Cybertruck driver shoots himself before Las Vegas blast, officials say

Investigating authorities Tesla Cybertruck explosion Outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day, said Thursday that evidence suggests the driver shot himself in the head before the explosion.

The police too identified Matthew Alan Leavelsberger, 37 years old active participant army special forces as a Cybertruck driver. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the county coroner ruled he died by suicide.

Cybertruck was for rent in Denver Livelsberger, Sheriff of the Police Department Kevin McMahill said during a briefing earlier Thursday.

Spencer Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, said during a briefing that authorities are not pursuing any additional subjects in the investigation.

Livelsberger was the only person in the car when it caught fire. He is also the only person known to police to have been inside the 2024 Cybertruck since the rental, the sheriff said. The condition of the body prevented law enforcement from making a definitive identification until they received dental records and DNA results.

“His body was burned beyond recognition,” McMahill said. Investigators said Livelsberger’s military ID, passport and credit cards were found in the car along with several firearms.

“Complicating the identification of this individual is that we also discovered through the coroner’s office that this individual suffered a gunshot wound to the head prior to the car bombing,” the sheriff continued. McMahill said one of the guns found inside the car after it exploded was found near the driver’s feet.

The explosion, which occurred early Wednesday morning, is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, according to law enforcement, but investigators do not believe there is any lingering threat to the public, FBI agent Jeremy Schwartz said at a news conference Wednesday night.

Another seven were slightly injured as a result of the explosion.

Law enforcement sources said Livelsberger was based in Germany but was on vacation in Colorado when the explosion occurred. Two of Livelsberger’s relatives told CBS News that they were unaware of his involvement in the incident, but confirmed that he had rented the Cybertruck. One of the relatives said that his wife had not heard from him for several days.

Federal agents investigating the explosion have been at Livelsberger’s home in Colorado Springs since Wednesday evening, CBS Colorado reports. No one was evacuated there during the investigation.

The Cybertruck was rented in Colorado, McMahill said. Investigators were able to trace his route from Denver to Las Vegas based on his stops at charging stations, and surveillance video shows the car driving down the Las Vegas Strip shortly before the explosion.

The Cybertruck drove up to the glass entrance of the Trump International Las Vegas hotel just after 7:30 a.m. and exploded about 15 seconds later.

The sheriff told reporters that gasoline canisters, camping fuel canisters and large firework mortars were found in the back of the truck, though it was unclear exactly how the explosives were ignited.

McMahill called the blast an “isolated incident” and said there was no indication it was linked to ISIS. The explosion occurred hours after the man deliberately was driving a pick-up truck with a black ISIS flag into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 before he was fatally shot by police.

On Thursday, the Las Vegas sheriff reiterated that the two incidents are not related, although he acknowledged some similarities between the cases and the subjects. Drivers in the Cybertruck explosion and the New Orleans riot rented their vehicles through the company Turoand both were members of the US Armed Forces. Each served in Afghanistan in 2009 and at some point was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Authorities are still investigating, but McMahill said there is no evidence that the men served in the same units or locations in Afghanistan or served at Fort Bragg during the same years.

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