The car a man drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles, where he gunned down his former professor at UCLA, has been found a few miles from the school, two days after the murder-suicide, police said.
Mainak Sarkar's 2003 gray Nissan Sentra with a Minnesota license plate was found parked in the 11300 block of Washington Place in Culver City, the Los Angeles Police Department said Friday.
The area between Sepulveda Boulevard and Bledsoe Avenue was sealed off and a bomb squad was called in to check out the car. The Washington Boulevard off-ramp of the 405 Freeway was also closed to traffic.
Police found gasoline cans in the car, which did not appear nefarious, along with a handgun, according to Capt. William P. Hayes.
Police found no financial records from his trip, so it is believed he used cash to make the drive, officials said. He was in Denver on May 31.
Investigators said the shooter traveled from Minnesota to Los Angeles to carry out the killing of his former professor, William Klug, before turning the gun on himself. The car may contain evidence to help unravel the case.
Sarkar was armed with two semiautomatic pistols, multiple magazines and several rounds of ammunition on Wednesday when he shot and killed Klug in an engineering building, police said.
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LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said the guns had apparently been purchased legally in Minnesota.
Sarkar, a former UCLA doctoral student, believed Klug had stolen his computer code, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
Sarkar is also believed to be responsible for the shooting death of his wife in Minnesota, though his involvement has yet to be confirmed by police there. A "kill list" found in the shooter's home in Saint Paul also named a second UCLA professor, who was later found safe.
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