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(BUTLER, P.A.) — In the days since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the pieces have begun to come together about what the suspected shooter was doing in the lead-up to the attack.

The day before the shooting, Thomas Matthew Crooks went to a local shooting club and practiced on the rifle range, counsel for the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club confirmed to ABC News.

The 20-year-old purchased ammunition shortly before the incident, both online and in-person, according to law enforcement sources.

He asked his employer — a nursing home where he worked as a dietary aide — to take the day off on the day of the shooting, but said he would be back as soon as the next day, sources said.

Sometime before the shooting, Crooks searched the internet for both Trump and President Joe Biden, as well as the dates of Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for those of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Sources said he also left a message on the gaming platform Steam, in which he said that “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”

On the day of the assassination attempt, he asked if he could borrow his father’s AR-15-style rifle, saying he planned to go to a shooting range, sources said. Because Crooks’ father had previously let him use the gun for target shooting, he was not suspicious that his son was planning anything of concern.

Crooks went to a local gun shop that day, where he bought 50 rounds of 5.56 mm ammo. He also stopped at a Home Depot to buy a 5-foot ladder, though it was not found at the scene and is not believed to have been used to access the roof.

He then drove to the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, parking about a third of a mile away at a gas station.

For at least an hour before the shooting, Crooks was seen walking around near the rally area. Crooks was seen in video obtained by Pittsburgh ABC affiliate WTAE pacing just beyond the boundaries of the Trump rally at 5:06 p.m., around one hour and five minutes before shots were first fired.

He was also seen walking around near the magnetometers minutes before the shooting, according to law enforcement sources. Some witnesses reported him as a suspicious person, law enforcement sources said.

He then made his way to a nearby building, climbing up air conditioner units until he was able to get on the roof of an adjacent building, according to sources. From there, he moved onto a taller building next to it.

Just before Crooks opened fire, rallygoers spotted him on the roof and tried to alert the Secret Service.

In an unclassified briefing Wednesday, law enforcement officials said 20 minutes passed between when Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks on the roof and when he opened fire on Trump. He was identified as a person of interest 62 minutes before the shooting, they said.

A Butler Township police officer attempted to stop the shooter, climbing up the roof to approach him, but Crooks pointed his gun at the officer, prompting the officer to retreat, according to Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe.

It was at this point that Crooks began firing his weapon toward Trump, who at that moment turned to look at a Jumbotron, possibly saving his life.

A Secret Service sniper shot back at Crooks, fatally shooting him in the head 26 seconds later, according to law enforcement officials.

Editors Note: This story has been updated to correct the suspected shooter’s name to Thomas Matthew Crooks.

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(BUTLER, P.A.) — Investigators working to determine a motive behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump found a message posted to the gaming platform Steam that they believe was authored by the suspect, in which he said that “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” according to three law enforcement sources briefed on the probe.

Investigators also found internet searches for both Trump and President Joe Biden on the phone belonging to Thomas Matthew Crooks, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News. Crooks, 20, had searched for the dates of Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for those of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the sources said.

The suspect’s phone was one of several devices that law enforcement investigators had collected as they worked to piece together a timeline of the assassination attempt against the former president during a Saturday rally.

“What is beginning to emerge is a portrait of a troubled young person who turned to violence,” said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former head of intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security.

Cohen, who specializes in the phenomenon of mass shooters, added that investigators may never determine a single or precise motive for the attack. Sources familiar with the investigation have told ABC News that a search of the suspect’s phone history has revealed no indication of Crooks’ political views or his motive for the shooting. Investigators have also found no digital footprint from the suspect suggesting any affiliations with international or domestic terrorist groups. They have also been unable to identify any ideological nexus to Trump and/or Biden, according to sources.

“Likely, it was a combination of mental health issues, ideological beliefs and a sense of personal grievance, the same combination of factors present in almost every school shooting and mass casualty attack over the past several years. As with those incidents, the warning signs were there, they were just not recognized,” Cohen said. “The threat was real but people around him did not understand what they were witnessing or how it would play out last Saturday.”

The FBI early on Sunday had identified Crooks as the suspect. The U.S. Secret Service said snipers had killed Crooks at the scene. Firefighter Corey Comperatore, a dad who was attending the rally, was killed, and two other bystanders injured, officials said.

