Just a few days before New Year’s Eve, Alicia Arritt received a text message out of the blue from her ex-boyfriend, a decorated U.S. special forces soldier named Matthew Livelsberger.
The pair hadn’t been in touch since 2022. Now, Livelsberger was asking if she was single. They exchanged a few breezy texts over the next couple days and then Livelsberger began sending photos and videos of a Tesla Cybertruck he said he had rented.
“It’s the s–t,” he wrote on New Year’s Eve morning, according to messages shared with NBC News. “I feel like Batman or halo.”
“How fast is it,” she asked.
“Ungodly,” he replied.
They continued texting into the evening, with Livelsberger giving no indication that he was planning something drastic.
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 inside the Tesla seconds before it blew up in front of 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 awful to learn about it.”
Investigators are still working to definitively determine what led Livelsberger to commit suicide. He was a master sergeant in the U.S. Army’s elite special forces unit and resident of Colorado Springs.
In a press conference Friday afternoon, law enforcement officials said they found writings in Livelsberger’s phone which described the country’s leadership as “weak” and the U.S. as “terminally ill and headed towards collapse.”
“This was not a terrorist attack,” one of the letters said. “It was a wake up call.”
The officials added that the investigation determined, in consultation with the Army, that Livelsberger likely suffered from PTSD, and that investigators are aware that there were potential “family issues or personal grievances in his own life that may have been contributing factors.”
Arritt, speaking to NBC News before the Friday news conference, said she had no idea what was behind her ex-boyfriend’s death.
“I’ve just been rolling it around my head for two days. I don’t understand it,” she said. “He was always really brave. So whatever he thought he was doing, I bet he thought it was brave.”
The pair dated on and off for three years starting in 2018. They bonded over a love of the outdoors. They also had military service in common. Arritt had been an Army nurse, who had worked at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
As their relationship continued, it became clear to her that Livelsberger was struggling with injuries he sustained in the military. He had two back surgeries from his days as a paratrooper, and he also suffered brain injuries that he kept hidden from his superiors, Arritt said.
“We talked about it a little bit, but I think he was ashamed of it,” she said. “Ashamed of the memory loss and head injuries. He couldn’t seek treatment for it while he was still active duty. He was worried that if he did, then that would impact his career.”
Livelsberger also struggled with headaches and had trouble concentrating, she said.
“He was coping so well for a long time when I knew him,” she said. “He had such a deep well of inner strength that he was pulling from. And I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
But at one point in their relationship, he failed to make it through an “advanced school” the military had sent him to, Arritt said, and that “really destroyed him.”
“He was a super smart guy,” she said. “He was always careful about 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 wasn’t a blind patriot,” she said. “He thought about what he believed, and he thought the government did some things wrong too, but he did love his country and he loved the people in it.”
After they broke up, Livelsberger got married for a second time. Arritt said she still held him in high regard even though they lost touch until the last few days of his life.
“He could have accomplished so many wonderful things,” she said. “He had such a deep well of empathy for other people. He had so much military experience that he could have used in the world.”
