Authorities have confirmed that the person who rented the Tesla Cybertruck that detonated outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas was an active-duty U.S. Special Forces soldier.
Las Vegas police have identified 37-year-old Matthew Allen Levelsberger as the man who rented the vehicle and drove it from Colorado to Las Vegas.
Officials said they were fairly certain he was found dead in the car after the explosion but were awaiting confirmation through DNA evidence.
The body in the vehicle had been burned beyond recognition and was found with a gunshot wound to the head, Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahal said Thursday.
Seven people were injured when the vehicle – packed with fuel canisters and firework mortars – exploded on New Year’s Day. Officials said all injuries were minor.
Police said the cyber truck arrived in the city on Wednesday morning, less than two hours before the blast. A car parked near the glass entrance in front of the hotel started to smoke, then exploded.
Officials say they are yet to determine a motive behind the incident.
“I’m comfortable ruling it a suicide with a bomb blast that happened shortly after,” Sheriff McMahal said during Thursday’s press conference.
Investigators recovered a military ID, a passport, two semi-automatic pistols, fireworks, an iPhone, a smartwatch and several credit cards in Levelsberger’s name from the burned vehicle, the sheriff said.
Mr. McMeal said he found two tattoos on the driver’s remains that Levelsburger had.
The Colorado Springs resident rented a cybertruck in Denver on Dec. 28.
Police were able to track his movements using several photos on the drive from Denver, Colorado to Las Vegas, Nevada. He was the only person seen driving the vehicle.
Mr McMeal said there were many similarities – but no definitive link – between the suspects in the Las Vegas shooting and the truck attack in New Orleans, which killed 14 people, both on New Year’s Day. were
Both suspects served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, although there is no record of whether they served in the same unit or were there at the same time. Both also served in Afghanistan in 2009, but there is no evidence that they were in the same area or unit.
Mr McMahal said the two also used rental company Toro for the vehicles involved in the incidents.
“We don’t believe there is any other threat from this subject or anyone associated with it here in Las Vegas,” he said.
Levelsberger had decades of experience with the U.S. military, having served in both the Army and the National Guard. He was a special forces intelligence sergeant.
He was serving in Germany but was on sanctioned leave at the time of the incident.
Levelsberger’s father told BBC news partner CBS that his son was in Colorado to see his wife and eight-month-old daughter.
She said she last spoke to her son on Christmas Eve and everything seemed normal.