Killer drove 3 200km for UCLA murder-suicide

The path to the campus shooting death of a UCLA professor began nearly 3 200km away in Minnesota. There, a former student with a grudge, Mainak Sarkar, killed his estranged wife.

Mainak Sarkar

Sarkar then made the long drive to Los Angeles where he found his former mentor, engineering professor William Klug, and shot him before turning the gun on himself, authorities said on Thursday.

Both victims were on a "kill list" police found at Sarkar's Minnesota apartment. A third person on the list, another UCLA professor, was spared because he was not on campus on Wednesday when Sarkar arrived with two semi-automatic pistols, police said.


Authorities did not publicly identify the unharmed professor or the woman. A law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press the woman on the list was Ashley Hasti, who documents show married the gunman in 2011.

The investigation unfolded rapidly based on a note Sarkar left in the office where he killed Klug. It asked anyone who read it to check on Sarkar's cat in St Paul, Minnesota.

At Sarkar's apartment, authorities found his list of three planned targets. They checked the home of the woman in the nearby town of Brooklyn Park and found her body.

The law enforcement official said Hasti was the name of the woman on Sarkar's list. Beck said the woman named on the list was the victim; and a neighbour told AP that Hasti lived in the home with her father.

The official who said Hasti's name was on the list was not authorised to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Gordy Aune jnr, who lives three doors away and is the neighbourhood watch commander, said Hasti and her father kept to themselves.

Records in Hennepin County, Minnesota, show Hasti married Sarkar in 2011, though more recently they had different residences.

Hasti's grandmother, Jean Johnson, said the two remained together for only about a year, but didn't get a divorce because Hasti couldn't afford one.