The man charged in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida this month left a box at a person’s home that included a letter that read, “This was an assassination attempt,” a new court document revealed Monday.
The note came to light in a filing with the U.S. District Court requesting that Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, be held in custody.
On Sept. 18, a civilian contacted law enforcement and said Routh had left a box at his residence several months earlier, according to the filing. The witness opened the box after learning of the Sept. 15 incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In that box were ammunition, four phones and several letters.
A handwritten letter addressed to The World read, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed him.”
The letter read in part: “He [Trump] ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has fallen apart.”
Routh was arrested on Sept. 15 after a Secret Service agent moving ahead of Trump as he golfed at Trump International saw “the partially obscured face of a man” in the brush along the fence and the barrel of a rifle “pointed directly at him.” The agent fired at Routh, who fled. A witness saw him and he was arrested shortly after on Interstate 95.
Routh has since been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He is due in court on Monday.
The FBI searched the Nissan X-terra Routh had been driving before his arrest and found six cellphones, one of which contained a Google search on how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
Cell phone records from two of the phones revealed that Routh had traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on August 14, 2024.
Additionally, on “various days and times from August 18, 2024, through September 15, 2024, Routh’s cell phone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence,” according to the filing.
Also found in the vehicle were 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in Routh’s name, his passport and documents. One of the documents was a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October and locations where Trump had appeared or was expected to be present.
Agents also found a notebook with “dozens of pages” filled with names and phone numbers about Ukraine, discussions about joining combat on behalf of Ukraine and notes criticizing the Chinese and Russian governments.
The filing said law enforcement learned that the Nissan X-terra’s license plate was not registered to the vehicle, and two additional license plates were found on the car.
A search of the area where Routh had been hiding near the golf course led to the discovery of a rifle with a telescopic sight and an obliterated serial number, an extended magazine, a backpack and a reusable shopping bag containing license plates “capable of stopping small arms fire.”
On the rifle, investigators found a latent fingerprint on a piece of tape attached to the firearm that preliminarily matched Routh’s.