The searches compounded the questions that were swirling as investigators searched for a reason for the shooting, including a possible political motive. Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. But a $15 donation to a progressive group was also recorded under “Thomas Crooks” in January 2021, according to FEC records.

As investigators analyzed the suspect’s phone, they looked at his search history, which included the queries for Trump and Biden. But that search history didn’t immediately appear to reveal Crooks’ political views, sources told ABC News.

Law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt told lawmakers on Wednesday that 20 minutes had passed between the time Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks on a rooftop and the time the first shots were fired, according to several law enforcement officials and lawmakers briefed on the matter.

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(WASHINGTON) — Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who pleaded guilty to federal offenses for leaking sensitive information online, will now face a military court-martial, according to the U.S. Air Force.

No trial date has been set yet for the military legal proceedings, which will take place at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Teixeira faces charges alleging he violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to a statement from the Air Force.

The first charge alleges he failed to obey an order to “cease and desist from accessing information not pertaining to his duties” on or about Sept. 15, 2022, and on or about April 13, 2023, according to the statement.

The second charge alleges that he “dispose[d] of an iPad, computer hard drive, and cell phone, with intent to obstruct the due administration of justice in the case of himself” sometime between March 1, 2023, and April 13, 2023, according to the statement. It also alleges he similarly directed another person to delete Discord messages he sent “with intent to obstruct the due administration of justice in the case of himself” on or about April 7, 2023.

Teixeira was indicted by a federal grand jury last year on six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to the national defense. Federal prosecutors said Teixeira “accessed and printed hundreds of classified documents” and posted images of them on Discord prior to his arrest in April 2023.

He pleaded guilty to all six charges and agreed to accept a 16-year prison sentence in March. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with additional counts under the Espionage Act.

His sentencing is set for Sept. 27.

The U.S. military reserves the right to separately prosecute a service member who has already been convicted in a federal court.

An Air Force evidentiary hearing was held in May to determine whether his case should move forward to an Air Force court-martial.

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(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — After a monthslong search, remains found at a wastewater facility in Texas are believed to be missing college student Caleb Harris, according to authorities.

City workers conducting maintenance at a wastewater lift station in Corpus Christi, Texas, last month discovered human remains in a well and notified police, the Corpus Christi Police Department said on Facebook.

The remains had “no obvious signs of homicide,” but were transported to the Nueces County Medical Examiner’s Office for examination, according to police.

Due to the “advanced state of decomposition,” the medical examiner was unable to make an identification, nor “provide a manner or cause of death,” authorities said on Wednesday.

The DNA samples were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification (UNTCHI) for analysis with Harris’ parents’ DNA.

The remains were “approximately 2.4 sextillion times more likely to be observed if the unidentified remains originated from a biological child of (Caleb Harris’s parents) rather than if the unidentified remains originated from an unrelated individual from the Caucasian population,” according to the Missing Persons DNA Report issued by UNTCHI, authorities said.

“We all have heavy hearts this evening as we learned of the positive identification of our sweet Caleb. We will grieve our son,” Harris’ family said in a statement on Wednesday. “Thank you for your prayers and support during this tragic time.”

Harris, a 21-year-old student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, was reported missing in early March.

His roommates were unable to locate him after he walked his dog early in the morning and his family reported him missing, according to the Corpus Christi Police Department.

Harris’ father, Randy Harris, told ABC Corpus Christi affiliate KIII that his dog returned home but his son never did. He left behind his keys, wallet and vehicle, police said. He did have his phone, but it had been turned off, police said.

In the months since Harris’ disappearance, “investigators executed over 50 digital search warrants, submitted 82 preservation requests, and analyzed over 1500 GB of Data,” police said on Wednesday.

The investigation into Harris’ death remains open, authorities said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday filed an official notice of appeal of Judge Aileen Cannon’s order dismissing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

Judge Cannon, in a surprising ruling Monday, dismissed the case on the grounds that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress.

Wednesday’s filing by Smith indicated that he will appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Representatives with the special counsel’s office said they would not be commenting further.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.

Trump has denied all charges.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Navy has exonerated 256 Black sailors who were unjustly court-martialed in 1944 following the Port Chicago explosion in California that killed 320 people.

The sailors had been punished for refusing to go back to work in what they considered to be an unsafe environment. Their prosecution took place at a time when the U.S. military was still segregated and reflected the unfair treatment that Black sailors experienced.

