A former doctoral student with a grudge who killed a professor before taking his own life at the University of California, Los Angeles had a “kill list” that included a woman in Minnesota and another UCLA professor.
The Los Angeles police department confirmed on Thursday that Mainak Sarkar, 38, shot his mentor William Klug, 39, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Sarkar had accused the victim of stealing his computer code and giving it to another student, it emerged.
Klug’s name appeared on a list that was found in Sarkar’s residence, Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said. According to the Associated Press, that grim list also included the name of a woman in Minnesota.
Law enforcement officials are not releasing the name of the woman, who was found shot dead in her home. The second UCLA professor has been contacted by police and is unharmed, Beck said. His name is also being withheld. Like Klug, that professor taught the gunman at UCLA.
The PhD student shot Klug in an office in Engineering Building 4 on Wednesday morning, then turned the gun on himself, prompting thousands of students and staff to barricade themselves in classrooms and offices across the campus.
Sarkar, who was educated in India and had lived in Minneapolis, had not completed his thesis after a decade and had become angry, according to postings he made on social media.
In a 10 March post on a blog called Long Dark Tunnel, since deleted, he wrote: “William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy. He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.”
It continued: “My name is Mainak Sarkar. I was this guy’s PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick.”
Colleagues and friends have paid tribute to Klug, a father of two young children, as a generous and dedicated academic.
“Bill was a super nice guy. He didn’t want to hurt the guy.”The Los Angeles Times quoted a source ridiculing Sarkar’s accusations. “The idea that somebody took his ideas is absolutely psychotic.” The source said Klug bent over backwards to help the student finish his dissertation and graduate even though the quality of his work was not stellar.
The UCLA website lists Sarkar as part of the Klug Research Group, a team of six postdoctoral and PhD students researching computational biomechanics.
Sarkar had studied for his PhD since 2006, two years longer than any other researcher. In a doctoral dissertation submitted in 2013 Sarkar thanked Klug “for being my mentor”.
Three years later he still had not graduated. Reportedly wearing black, and carrying a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, he shot the professor shortly before 10am, then shot himself, triggering a lockdown across campus, with some students using belts to secure doors. Many had been taking their final exams.
Hundreds of police backed by helicopters and armoured vehicles swarmed the area. By midday Charlie Beck, the LAPD chief, declared the campus safe. He told a news conference: “The method of suicide is gunshot wound. Many many questions are unanswered at this point … there is evidence there that could be a suicide note.”
According to his LinkedIn page Sarkar obtained a degree in aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur before obtaining a master’s in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, and later enrolling at UCLA. He had also worked as a software developer and a research assistant at the University of Texas.
Sarkar apparently drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles with two guns before murdering Klug on Wednesday. Police are asking for the public’s help in locating the gunman’s vehicle, a 2003 Nissan Sentra with the license plate of 720KTW.
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