FBI: Data from mall gunman’s laptop cannot be recovered

Data cannot be recovered from the laptop of the 20-year-old man who allegedly shot five people in a suburban Indianapolis shopping mall, killing three of them, the FBI said Thursday.

Agents were unable to recover data from the laptop found in the gunman’s oven, Herb Stapleton, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis office, said during a media briefing.

The gunman, Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, of Greenwood, placed his laptop in the oven at his apartment with a can of butane before departing for the shooting, police have said. The oven was on and set to a high temperature.

The heat from the oven damaged the laptop beyond forensic analysis, Stapleton said.

The FBI is still trying to analyze the cellphone that police say Sapirman dropped in a toilet in a mall restroom before opening fire in the food court on July 17, Stapleton said.

The FBI and Greenwood police, in trying to determine a motive for Sapirman’s actions, also are analyzing his social media and online presence to potentially uncover a motive for the shooting, Stapleton said.

Killed in the shooting were a married Indianapolis couple—Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37—and Victor Gomez, 30, also of Indianapolis, authorities have said. A woman 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, of Seymour, Greenwood Police Chief James Ison has said. Dicken’s quick action was “nothing short of heroic,” Ison has said.