'Incel' who allegedly planned mass shooting at Ohio State University to be jailed until trial

A 21-year-old man who court documents say planned to “slaughter” women at Ohio State University last year will be held in jail until the case is resolved.

Tres Genco appeared in federal court in Cincinnati Friday afternoon. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Bowman cited a parole violation and the “serious nature of the charges” as reasons for continuing to keep him in custody.

Genco, a Highland County resident, is charged with attempting a hate crime and unlawful possession of a machinegun. He faces up to life in prison.

Genco’s alleged plan began to take shape in the summer of 2019, according to court documents.

On Aug. 3, 2019, the documents say he wrote a manifesto, claiming he would slaughter women “out of hatred, jealousy and revenge.”

The handwritten document was titled, “A Hideous Symphony: a manifesto written by Tres Genco, the socially exiled Incel.”

Genco wrote that the mass shooting would take place nine months later at “OSU,” on May 23, 2020.  

He wrote that he would use an automatic rifle, “a mil-spec M-16 or converted AR-15.”

“3,000?” he wrote. “Aim big.”

That same day, he conducted Internet searches for sororities. He researched gun modifications, at one point typing in, “difference between full auto and semi auto.” Genco also searched for information about Elliot Rodger, who in 2014 killed six people and wounded 14 near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rodger had expressed his desire to punish women, and two of his victims were women outside a sorority house.

Court documents say Genco would later search for police scanner codes for Columbus police and university police.

Soon after writing his manifesto, Genco attended Army basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia. But by December 2019 he had been discharged, court documents say.

Genco self-identified as an “Incel,” which refers to an online movement of predominantly men who, according to documents filed in Genco’s case, advocate violence against women who deny them sexual or romantic attention to which they believe they are entitled. The term is shorthand for involuntarily celibate.

According to court documents, investigators found posts by Genco on web forums for Incels beginning in 2019.

But after his discharge from the Army, Genco began writing about his sense of isolation. In a January 2020 document, titled "isolated," Genco wrote: "If you're reading this, I've done something horrible. Somehow you've come across the writings of the deluded and homicidal."

Also in January, court documents say he conducted surveillance at an unnamed university in Ohio and searched the Internet for topics including, "planning a shooting crime."

He searched for the police scanner codes on March 11, 2020, the documents say.

Genco was arrested March 12, 2020 after his mother called authorities. Genco had locked himself in the bedroom of his Highland County home with a gun, documents say. His mother told investigators that Genco had become “erratic and violent.”

Deputies surrounded the home, and Genco was arrested without incident.

In the trunk of his car, investigators found body armor and an AR-15-style rifle with an attached bump-stock that could increase its rate of fire to approximate an automatic weapon. Hidden in a heating vent in the home, the documents say, was a Glock pistol modified to fire fully automatically.

Genco ultimately pleaded guilty in Highland County to making terroristic threats and was sentenced in October 2020 to 17 months in prison.

He was released on parole in February 2021, records show.

Since his arrest this week on federal charges, he has been held at the Butler County Jail.