The 256 sailors were exonerated by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro on the 80th anniversary of the accidental, deadly World War II-era blast, which also injured 400 other people. The explosion at an ammunition loading area also damaged two ships and a train, and caused damage to the nearby town of Port Chicago, located east of Oakland, California.

Del Toro’s exoneration carries more weight than a pardon, which acknowledges guilt. Instead, the exoneration will vacate all of the court-martials that the 256 sailors had to go through.

What happened after the deadly explosion reflected the double standard experienced by white and Black personnel in the segregated military at the time.

White supervising officers at Port Chicago were given hardship leave, while the surviving Black sailors they commanded in segregated units that loaded ammunition were ordered back to work at the port, which had been functioning around the clock to get ammunition to U.S. troops on the front lines.

Expressing safety concerns about their workplace in the wake of the deadly blast, 258 Black sailors refused to return to work handling dangerous ammunition.

After threats of disciplinary action, 208 of the sailors returned to work — but they still received summary court-martials for disobeying orders and received a Bad Conduct Discharge and forfeiture of three months’ pay. Later reviews suspended the discharges, lowered the amount of the forfeitures and set aside one conviction for insufficient evidence.

The other 50 sailors who refused to return to work were convicted and charged with mutiny; they have become known as the “Port Chicago 50.”

In a mass court-martial, these sailors were sentenced to a Dishonorable Discharge, 15 years confinement at hard labor, a reduction in rank, and total forfeiture of their pay. Later reviews of the general court-martial resulted in a suspension of the discharges and reduced the period of confinement from 15 years to 17-29 months.

Two sailors were later cleared.

By January 1946, nearly all the sailors had been released and were given the opportunity to finish their military service contracts.

“The Port Chicago 50, and the hundreds who stood with them, may not be with us today, but their story lives on, a testament to the enduring power of courage and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” Del Toro said in a Navy statement. “They stand as a beacon of hope, forever reminding us that even in the face of overwhelming odds, the fight for what’s right can and will prevail.”

Del Toro’s decision to exonerate the 256 sailors follows a legal review by the Navy’s General Counsel that found significant legal errors during the court-martial, including trying them all together despite conflicting interests, as well as a denial of what the Navy called “meaningful right to counsel.”

“The courts-martial also occurred before the Navy’s Court of Inquiry report on the Port Chicago explosion was finalized, which certainly would have informed their defense and contained nineteen substantive recommendations to improve ammunition loading practices,” the Navy’s statement read.

All of the sailors who were convicted following the blast are now deceased, and the Navy is asking any possible descendants to reach out to the branch for future notifications about the incident.

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(NEW YORK) — A nearly complete stegosaurus skeleton sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Wednesday for a record $44.6 million — the most ever paid for a fossil.

The dinosaur, nicknamed “Apex” — which lived between 146 and 161 million years ago in the Late Jurassic Period — was originally expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million, according to the auction house.

Sotheby’s has said Apex is the “most complete and best-preserved Stegosaurus specimen of its size ever discovered.”

The skeleton was discovered on private land in Moffat County, Colorado — in northwestern Colorado and on the border with Utah and Wyoming — in May 2022 by commercial paleontologist Jason Cooper, with excavation completed in 2023, according to Sotheby’s. The county is an area where many other dinosaur fossils have been discovered and is home to the Dinosaur National Monument.

Apex measures 11 feet tall and 27 feet long from nose to tail. The skeleton consists of 319 bones — 254 of which are fossils and the remainder being either 3D printed or sculpted. It’s unclear if Apex was male or female.

“Judging from the overall size and degree of the bone development it can be determined that the skeleton belonged to a large, robust adult individual, and evidence of arthritis, particularly notable in the fusion of the 4 sacral vertebrae, would indicate that it lived to an advanced age,” Sotheby’s wrote on its website. “The specimen shows no signs of combat related injuries, or evidence of post-mortem scavenging, and exhibits a number of interesting pathologies.”

Apex is not the first dinosaur to sell for millions. One of the largest and best-preserved skeletons of a Tyrannosaurs rex ever discovered — nicknamed “Sue” — sold at auction in 1997 for $8.4 million and is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Sue was the most expensive fossil ever sold until another mostly complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, nicknamed “Stan”, was sold at auction in October 2020 for $31.8 million. Officials in Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism told National Geographic they have the dinosaur and that the skeleton will be displayed in a new natural history museum set to open in 2025.

