GREENWOOD, Ind. — Nazi propaganda, a suicide note, a confession of wanting to kill himself due to depression, sexual isolation, and mental instability were part of more than 3,000 images and 200 videos recovered from the Greenwood Park Mall shooter’s cell phone by the FBI.
The Greenwood Police Department and the City of Greenwood announced the cell phone findings on Thursday after the phone was sent to the FBI in the wake of the July 17 mall shooting that claimed three victims’ lives and the shooter.
Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, of Greenwood was the lone shooter who opened fire in the food court of Greenwood Park Mall with a Sig Sauer M400 semi-automatic rifle at 6 p.m. on a Sunday.
Sapirman had a backpack full of ammunition and may have shot several more shoppers had he not been shot eight times by Elisjsha Dicken. Dicken had been visiting the mall with his girlfriend and opened fire on Sapirman from 30 yards away with his legally carried firearm.
The FBI reportedly successfully cracked Sapirman’s phone in May 2023 and uncovered 206 videos and 3,458 images. Also found on the phone were notes, call and text logs and internet searches.
Many of the photos found on Sapirman’s phone were images of Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda along with photos of firearms, authorities announced. There were also videos that showed mass killings that were described as “extremely graphic in nature.”
One video was even security footage from a mall shooting in Burlington Washington that occurred on Sep. 23, 2016.
Police said an image of a handwritten note, taken on April 9, 2020, was found on the phone as well. Authorities believe it to be a suicide note drafted by Sapirman.
In the note, Sapirman wrote that he was putting his “final thoughts on paper.”
“I’m a sociopath,” he wrote. “I want to hurt people.”
Authorities said Sapirman alluded to shooting himself with a shotgun and cited his reasons.
“This was the result of my issues: mental instability, depression, frustration, and sexual isolation,” he wrote.
Police said that due to the note being written two years prior to the Greenwood Park Mall shooting, investigators “believe that Sapirman’s homicidal and suicidal thoughts had been manifesting for years.”
A note written by Sapirman on June 18, 2022 — roughly a month before the mall shooting — appeared in the draft of a text that authorities said was meant to be sent to his brother.
In the note, Sapirman expressed frustration over his phone being turned off.
“I’m gonna shoot myself,” he wrote. He then went on to search “how to go through with committing suicide,” according to the phone findings.
Police said no mentions or plans were found on his phone alluding to his attack on the Greenwood Park Mall.