UCLA murder-suicide gunman created a 'kill list' in Miesota home

Mainak Sarkar, who graduated from UCLA in 2013, had created a “kill list,” packed his car with weapons and headed out to Califoia from Miesota, to kill William S. Klug, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said during a Thursday moing news conference.

“He was certainly prepared to engage multiple victims,” Beck said.

Sarkar shot Klug on the fourth floor of the Engineering IV building and then took his own life, Beck said. A semi-automatic gun was found there as well as a note on Sarkar’s body requesting that those who found him care for his cat back in Miesota.

Beck said Sarkar had filled a backpack with two handguns and multiple ammunition magazines and drove out to Los Angeles to carry out the shooting.

• PHOTOS: Murder-suicide leaves two dead at UCLA

Both handguns were legally purchased in Miesota, LAPD officials.

When police checked his home in St. Paul, they found another note.

“We did a thorough investigation of Sarkar’s residence in Miesota and found extra ammunition,” Beck said earlier in an appearance on KTLA. “A note named individuals. It was a kill list, and Professor Klug’s name was on that list and another professor.”

Sarkar intended to murder the second UCLA professor on Wednesday, but when he got to the campus, “he was only able to locate one,” Beck added.

Police have been in constant contact with that second UCLA professor, who Beck declined to name.

The third name led officers to a Miesota home, where a woman was found dead of a gunshot wound. Beck said she died within the last few days. She was later identified as Sarkar’s wife, 31-year-old Ashley Hasti. The two were in 2011, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

At a news conference Thursday moing in Brooklyn Park, Miesota — a suburb northwest of Mieapolis — Deputy Chief Mark Bruley confirmed a woman was found with a gunshot wound.

“We believe at this point that she was deceased prior to the UCLA incident,” he said. “We have multiple detectives working on this case, and we are working with the Los Angeles Police Department to coordinate our efforts.”

Beck said Sarkar drove to Califoia in a gray 2003 Nissan Sentra. Police were still looking for the car, which has a Miesota license plate of 720-KTW.

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Sarkar had also graduated from Stanford University. He was a current member of the Klug Research Group in Computational Biomechanics at UCLA, according to a Klug Research Group publication.

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Beck said he was uncertain of Sarkar’s motivation but said it had to do with a dispute over intellectual property.

“I know the professors at the engineering school knew Sarkar and had reservations about his conduct,” Beck said in the television interview.

“I don’t think he was a deadly threat.”

There were blog posts by Sarkar in which he rambled about Klug, writing: “William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy.”

Beck said the discussions Sarkar had on his blog regarding Klug didn’t seem threatening.

“The stuff that I saw wouldn’t have launched a police investigation,” he said.

Klug of El Segundo, was a father of two and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. A vigil for him was plaed by students Wednesday evening. A formal vigil was plaed for 4 p.m. Friday by the engineering department.

The shooting prompted the university to go on lockdown.

The UCLA campus reopened Thursday, with the university offering counseling to students and faculty distressed by Wednesday’s shooting.

Staff reporter Dakota Smith contributed to this story.