The cellphone of a 20-year-old man who fatally shot three people last year at an Indianapolis-area mall contained photos of Adolf Hitler, Nazi propaganda, firearms and “extremely graphic” videos of previous mass killings, police said Thursday, according to The Associated Press.
Police said the FBI found nothing on the phone about the mall or plans for last year’s mass shooting, but it contained what appeared to be a suicide note written by the gunman, Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, more than two years before the attack.
Greenwood police said the FBI was able in May to unlock the phone, which Sapirman dropped into a mall toilet before he opened fire inside the food court of Greenwood Park Mall last July 17. Sapirman was fatally shot by an armed shopper shortly after the shooting began.
Police said the FBI recovered more 200 videos and more 3,400 images from the phone, along with notes kept on the device, call and text logs and internet searches.
Many of the videos were of mass shootings and “extremely graphic in nature,” police said. The FBI also found photos of Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda on the cellphone.
The FBI’s findings come after police said in December that Sapirman was fascinated with Nazi Germany and had also posted more than 700 comments on social media about mass killers between 2017 and 2022.
While the three victims were Hispanic, Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said in December that there was no indication the shooting was racially motivated and authorities had not determined a specific motive for the attack.