Navy Shooter Carved Messages Onto Gun

Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis carved cryptic messages onto his shotgun before Monday's shooting spree, investigators tell the Washington Post. One said, "Better off this way," and another, "My ELF weapon." The Post observes that ELF generally refers to “extremely low frequency" and notes that Alexis had told police only a month ago that people were harassing him with a "microwave machine." Related? It's anyone's guess at this point.

Alexis' mother seems to be as stunned as anyone, reports CNN. "I don’t know why he did what he did and I’ll never be able to ask him why," Cathleen Alexis said in a statement. "Aaron is in a place where he can no longer do harm to anyone. For that I am glad. To the families of the victims, I am so very sorry that this happened. My heart is broken.” (For one such family, it's the second DC shooting death in just a few years.)