Sotheby’s did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment on the sale of the fossil Wednesday.

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(NEW YORK) — A dad has been arrested after his 8-week-old daughter died when she was left in a hot car in New Jersey, authorities said.

At about 1:45 p.m. Monday, authorities in Lakewood Township responded to a report of a baby in cardiac arrest, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said. The 8-week-old was pronounced dead at the scene.

The baby was left alone in her dad’s car “for an extended period of time,” which was determined to be the cause and manner of her death, prosecutors said in a statement Tuesday.

The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — soared to 107 degrees in Lakewood Township on Monday.

The baby’s father, 28-year-old Avraham Chaitovsky, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.

The investigation is ongoing and more charges are possible, prosecutors said.

At least 11 children have died in hot cars across the U.S. so far this year, according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org.

Since 1990, at least 1,095 children have died in hot cars — and about 88% of those kids were 3 years old or younger, according to KidsAndCars.org.

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(BUTLER, P.A.) — Authorities said the man they allege tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump was able to access the roof near the rally by climbing over an air conditioning unit adjacent to the building, sources told ABC News.

Though law enforcement sources said Thomas Matthew Crooks is believed to have purchased a 5-foot ladder at a Home Depot before the shooting, it does not appear to have been used to climb on the roof and was not found at the scene.

As the FBI investigation continues, questions are swirling about how the 20-year-old was able to ascend undetected to the roof, gain a direct line of sight and fire several rounds at the former president. The alleged gunman’s motive was also still unclear as the investigation continue Wednesday. Crooks was killed at the scene, the Secret Service said.

Investigators said Tuesday they found a remote transmitter in the suspect’s pocket that may have been intended to set off two suspicious devices found in the suspect’s car and one in his home, according to law enforcement sources. Devices at both locations were similarly constructed in ammunition containers using components including receivers that appear to have been paired with the remote control found in the suspect’s pocket, sources said.

The receivers in each device were connected to a series of components that investigators say met the “eye test” — having parts present that could have made viable devices, although the functionality of the devices is still being determined. The purpose of the devices is also unknown. Whether they were intended to cause a significant blast effect and hurt people or if they were designed to create smoke, fire and a low-grade blast for a diversion is unclear.

Investigators also found a tactical vest in the suspect’s car, though it is unclear why he did not wear it during the assault on the former president’s rally. Some investigators are wondering whether he anticipated dying in the attack.

The shooter also asked his employer if he could take a day off on Saturday but said he would return to work perhaps as soon as Sunday, the day after this attack, according to law enforcement sources. But thus far, investigators have turned up nothing to suggest that he had any accomplices or other support to carry out his deadly objective.

An examination of his phone, which the FBI has now unlocked, has not turned up any significant information about the suspect’s motives — only what sources described as “routine” information for a 20-year-old male. Thus far, investigators have turned up nothing to suggest that he had any accomplices or other support to carry out his deadly objective.

The Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement that it provided “all resources” to the Secret Service — including 30 to 40 troopers to assist with securing the inside perimeter of the campaign rally venue in Butler Township, Pennsylvania — but “was not responsible for securing the building or property” outside the security perimeter where the would-be assassin opened fire.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle confirmed that local police were present inside the building at the same time the shooter was on the roof firing at Trump. Cheatle also said that local authorities were tasked with securing that building.

“In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,” Cheatle said. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter.”

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(ATLANTA) — The Georgia Court of Appeals, in a ruling involving Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference case, has scheduled oral arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Fani Willis disqualification decision for Dec. 5 — one month after the November presidential election.

The court had ordered a stay in the case pending the outcome of the appeal, which means the new hearing date pushes the case past the November election.

The appeal from Trump and his co-defendants seeks to overturn a lower court’s ruling that allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case after she was found to have had a romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who resigned as part of the judge’s order.

Willis has asked the court to dismiss Trump’s appeal on multiple grounds, including claiming there is a “lack of sufficient evidence” to support a reversal of the lower court’s ruling.

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.

The former president has denied all charges and has criticized the district attorney’s investigation as being politically motivated.

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