By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) -The gunman who killed three students at Michigan State University and wounded five others carried a note with him listing businesses where he might have felt slighted, police said on Thursday, suggesting a possible motive behind the shooting.
In discussing the note during a briefing, authorities stressed that they were still uncertain about what caused Anthony Dwayne McRae to open fire in two buildings on the school’s main campus on Monday night before killing himself hours later after police tracked him down.
McRae, 43, had no known affiliation to the university in East Lansing, about 90 miles (145 km) northwest of Detroit. Authorities say they were trying to determine whether mental illness played a role in the rampage.
“That is obviously something we are going to look at. In hindsight, judging what mental illness someone has is very difficult without some type of former diagnosis,” Chris Rozman, interim deputy police chief at Michigan State, said.
“Obviously, in this case there appears to be indications that may be the case.”
Police found a note on McRae that listed two schools in New Jersey and the names of a warehouse where he worked, a church and other places where he appears to have felt slighted, as well as two bus tickets.
“So it looks like possibly a motive for that – he just felt slighted – and that’s what we’re dealing with,” Rozman said. The police official did not say whether the note also listed the university.
On Monday night, McRae entered Berkey Hall, an academic building on the school’s northern campus, and began shooting, authorities said. He then fled to another building and opened fire there before police arrived.
Police found the his body nearly four miles (6.5 km) from the campus at 11:35 p.m., about three hours after the first report of a shooting.
Three students – a 20-year-old man, a 20-year-old woman and a 19-year-old woman – were killed. The five hospitalized students were improving but were still in critical condition as of Thursday morning, Rozman said.
Out of respect to families, authorities will not release the names of the wounded, he said.
Their lives may have been saved by fellow students who rendered aid as the mass shooting was unfolding, said Marlon Lynch, the university’s police chief.
When his body was found by police, McRae had two 9mm handguns. He also had eight loaded magazines in a backpack, as well as two magazines on his person, Rozman said. He noted that the guns were purchased legally but were not registered.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
