Investigators now believe that the Texas-born US citizen who killed 14 people in a brazen truck attack on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street acted completely alone.
Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran, was killed in a shootout with police after the attack, which 35 people injured early on New Year’s morning.
The FBI said on Thursday that it seized phones and a laptop belonging to Jabbar from an Airbnb where the Texan had been seen on Tuesday on video unloading the truck used in the attack, WDSU reported. That unit caught fire on Wednesday, and officials are still trying to determine what caused that fire.
The FBI said Jabbar was seen placing coolers containing homemade bombs at locations in the French quarter prior to the truck attack, the station said. Local officials initially said video showed four other people assisting him, but the FBI now says that those people were not connected with Jabbar and were just looking into the coolers he placed.
Jabbar recorded videos on his drive from Texas to New Orleans, investigators said, in which he says that he had initially thought to kill his friends and family but decided instead to pledge allegiance to Islamic State and carry out a mass attack.
The FBI also said investigators have found no definitive links between the New Orleans attack and the Cybertruck attack at a Las Vegas hotel carried out by another US citizen soldier who rented his truck via the vehicle-share app Turo, as did Jabbar.
In the New Orleans attack, active duty soldier Matthew Livelsberger, 37, rented a Cybertruck in Denver on December 28 and drove through Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, arriving in Las Vegas at about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, as CrimeOnline reported. He drove around for about an hour before pulling up in front of the Trump International Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard. There, he shot himself in the head just before the truck exploded.
Livelsberger had recent returned from an assignment in Germany and was on an approved leave from the Army at the time. Investigators found fuel canisters and large fireworks mortars in the truck bed after extinguishing the fire. Livelsberger was the only fatality. Seven other people suffered minor injuries.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said his department has found no positive links between Livelsberger and Jabbar beyond what can be written off as coincidence. Both men served at Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, in North Carolina, although there’s no evidence they were at the sprawling post at the same time. They were also both in Afghanistan in 2009, but there’s no evidence they were in the same part of the country or even the same unit.
Livelsberger was a Green Beret who most recently served in drone operations. Jabbar as an information technology specialist who left active duty in 2015, although he served in the Army Reserve until 2020.
Investigators are still piecing together motives for both the New Orleans and Las Vegas attacks. In addition to his stated support for Islamic State, Jabbar also appeared to be having financial difficulties and relationship troubles. Investigators in Colorado say Livelsberger was also having relationship issues.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Matthew Livelsberger/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar/FBI]
