LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is sharing new information more than five months after a man opened fire inside an Indiana mall.
On July 17, 2022, Jonathan Douglas Sapirman started shooting inside Greenwood Park Mall, south of Indianapolis. The 17-year-old killed three people and wounded two others.
At a news conference on Wednesday, authorities said Sapirman also had a fascination with Nazi Germany, according to a girlfriend, who was interviewed after the shooting. But while the three slain victims were Hispanic, there was no indication the shooting was racially motivated, according to Greenwood Police Chief James Ison, who said authorities have not determined a specific motive for the attack.
"He relayed his intentions to no one…we really don’t know if this was something he had planned for a long time," Ison said. "There’s no indication that it was. We know that he had a fascination with this type of thing. He never posted anything remotely related to wanting to carry out an attack. He didn’t communicate it verbally to his family members, and he didn’t have many friends.
A married Indianapolis couple — Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37 — and Victor Gomez, 30, also of Indianapolis, were killed. A woman shot in the leg and a 12-year-old girl who was hit by shrapnel were wounded in the attack, police said.
Sapirman was shot and killed by an armed bystander, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken, a Seymour, Indiana, man who had been at the mall shopping with his girlfriend. Chief Ison has said Dicken’s quick action was “nothing short of heroic.”
The FBI said in August that data could not be recovered from a laptop Sapirman had placed in the oven at his apartment with a can of butane before leaving to commit the shooting. The oven was on and set at a high temperature that damaged the laptop beyond forensic analysis.
The FBI was able to revive Sapirman’s cellphone, which he dropped into a mall toilet before the shooting, but have not yet been able to determine its password. With about 1 million possibilities available, that ongoing process could take years, Ison said.
The FBI and Greenwood police said in August that they were trying to determine a motive for Sapirman’s actions, and were also analyzing his social media and online presence to potentially uncover a motive.
On Wednesday, police released new information about Sapirman's social media accounts, saying he used usernames and emails related to darkness and World War II Nazi Germany.
Police also found he used the platform Reddit to discuss previous mass killings and serial killers.
Ison said Sapirman made over 700 comments on subreddits related to mass killings.
"We were unable to locate any comments made by the shooter on these subreddits that indicated he was planning on carrying out such an attack," Ison said. "Upon checking the FBI database, agents learned that the FBI office in Baltimore, Maryland received an anonymous tip online on December 6, 2019.
"The tipsters say that someone using the name Greater German Reich had been posting on a subreddit for mass killers and that the person posting seemed to have a desire to learn about mass killings, idolized the killers and to have access to gun."
Police also said an ex-girlfriend of the shooter said he was previously abusive and that she is not surprised he carried out the attack.
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