The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Thursday they are still unable to confirm that 37-year-old Matthew Alan Livelsberger, an active-duty soldier in the Army, was the dead man found inside an exploded Tesla Cybertruck.
“His body was burned beyond recognition, and I do still not have confirmation 100% that he is the individual that was inside of [the] vehicle,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a press conference Thursday afternoon. “And so, as I’m calling it now, a subject or person of interest, I will not come back until I have the confirmation through DNA or medical records that this is, indeed, the subject inside of the vehicle.”
However, authorities said a tattoo on the stomach and arm of the body in the car suggested a high likelihood it was Livelsberger in the vehicle.
McMahill also shared that the suspect inside the vehicle had a gunshot wound to the head, which was likely caused before the Cybertruck blew up. Authorities found at least two firearms in the vehicle, both of which were purchased by Livelsberger, they said.
Kenny Cooper, the assistant special agent in charge of ATF San Francisco field division, said the FBI traced the two semiautomatic handguns found in the vehicle to belong to Livelsberger.
Livelsberger rented the Cybertruck on Dec. 28 from Colorado Springs, and authorities tracked his movements from electric vehicle charging stations between Colorado and Las Vegas. Livelsberger was on military leave from Germany.
“As far as his [Livelsberger] military background, it’s been confirmed by DOD that he was indeed in the United States Army,” McMahill said. “He was also a Green Beret operations sergeant who spent most of his time at Fort Carson, Colorado. And in Germany, he was on approved leave from Germany, where he was serving with the 10 Special Forces Group. He was also previously in the National Guard and the Army Reserve.”
He reached Las Vegas at 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, and he pulled up outside of the glass doors to the Trump Tower hotel at about 8:40 a.m. Fifteen seconds later, the vehicle exploded, killing Livelsberger, who was inside the vehicle, and injuring seven people.
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The explosion occurred just hours after a man with an ISIS flag drove a pick-up truck into a crowd of people in New Orleans — killing at least 15 people. The driver was killed in a shoot-out with police.
McMahill confirmed that both Livelsberger and Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, were stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but it is not known if it was at the same. They also were both deployed to Afghanistan in 2009, but there is no evidence that they were in the same location or unit.
The Tesla truck was rented in Colorado — where Livelsberger lived in Colorado Springs. The vehicle in the Vegas attack and the pickup truck in the New Orleans attack were rented from the app Turo.
McMahill reaffirmed that there is no further threat posed to Las Vegas tied to Livelsberger.
The FBI and local authorities are investigating the attack and the possible connection behind using a Tesla Cybertruck to carry out a bomb attack outside the Trump Tower. The attack comes just a few weeks before President-elect Donald Truck is sworn into office. He has selected Tesla CEO Elon Musk to head the Department of Government Efficiency.
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However, so far, there is no known motivation behind the attack.
“We’re very well aware of all of the things that are going around on social media, but that’s just the way we’re going to conduct this investigation,” McMahill said. “We’re not putting it out until we can tell you for a fact what information it is that we’re putting out, and so we’re going to continue to do that, but I’m also confident to tell the Las Vegas community, and this great nation, that we don’t believe there’s any further threat from this subject or anybody associated to him here in Las Vegas with that.”
