UCLA Shooter's Car Found in Culver City; Handgun, Gasoline Cans Found Inside [UPDATED]

Updated at 9:15 p.m. June 3, 2016

CULVER CITY, CA - The car that was driven by the UCLA shooter Mainak Sarkar was found Friday afternoon in Culver City with a handgun and cans of gasoline inside, according to police.

A cyclist spotted the car on the 11300 block of Washington Place, west of Sawtelle Boulevard, at around 1:50 p.m. and called the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Station, LAPD Chief of Detectives Matt Blake said. The rider recognized the parked vehicle from media report, he said.

Inside the car, police found a handgun and cans of gasoline, some of which still have fuel in it, Blake said. Police believe Sarkar used them for the long trek from Minnesota.

The car was shown on local media parked in front of a residence. Nearby streets were cordoned off when the car was confirmed as Sarkar's and an evacuation was ordered for nearby residents while the bomb squad inspected the car, Blake said.

A bus transfer ticket found in Sarkar's pocket indicated he parked the vehicle near where he lived while attending UCLA, then rode to the campus.

The bus route would have been one that Sarkar regularly took while attending UCLA, Capt. William Hayes of the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division said.

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Police said Sarkar drove the grey Nissan Sentra with Minnesota license plate number 720KTW from St. Paul to Los Angeles after killing his ex-wife, Ashley Hasti. Sarkar then killed engineering professor William S. Klug on Wednesday in a small office in the engineering building at UCLA.

Shell casings recovered from the scene of the UCLA shooting appear to match those found in Minnesota, where Sarkar's estranged wife was killed, police said at a press conference Friday.

Police have been looking for the car since Thursday. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said at a press conference Thursday the car posed no danger the public but police would like to find it to complete their investigation.

“There is no immediate evidence to suggest that, but, of course, that is one of the reason’s that we want to find the car to see where that will lead us,” Beck said. “Robbery/homicide is working with the states between here or there to see if there is a trail, but there is nothing that leads us to believe that at this point.”

On Wednesday, police found a note where Sarkar shot and killed himself that led police to his home in St. Paul. There, investigators found the ‘kill list’ that led them to the body of his ex-wife, likely killed days before the UCLA shooting. Another professor's name was also on the list; that professor, who was off-campus when Sarkar arrived for his deadly rampage, was unharmed.

"Two different notes. Two different locations,” Beck said. “The note that was left at the homicide scene doesn’t refer to suicide. It is a note, but it’s an instructional note to the finder to go check on his cat, which we did, and it also has some verbiage to this other potential victim that survived.”

Detectives believe Sarkar intended to kill two professors whom he held a grudge against over an imagined computer code copyright issue, said Beck. But he may have been prepared for a more deadly rampage.

“Sarkar was heavily armed. He had two semiautomatic pistols, one that was used for the homicide and the other that was in his backpack,” said Beck. “He was certainly prepared to engage multiple victims with the ordnance he had at his disposal … . It very easily could have turned into a much, much more horrific situation."

--Patch editor Renee Schiavonne and City News Service contributed to this report

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