The mum of Plymouth gunman Jake Davison had begged the NHS to help him before he killed her and four others in a rampage last night.
The aspiring body builder who shot five people dead including a young child was unable to get mental health help despite his mum Maxine's efforts, someone connected to the family has claimed.
Jake Davison used what witnesses described as a pump action shot gun to end the lives of five people and then himself in Keyham, Plymouth last night.
According to a friend of the family concerns about the 22-year-old's mental health had been raised to the NHS and police and they had begged for help.
"The NHS basically said that they are short staffed and that was it," the friend said.
Were you affected by the incident yesterday? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
"The family even asked the police to come out to see him as he was talking and acting strange...but they didn't do a welfare check."
She added: "This could have been prevented.
"The guy shouldn't have been on the streets with his condition."
At a press conference this morning Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer said Davison's social media channels, as well as claims his family went to the police and the NHS about his mental health, would form part of their investigation.
When the identity of the killer was made public earlier today, attention was turned to his activity online.
His social media account show he was a fan of first-person shooter video games, bodybuilding, guns and the US.
Davison shared videos on YouTube of himself deadlifting in a home gym and wrote about his hopes of one day joining the Army.
His Facebook page is littered with references to right-wing American nationalism, including a picture of an eagle in front of a stars and stripes flag.
While a previous profile picture shows the Lexington Minuteman statue that depicts a colonial farmer holding a musket.
Davison's page claims he was born in Arizona but this appears to be untrue.
His YouTube channel - 'Professor Waffle' - features multiple vlogs, which appear to have been filmed in his bedroom, in which he talks about his feelings of isolation and desperation to lose body fat.
This afternoon the video platform announced that they had deleted his channel for violating its offline behaviour policy.
Videos had emerged in the aftermath of Thursday's tragedy showing the suspect, 22, talking about being a "fat", "ugly" and a "virgin" - and claiming he had been "beaten down by f****** life".
Davison, a licensed gun holder, last posted a clip on July 28 in which he referred to himself as "the Terminator" - just two weeks before the massacre.
In it he lamented his life, saying: "You wake up and you stare at the wall and you think 'nothing's changed'. I'm still in the same position, same period in life. Still a f****** this, that, virgin, f***** fat, ugly."
Before the horror in Keyham, Davison's videos had only been viewed by a few hundred people each time and received only a handful of comments.
Davison shot and killed a 51-year-old woman at a house in Biddick Drive in the Keyham area of Plymouth, Devon, on Thursday evening before going outside and "immediately" shooting dead the girl and her male relative, aged 43.
He moved along Biddick Drive, where he aimed and shot at two local residents - a man aged 33 and a 53-year-old woman - who received significant injuries that are not currently believed to be life-threatening.
Davison then entered a nearby park, where he killed a man, aged 59, before shooting a woman, aged 66, on Henderson Place.
Eye-witnesses have told police how Davison then turned the gun on himself.
In a press conference in Plymouth on Friday, Chief Constable Sawyer of Devon and Cornwall Police said the force received "multiple" calls about the incident at 6.11pm.
Armed and unarmed officers arrived at the scene within six minutes and discovered Davison's body a short time later, with this logged by police at 6.23pm.
Mr Sawyer told reporters that it is believed the first female victim and Davison were "known" to each other, and there was a view there was a familial relationship.
He added that he did not yet know of any formal relationship between Davison and the other victims. No motive has yet been identified for the attacks.
Mr Sawyer described the shootings as "truly shocking" and said they had been witnessed by members of the public, who he urged to seek support.
"We believe we have an incident that is domestically related, that has spilled into the street and seen several people in Plymouth losing their lives in extraordinarily tragic circumstances," he said.
A weapon - described by witnesses as a pump-action shotgun - was recovered from the scene.
