Woman on ‘Kill List' in UCLA Shooter's Home Found Dead in Minnesota: Police

Police confirmed Thursday that a Minnesota woman whose name was on a "kill list" left at the home of the man who carried out a murder-suicide at UCLA has been found dead. 

Brooklyn Park Police Deputy Chief Mark Bruley said authorities received a call just after midnight from the Los Angeles Police Department asking them to conduct a welfare check on a woman whose name was on a "hit list" believed to have been created by UCLA gunman Mainak Sarkar.

The woman was later found dead of an apparent gunshot wound and is believed to have been killed before the UCLA shooting took place. An exact time of death was not immediately known, however.

The woman was identified by family as Ashley Hasti, her uncle, Mark Fitzgibbons told NBC News.

Hasti and Sarkar were married in June 2011. A medical student, Hasti graduated with her bachelor's degree in 2008 from the University of Minnesota.

Earlier Thursday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told KTLA-TV, Sarkar drove to Los Angeles from Minnesota with two guns and killed Professor William Klug before killing himself.

Beck says when authorities searched Sarkar's home in Minnesota, they found a "kill list" with the names of Klug, another UCLA professor and a woman.

Beck said the woman was found shot dead in her home in a nearby Minnesota town. The other professor on the list is alright.

Beck says it appears that mental issues were involved and says Sarkar's dispute with Klug appears to be tied to Sarkar thinking the professor released intellectual property that harmed Sarkar.

Police are asking the public's help to find the car Sarkar drove to Los Angeles, a 2003 Nissan Sentra with the license plate of 720KTW.

The shooter, a former doctoral student, apparently had a strained relationship with Klug and may have believed Klug had misused the student's computer code, law enforcement sources told NBC News.

The shooting led to a SWAT search and a daylong campus closure Wednesday, with panicked students seeking a safe place to hide.

The gunman and Klug — a 39-year-old father of two and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering from El Segundo — were found dead in an office in the engineering building, police said. 

Their bodies were found together in an office with a handgun and a note nearby, according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. Police did not provide details about the note.

No one else was hurt.

Police initially received reports of an active shooter on the Westwood campus, which has an undergraduate enrollment of around 43,000 students, prompting a campus-wide lockdown and massive law enforcement response.

About two hours later, students learned the shooting had been a murder-suicide and police said there was no threat to the campus.

"I'm just outraged," said Renjie Li, who took a class from Klug. "I'm mad that someone would do that to a young professor who just started his career at UCLA. It’s just a shame."

According to his biography on the UCLA website, Klug received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2003, his master’s of science from UCLA in 1999 and his bachelor’s from Westmont College in 1998. Klug also led the Klug Research Group in Computational Biomechanics at UCLA.

Classes are scheduled to resume Thursday ahead of next week's final exams. A candlelight vigil is scheduled for Thursday night at UCLA.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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