A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck moments before it exploded outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left behind notes explaining that the New Year’s Day blast was a stunt meant to serve as a “wake up call” for the country’s issues, investigators reported on Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, wrote in the notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger had been serving in the Army since 2006 and had deployed twice to Afghanistan.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one of the letters found by authorities and released on Friday.
The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but left the Trump International Hotel largely undamaged. Authorities confirmed that Livelsberger acted alone in carrying out the incident.
Livelsberger’s letters touched on a variety of topics, from political grievances to societal concerns and international issues, including the ongoing war in Ukraine. One letter stated that the United States was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”
Tesla engineers assisted investigators by extracting data from the Cybertruck, which included Livelsberger’s route from Colorado to Las Vegas, passing through New Mexico and Arizona. Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren shared that, “We still have a large volume of data to go through,” adding, “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”
The new information came as investigators worked to determine if Livelsberger intended to make a political statement involving the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.
Although authorities said Livelsberger held no animosity toward President-elect Donald Trump, he did express in one of his notes that the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk had recently joined Trump’s inner circle, but neither he nor Trump were in Las Vegas on the day of the explosion, having both attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party in South Florida.
“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” said Spencer Evans, the FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas, on Friday.
Livelsberger died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Investigators have not yet determined how he managed to shoot himself inside the Cybertruck while also igniting fireworks and camp fuel, which caused the explosion.
Among the charred items found inside the vehicle were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, military ID, credit cards, an iPhone, and a smartwatch. Authorities confirmed that both firearms had been legally purchased.
In recent years, Livelsberger had confided in Alicia Arritt, a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse, about the significant pain and exhaustion he was experiencing, which she believed was related to a traumatic brain injury.
Arritt, 39, whom Livelsberger met and began dating in 2018, said he opened up to her about his exhaustion, the pain that kept him awake at night, and the trauma of reliving violent experiences from his deployments in Afghanistan. “My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told her in text messages, which she later shared with The Associated Press.
Livelsberger was a Green Beret, a U.S. Army special forces group specializing in unconventional warfare and guerrilla tactics. He rose through the ranks and was deployed to Afghanistan twice, as well as serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Congo, according to the Army. He had recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he passed away.
He had been awarded five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for bravery under fire, as well as a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.
Authorities conducted a search of a townhouse in Livelsberger’s hometown of Colorado Springs on Thursday as part of their investigation. Neighbors reported that the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.
{Matzav.com}