The woman who was shot and killed by UCLA shooter Mainak Sarkar was identified as Ashley Hasti, according to a report on June 2.
The LAPD requested that authorities check the home of a woman who was listed on the “Kill list” made by the UCLA shooter.
Police checked the home of Hasti after 12:30 a.m. after the campus shooting, Brooklyn Park Police Deputy Chief Mark Bruley, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
A female was found dead with a gunshot wound, Bruley said. The relationship between Sarkar and Hasti, 31, is unknown as of yet.
However, pictures on Facebook posted in January 2008 by the shooter show Sarkar and Hasti posing together, in one of the photos she is seen with her arm around his shoulder.
Hasti’s Facebook profile has pictures of Sarkar dating back to 2011 in an album called “Last days in LA,” including a picture of the Engineering IV building in UCLA, where the Sarkar shot a professor.
“What I can tell you is we believe she was deceased prior to the UCLA shooting, but because it is so early in investigation the timing [of her death] we don’t know at this point,” the deputy chief told the Star Tribune.
Authorities did not release the name of the victim, but a neighbor said the woman who lived in the home the police visited was Ashley Hasti.
Hasti was a student at the University of Minnesota Medical School since 2012, a university spokesman told the Star Tribune. Hasti got a degree at the school in Asian languages and literature.
A neighbor said she saw Sarkar mowing the lawn at Hasti’s home a few years ago but did not see him again.
The blinds in the residence were occasionally opened and closed on early Thursday afternoon.
The neighbor said not much goes on at the home.
“It usually looks abandoned,” said the neighbor, who didn’t want to be identified, according to the Star Tribune.
The motive for the murder of the woman is not yet known, said Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck at a press conference on June 2, a day after the murder-suicide.
(Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
Sarkar, a former doctoral student at UCLA who graduated in 2013, shot and killed mechanical engineering professor William Klug in an office at the university before turning the gun on himself.
Sakar, 38, also planned to kill another professor.
Beck said the shooter was heavily armed and had on him two semi-automatic pistols and multiple magazines of ammunition.
The LAPD says it is not yet known whether Sarkar specifically went to UCLA to target only the professors, or if he planned a mass murder at the university.
However, Beck says that based on the weapons Sarkar had on him he “could’ve caused many more fatalities.
Sarkar also had a note on him that said “Please check on my cat.” Police then checked his Minnesota home where they found the “kill list.”
The other professor, who was on the list was notified that he was a target of the shooter’s. The professor, whose name was not released, said he knew Sarkar “had issues with him,” Beck said in the press conference.
Sarkar legally purchased a gun used in the shooting and it was registered to him.
Authorities are now investigating the UCLA incident by looking at surveillance videos and interviewing witnesses. They say they received multiple 911 calls after people heard three rounds of fire.
Officials believe Sarkar murdered the woman in Minnesota and then traveled to California to kill Klug. Police also said Sarkar killed himself immediately after shooting Klug.
Authorities are also searching for the shooter’s vehicle, a 2003 gray Nissan Sentra, where more evidence may be found.
The shooter had lashed out on Klug on social media for months. On March 10, Sarkar called Klug a “very sick person” who should not be trusted.
“William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,” Sarkar wrote. “He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust,” said Sarkar, according to the Los Angeles Times.
However, in his 2013 doctoral dissertation, the shooter was grateful for Klug’s help and support.
A syllabus from 2010 shows Sarkar as one of two teaching assistants in a mechanical and aerospace engineering course, MAE: 101: Statics and Strength of Materials.
Sarkar was listed in the 2014 doctoral commencement booklet with the vicitm as his advisor.
“Thank you for being my mentor,” Sarkar wrote.
Those who knew the professor said he was a kind and patients person with no indication that he had problems with anyone.
Klug was a married father of two, according to officials and friends.
