plenty of resistance too, given the law’s success in helping spawn the modern online world.

Edward J. Longe, director of the Center for Technology and Innovation at the James Madison Institute, suggested using Kirk’s slaying to alter the law would run against what the superstar activist stood for.

“Charlie Kirk was a passionate defender of free speech throughout his career, and it’s difficult to imagine how he could have built his movement and reached millions of Americans without the protections that Section 230 provides,” Mr. Longe said.

“The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to protect the very freedoms he championed and used so effectively, not to roll them back,” he said. “Weakening Section 230 would silence voices across the political spectrum and hand more power to government bureaucrats to decide what Americans can say online. That’s the opposite of what Charlie would have wanted.”

Mr. Patel, while testifying to Congress, asked lawmakers for other “authorities” to get social media companies and “gaming platforms” to scour their sites and share worrying content with the FBI. He said there’s no way for a government agency to have eyes on what’s going on.

“We need the assistance and we need the authorities and we need the private sector to double down,” he said.

Roske, in a new letter to the judge overseeing sentencing, apologized for being part of the “trend of political violence.”

The letter blamed the coronavirus pandemic and a struggle with gender identity for creating suicidal thoughts that led to the aborted attempt on the justice’s life. Roske said the goal was to do something to make “significant change” in the world “before killing myself.”

“Once I actually arrived in his neighborhood, my whole perspective shifted. I had become so focused on the effects policy has on people that I forgot the judges and politicians making policy are real people too,” Roske wrote.

Roske added: “The thought that my actions may have inspired anyone else to act violently disgusts me and makes me feel extremely ashamed.”

Lawyers for Roske countered the government’s 30-year prison sentence request with their own proposal for an eight-year term followed by 25 years of supervised release.

While the lawyers said Roske started retreating into online video games ahead of the incident, Roske’s own letter is devoid of mentions of social media and internet searches.

But the government’s court documents show deeply troubling behavior spanning multiple platforms.

Among Roske’s Google queries in the months leading up to June 2022 were: “How far into the neck is the trachea,” “how much force do you need to stab someone’s neck,” “does twisting or dragging a knife cause more damage” and “neck injury with highest mortality rate.”

Roske also pursued questions such as “does Iceland extradite to the U.S.” and “countries least likely to extradite to the U.S.”

On Reddit, Roske posted on May 17, asking: “Which Serial Killer was the most careful?” Roske then posted, wondering how “a killer who is obsessed with not leaving evidence” would operate. Roske characterized that query as help for a writing project.

And on Discord, Roske wrote: “What do you think would happen” if Justice Kavanaugh died, and responded to another response by saying “he would be replaced by an [expletive] Biden picks though, so probably someone who wouldn’t repeal Roe or gay marriage.”

Days later, Roske was back on Discord posting about trying to “remove some people from the Supreme Court.”

“I could get at least one, which would change the votes for decades to come, and I am shooting for 3,” Roske wrote, adding in the conversation: “People have killed judges before.” That same day, Roske purchased a lock pick.

Three days after that, Roske posted to Reddit asking, again under the guise of a writing project, how difficult it would be to “covertly take out an HVT” — a high-value target.

Four days before the incident, Roske visited 30 websites displaying head and neck wounds, including photos of shooting victims and one of a knife lodged in a person’s neck.

Roske, who has pleaded guilty to an assassination attempt, went to Justice Kavanaugh’s home at 1 a.m. on June 8, 2022. After spotting U.S. Marshals guarding the home, Roske apparently got cold feet and had a 20-minute phone call with a sister, then phoned police.

Roske reported traveling from California to kill a justice, had a gun in a suitcase and was having suicidal thoughts.