The Cybertruck bombings what happened outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day appears to be the suicide of a veteran who struggled with PTSD and other issues, the FBI said Friday.
Police identified Matthew Alan Livelsberger, a 37-year-old active duty member of the Army Special Forces, as the driver of the Cybertruck that exploded in the hotel valet on Wednesday morning. Las Vegas police said Thursday that the coroner determined that Livelsberger shot himself in the head before the bombing.
Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, said at a news conference Friday that the agency was facilitating the obtaining of DNA from a family member to confirm Livelsberger’s identity.
Information discovered by investigators and from the military indicated that Livelsberger likely had PTSD, Evans said. Family problems and personal grievances also may have contributed to Livelsberger renting the car in Colorado, filling it with explosives and detonating it in Las Vegas, Evans said. The agency continued to investigate possible contributing factors to the bombing.
“It is clear that the subject alone contemplated, planned and carefully prepared this act – that is what we believe, and we have no information to the contrary at this time,” Evans said.
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There was no evidence that Wednesday’s bombing was related to the deadly terror attack in New Orleans that happened earlier in the day, Evans said.
“The only things we connect are incidental, what we think are coincidental, similarities,” Evans said. He said those agreements include the vehicles rented through the same serviceboth perpetrators serve in the military and both stay in an Airbnb.
“We found no telephone or email communications between the subjects, no information indicating that they knew each other, that they ever served in the same unit, that they were ever assigned to the same place at the same time and interacted,” Evans said .
The FBI has not established any connection between Livelsberger and a terrorist organization, Evans said.
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While the bombing took place outside a Trump hotel, Livelsberger harbored no animosity toward newly elected President Donald Trump, Evans said. He said the agency learned that through interviews with Livelsberger’s family members, friends, associates and members of the military with whom he served.
That had been the Cybertruck rented in Deventer by Livelsberger, Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the sheriff’s office said Thursday.
