Mainak Sarkar, 38, who was born in India before coming to the United States for higher studies, shot dead engineering professor William Klug, 39, in his office on the university campus before turning the gun on himself, the Daily Mail quoted the Los Angeles Police Department as saying.
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(University of California, Los Angeles via AP).
William Klug is seen here in this undated file photo. Los Angeles police chief sa. In the U.S., he went to the University of Texas and Stanford before UCLA.
Police say the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting had a “kill list” and drove halfway across the country to target his victims. Then his life began to unravel. Investigators haven’t said why he apparently held a grudge against that instructor.
After killing his estranged wife in a Minneapolis suburb, Sarkar packed two guns, drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles, parked in his old neighborhood, took a bus to campus and shot Klug in the professor’s office Wednesday before taking his own life.
Sarkar also left a note asking someone to check on his cat in Minnesota, which they did with a search warrant.
A second UCLA professor was on a “kill list” found in Sarkar’s home in St. Paul, Minnesota, but he was not harmed, police said. Sarkar killed himself before police could arrest him.
Police said Sarkar accused Klug, who had helped him with his dissertation and whom he had once called a mentor, of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else. Police have been in contact with that person, who “is fine”, he said.
“Apparently he’s harbored those feelings over the past three years since his graduation” but investigators hadn’t found any “trigger event” that would explain why he made a decision to kill now, Los Angeles police Capt. William Hayes said.
Even before his death, Klug had been hailed as a caring father and gifted educator who inspired his students.
Klug’s outgoing personality contrasted with Sarkar’s introversion.
Sarkar lived in Minnesota and worked as an analyst with an engineering firm. On March 10, Sarkar called the professor a “very sick person” who should not be trusted.
“He was rather combative in his responses”, Eldredge said. “I don’t know what happened to make him do this”.
A neighbor confirmed Hasti married Sarkar in June 2011.
She said she hadn’t mentioned any recent animosity with Sarkar.
In India, former classmates and teachers described a solid student who gave no indication of aggression. He received his master’s degree from UCLA in 1999 and his doctorate from Caltech in 2003.
A year later, he had moved to UCLA.
Hasti’s grandmother, Jean Johnson, said the two only remained together for about a year, but didn’t get a divorce because Hasti couldn’t afford one.
Company President Will Mars said Sarkar left that August, but declined to elaborate.
The next two years are a mystery.
A Nissan Sentra belonging to the gunman who opened fire in a murder-suicide at UCLA was found parked Friday in a residential area of Culver City, police said.
Johnson said Hasti met Sarkar while she was studying at Scripps College in Claremont, California, in 2009 and 2010, when he was a student at UCLA. Police found his vehicle on Friday afternoon in Culver City, which is just miles away from the UCLA campus.
Investigators planned to examine the bus surveillance video.
Beck earlier told CNN affiliate KTLA-TV that “a dispute over intellectual property” was tied to the UCLA shooting.
A syllabus from 2010 lists Sarkar as one of two teaching assistants in a mechanical and aerospace engineering course, MAE: 101: Statics and Strength of Materials.
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“It’s hard to believe actually because he was a very good student and was working overseas”, said Sumita Mukherjee, a former teacher at the school. “We assume, frankly, that he went through a psychological break that was pretty profound”.
