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The madman who slaughtered three people in a mass shooting at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on Wednesday was a professor who failed to secure a job at the school and claimed to have solved the mystery of the Zodiac Killer and missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Anthony Polito, 67, had unsuccessfully applied for a professorship at UNLV before he unleashed his deadly rampage on the campus just before noon, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Polito was armed with a handgun during his massacre and was killed following a shootout with two police detectives, the outlet reported.
The shooting began around 11:45 a.m. on the fourth floor of Beam Hall, UNLV’s business school, near the student union building.
Police found three people dead when they arrived.
A fourth person was taken to an area hospital, where they were listed in critical but stable condition.
Four others were hospitalized after suffering panic attacks and two officers were treated for minor injuries suffered while clearing buildings, LVMPD police said.
Polito’s LinkedIn account states he was a “semi-retired university professor” based in Las Vegas and attended undergraduate at Radford University in Virginia, where he graduated with a double major in mathematics and statistics before he earned his master’s degree at Duke University and completed his doctorate of philosophy at the University of Georgia.
He served as an associate professor for 15½ years at East Carolina University from August 2001 to January 2017.
During that time, he also ran a personal website about his life, in which he posted a 15-page theory claiming he decoded the messages left by the Zodiac Killer, who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s.
“Just so you won’t initially write off my solution as that of a total crackpot, let me first say that I have been a member of MENSA for 35 years, I hold a double undergraduate degree in Mathematics & Statistics (two skills closely associated with successful cryptographers) … and I hold a masters degree and a doctoral degree from top-tier universities as well,” Polito wrote in the introduction.
“So I am not a dumb guy!”
He further claimed to have solved the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and figured out the true meaning of Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2010 film “Inception.”
Elsewhere on his site, Polito wrote about his love of Las Vegas.
“Hard to believe, looking back, but I have had the pleasure of making more than two dozen trips to Vegas over the last 15 years,” his “personal profile” reads.
“I don’t gamble that much, but there is plenty to do there, that’s for sure!!”
“Over the years, my steel trap mind collected more information and trivia about Vegas than probably anyone in this state east of I-95 (at least).”
Polito also used the site to list some of his favorite things, including sites in Vegas and his favorite music.
His website says he would generally listen to Frank Sinatra, but also enjoyed Selena, Elton John and Willie Nelson.
In the favorite-movie section, Polito includes “Apocalypse: Now” and recommends Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-laden “JFK” and Ayn Rand’s conservative epic “The Fountainhead.”
Polito writes that each of his favorite films “argues a truth with powerful eloquence.”
His site also lists people he credited as the “Great Minds of the Twentieth Century,” including George Soros, Nikola Tesla and astronomer Carl Sagan.
In a section titled “Powerful Organizations Bent on World Domination,” Polito includes the Rothschild family, the National Security Administration and even the Economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The section also linked back to a website created by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
But Polito had also received commendation for his work as a professor, writing on his LinkedIn: “The greatest gifts and takeaways I possess from my many years within higher education are the many kind & positive comments students made regarding my instruction disposition toward them.”
One student commented on his page, “I had the chance to have Dr. Polito as my teacher for my Operations Management course that I took in fall 2013.
“I was an international student from Canada at the time, and learned many new things in this course.
“Dr. Polito teaches students about things that happen in the real world that we will be able to apply in our careers,” the student claims. “He definitely knows his course material and every new class covers interesting topics.”
Polito also published 109 pages of alleged positive feedback he had received from students on his site.
“Polito is very organized with the prepared notes,” one comment reads. “He is approachable and seems very open to student concerns and ideas.
“His ‘real world’ experiences provide anecdotes that clarify course material. He is a definite asset to the Management Department.”
Another student reportedly wrote: “Professor Polito knows what he’s talking about.
“He may seem to ramble on sometimes about certain things, but he keeps your attention and makes sure you’re alert, which is better than having students fall asleep from boredom.
“He teaches real life lessons that correlate with the book/course material,” the student added. “I enjoyed his class and I’d recommend him to my peers.”
The campus was placed on lockdown almost immediately after the shooting was reported. Police evacuated students and staff “floor by floor, room by room, building by building,” LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a Wednesday evening press briefing.
An apartment in Henderson, Nevada, believed to be Polito’s home, was being searched, as law enforcement officials continued to investigate the shooting while gearing up to work overnight and into the morning, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
The suspect’s phone has already been retrieved and detectives are looking for any clues that could hint at any form of motivation for the killings.
Investigators determined the victims were not students, but faculty or staff at the school, which may be investigated as a potential motive for the shooting.
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