A disgruntled PhD student who shot his professor at UCLA dead is believed to have killed a woman in Minnesota and was planning on carrying out more executions before he committed suicide, the LAPD revealed today.
Mainak Sarkar, 38, who was born in India before coming to the US to study, shot engineering professor William Klug, 39, dead in his office on the UCLA campus yesterday amid a long-running feud over intellectual property, police said.
LAPD chief Charlie Beck revealed today that Sarkar is believed to have left another victim, a woman, dead from a gunshot wound at her house in Minnesota before driving to UCLA in order to execute Klug.
Beck told KTLA officers searching Sarkar’s home in Minneapolis found a ‘kill list’ with the female victim’s name on it, alongside Klug and the name of at least one other professor at UCLA, who is unharmed.

Associate professor William Klug, shot by his disgruntled PhD student, Mainak Sarkar, who accused him of intellectual property theft

Sarkar was armed with two 9mm semi-automatic pistols that appeared to have been purchased legally in Minnesota, Beck added, and had equipped himself with several fully loaded magazines and additional ammunition.
Beck said: ‘This is a tragedy, but if there is a silver lining here, it’s that Sarkar could have done a lot more damage with the ordinance that he brought.’
Officers have not identified the victim in Minnesota or the second professor named on Sarkar’s list. It is not known if there were more names on that list. Beck also revealed that detectives were led to Sarkar’s home by a note he left at the scene of the UCLA shooting asking whoever found his body to go and check on his cat.
While he did not discuss a motive for the crime at length, Beck said there appeared to be long-running dispute between Sarkar and Klug involving work the killer did as part of his PhD.
Beck added that there was evidence of ‘mental issues, mental derangement’ in Sarkar’s actions, though said he was not aware of any specific diagnosis.
Officers are also searching for a grey Nissan Sentra, with Minnesota licence plate 720 KTW, that Sarkar is believed to have used to drive from Minnesota to LA, saying there may be valuable evidence inside.

The UCLA campus was under lockdown yesterday

SWAT and FBI were called into restore order

In a blog post uploaded on March 10 under Sarkar’s name, he writes that Klug ‘stole all my code and gave it another student’, branding him a ‘sick man’.
The post, which was uploaded to a blog called Long Dark Tunnel but has since been deleted, says: ‘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.
‘My name is Mainak Sarkar. I was this guy’s PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick.