Los Angeles: A car found near Los Angeles on Friday belonged to a former graduate student who shot dead his estranged wife at her Minnesota home before driving halfway across the country and killing a professor and himself at the University of California, Los Angeles, a police spokeswoman said.
Mainak Sarkar's 2003 gray Nissan Sentra was found in Culver City, a suburb just outside Los Angeles, and a bomb squad has been sent to examine the vehicle, said Los Angeles police spokeswoman Liliana Preciado.
The car was found blocks from an apartment where Sarkar once lived.
Police do not know uet how Sarkar traveled to UCLA after he left his car in Culver City, about 6 miles (10 km) away from UCLA, said Los Angeles police spokesman Drake Madison.
The shooting drew a massive response of heavily armed police and sparked a two-hour lockdown of UCLA's sprawling urban campus. Students said they hid in classrooms behind doors, some of which did not lock.
Sarkar had intended to also kill a second professor at UCLA, police said. The native of India was convinced that Klug had stolen software he had developed, according to police, who called Sarkar's claim unfounded.
Earlier, Sarkar had killed his estranged wife Ashley Hasti, at her home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, police said. Hasti's sister, Alex Hasti, described her in a statement on Facebook as a 31-year-old medical school student with a love of acting and stand-up comedy.
So far no motive has emerged to explain why he killed Hasti in the home they had shared in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, some 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from Los Angeles.
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