http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... women.html
Aaron Alexis: Washington Navy yard gunman had string of failed relationships with Asian women
Exclusive: Aaron Alexis, the Washington Navy Yard gunman, had a string of failed would-be relationships with Asian women over several years before he massacred 12 people in the US capital.
Alexis, 34, was said by friends to have made constant attempts to find an Asian girlfriend and his targets included a young Thai girl, a Japanese woman in Tokyo, and a Filipino nurse in America.
During his work serving meals in a Thai restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas he would flirt with female customers, and on weekends persuade them to join him in karaoke sessions. He liked singing New York, New York in the style of Frank Sinatra, and also sang songs in Thai trying to impress women.
On one occasion a Filipino nurse who a friend described as "really cute" went back to his room, but he then started playing video games. She decided Alexis was "immature" and left, the friend told The Daily Telegraph.
In April last year Alexis travelled to Bangkok where he made advances towards a young female relative of one of the friends he had made at the Wat Busayadhammavanaram meditation centre near his home in Fort Worth, Texas. She did not feel the same way and the family disapproved of Alexis's advances.
But that did not stop him sending money, several hundred dollars, to the girl after he returned to the US.
owards the end of last year, when he was working as an IT contractor in Japan, he fell for a girl in Tokyo and also wanted to bring her back to the US.
Aaron Alexis
He asked one friend for $600 (£377) to send to the girl. The friend told The Telegraph: "From what I could tell they couldn't get enough of each other.
He would talk to her all the time on Skype. It was pretty serious.
"She wanted to come back here and he was trying to send her money. He told me he wanted to help her out financially."
But Alexis complained that he had not been paid by his employer. The friend, who gave him $50 for petrol and cigarettes, said: "He said they hadn't given him a dime and that hurt. It's the only thing I can think of that set him off.
"It was the only time I saw him angry and cussing. He was pissed. But later he went back to work for them in America so I guess they came to an agreement."
Alexis continued to look for a girlfriend but found it difficult, the friend said, adding: "He was a good-looking guy but he didn't have any money."
Melinda Downs, who was briefly Alexis's landlord in Fort Worth last summer, described him as a "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" character with insomnia who once didn't sleep for three days.
Policemen string police tape outside the Brooklyn residence of Cathleen Alexis, mother of suspected Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, in New York.
She said Alexis had explained to her that he always carried a gun because he "felt naked without it." She believed he had joined the military because he wanted to prove to his father that he was "manly."
Mrs Downs also described how Alexis would get upset talking about how had been unable to save victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, after witnessing the collapse of the twin towers in New York. Alexis told her: "If I had got to them I could have saved them."
A tearful Mrs Downs said: "It's no secret that he had PTSD. He had insomnia. Sometimes he would get depressed, go into himself or be by himself, I think that was his way of dealing with PTSD. But for the most part he would crack jokes.
"There was one occasion when he stayed up for a few days, three days or so.
I would say 'You have to get some rest.' He said he was going to talk to a councillor at the Veterans Association."
