Just days before New Year’s Eve, Alicia Arritt received a text message out of the blue from her ex-boyfriend, a decorated US special forces soldier named Matthew Livelsberger.

“I’m up in Denver,” Livelsberger wrote. “Are you single?”

The couple has not had any contact since 2022. They exchanged a few casual text messages over the next few days, and on New Year’s Eve morning, Livelsberger began sending photos and videos of a Tesla Cybertruck he said he had rented.

“It sucks,” he wrote, according to messages shared with NBC News. “I feel like Batman or Halo.”

“How fast is it,” she asked.

“Godless,” he replied.

They texted into the evening, with Livelsberger giving no indication that he had anything drastic planned.

It wasn’t until two days later, when FBI agents showed up at Arritt’s home, that she learned the painful truth: Livelsberger, 37, had shot himself in the Tesla seconds before it exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day.

“They actually asked if I wanted to watch the video of him dying,” Arritt said in an interview. “It was terrible to find out about it.”

Investigators are still working to conclusively determine what caused Livelsberger to commit suicide. He was a master sergeant in the U.S. Army’s elite special forces and a resident of Colorado Springs.

In a news conference Friday afternoon, law enforcement officials said they found documents in Livelsberger’s phone that described the country’s leadership as “weak” and the U.S. as “terminally ill and on the way to collapse.”

“This was not a terrorist attack,” one of the letters said. “It was a wake-up call.”

The officials added that the investigation, in consultation with the Army, determined that Livelsberger likely suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that investigators were aware that “family issues or personal grievances in his own life may have contributed.” could”.

Arritt, speaking to NBC News before Friday’s press conference, said she had no idea what was behind her ex-boyfriend’s death.

“I’ve been thinking about it for two days. I don’t understand it,” she said. “He was always very brave. Whatever he thought he was doing, I bet he thought it was brave.”

Her text message exchange with Livelsberger was first reported by the Denver Gazette.

The couple dated on and off for three years starting in 2018. They were united by their love of nature. They also had military service in common. Arritt had been an Army nurse and worked at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

As their relationship progressed, she realized that Livelsberger was struggling with injuries he sustained in the military. He had two back surgeries during his time as a paratrooper and also suffered brain injuries that he kept secret from his superiors, Arritt said.

“We talked about it a little bit, but I think he was ashamed of it,” she said. “I’m ashamed of the memory loss and head injuries. He was unable to seek treatment while still on active duty. He feared it would impact his career.”

Livelsberger also struggles with headaches and has difficulty concentrating, she said.

“When I knew him, he got along so well for a long time,” she said. “He had such a deep well of inner strength that he drew from. And I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

But at one point in their relationship, he failed to graduate from an “advanced school” that the military had sent him to, and that “really destroyed him.”

“He was a super smart guy,” she said. “He was always careful in everything he did. He was always planning and analyzing things.”

She said he didn’t have particularly strong political views, but he loved his country.

“He was not a blind patriot,” she said. “He thought about what he believed and he thought the government had done some things wrong too, but he loved his country and he loved the people in it.”

After the separation, Livelsberger married a second time. Arritt said she still held him in high esteem even though they lost touch until the final days of his life.

“He could have achieved so many wonderful things,” she said. “He had such deep compassion for other people. He had so much military experience that he could have used in the world.”