The soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was a stunt to serve as a "wake-up call" for the country's ills, investigators said Friday, January 3.
Investigators have identified the Tesla driver – who was burned beyond recognition – as Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Clark County coroner's office said his death was a suicide caused by a gunshot wound. Officials declared he apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump. Livelsberger wrote in the note that he needed to "cleanse my mind" of the lives lost of people he knew and "the burden of the lives I took."
"Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues," FBI Special Agent In Charge Spencer Evans said at a news conference.
Pentagon officials have declined to say whether Livelsberger may have been suffering from mental health issues but say they have turned over his medical records to police.
"This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives," Livelsberger wrote in a letter found by authorities who released only excerpts of it.
Livelsberger's former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse declared he was facing significant pain and exhaustion that she says were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury. The suspect was a five-time Bronze Star recipient, including one with a V device for valor under fire. He was very private but shared images and texts with Alicia Arritt, 39, who he met and began dating in Colorado in 2018. In them, he opened up about exhaustion, pain that kept him awake at night, and reliving violence from his deployment in Afghanistan.
"My life has been a personal hell for the last year," he said to Arritt during the early days of their dating, according to text messages. "It's refreshing to have such a nice person come along."
Arritt, who also served on active duty in the Army as a nurse from 2003 to 2007, declared the military failed to get Livelsberger the care he needed, symptoms she saw in him as early as 2018.
"He would go through periods of withdrawal, and he struggled with depression and memory loss," Arritt said. "He said it was a blast injury. He got several concussions from that."
Livelsberger also had a hard time with post-traumatic stress disorder and would relive some of the violence and killings he had a role in or witnessed in Afghanistan.
"I would encourage him to get therapy, and he would give me reasons that he couldn't," Arritt said. “There was a lot of stigma in his unit, they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there, there was no weakness allowed, and mental health is weakness is what they saw."