MIAMI — The FBI is trying to “establish a possible motive” behind a North Carolina man who traveled to Palm Beach County where he was fatally shot early Sunday on President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by U.S. Secret Service agents and a sheriff’s deputy, authorities said.

Agents concluded gathering evidence of the shooting scene where Austin Tucker Martin, 21, was killed at about 1:30 a.m. after he pointed a shotgun at two Secret Service agents and the sheriff’s deputy, authorities said. His family had reported him missing from the Carthage, North Carolina, area, where agents collected additional evidence at his home on Monday evening.

The FBI also found his vehicle and transported it to a facility for examination. Agents in Miami and Charlotte, North Carolina, have interviewed family, friends and acquaintances, traced his route from North Carolina to Palm Beach County, searched Martin’s digital devices, reviewed his social media activity and canvassed neighborhoods around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

“Part of the ongoing investigation is to build a timeline of Martin’s movements, stops, purchases, and interactions with other people during his drive from North Carolina to Palm Beach County in addition to attempting to establish a possible motive,” Brett Skiles, special agent in charge of the FBI’s South Florida office, said in a statement.

Skiles asked anyone with information, including neighbors with surveillance video showing anything that “looks suspicious or out of place,” to contact the FBI at (800) 225-5324 or go to tips.fbi.gov.

At a news conference on Sunday morning, Rafael Barros, special agent in charge of the Secret Service in Florida, said President Donald Trump wasn’t at Mar-a-Lago. “We want to be clear,” Barros said. “The president of the United States was not in the state of Florida.”

According to the White House’s weekend schedule, the president remained in Washington.

Encounter at Mar-a-Lago entrance

The shooting happened when two Secret Service agents and a sheriff’s deputy discovered a man in his early 20s was just inside Mar-a-Lago’s front gate carrying a gas can and a shotgun, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

“The only words we said to him were, ‘Drop the items,’ which means the gas can and the shotgun,” Bradshaw said during the Sunday morning news conference. “He put the gas can down and pointed the shotgun at the officers.”

The agents and deputy fired, Bradshaw said. The suspect was dead at the scene.

Bradshaw said he didn’t know how many shots were fired or whether the shotgun was loaded. He did say the deputy was wearing a body camera.

The FBI is leading the investigation into all aspects of the shooting — Martin’s background, the trespass and the shooting — with help from the Secret Service and the sheriff’s office. The Secret Service agents will be put on administrative leave during the investigation, as is standard.

Austin Tucker Martin

Two hours before the Secret Service posted about the shooting at Mar-a-Lago, Sunday morning Facebook posts by Martin’s mother and other relatives asked for help finding him. The posts said he hadn’t been heard from since just before 8 p.m. Saturday. .

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina, which had no prior history with Martin, said around 1:38 a.m. Sunday, “a relative of Austin Tucker Martin approached a deputy at a local business and reported him missing.”

After he was entered into a national missing person’s database, the sheriff’s office said, “federal authorities informed the sheriff’s office that they are conducting an active investigation in Florida involving Martin.”

Getting into Mar-a-Lago

Authorities did not give a motive for the actions of Martin, who joins a growing list of Mar-a-Lago intruders since Trump first took office in January 2017.

Businesswoman Yujing Zhang got deported to her native China after a trespass conviction and eight months in federal prison. Anthony Reyes scaled a Mar-a-Lago outer wall in June, police said, for the purpose of proposing to Kai Trump, granddaughter of the president and daughter of Donald Trump Jr.

Earlier this month, Ryan Wesley Routh was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of an assassination attempt in September 2024 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

©2026 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.