"Take a hard look in the mirror, I have," the affidavit quotes his message as saying. "And this is why I am about to take out ZAU and my life. April, Pop, love you guys and I'm sorry. Leaving you with this big mess. Do your best to move on quickly from me please. Feel like I give a (expletive) for the first time in a long time again...but not for too long (haha!) So I'm gonna smoke this blunt and move on. Take care everyone."



One of Howard's relatives saw the message and immediately contacted Naperville police, according to the affidavit. Minutes after the note was sent, a control center employee called 911 to report the fire.



Upon arriving at the center, paramedics followed a trail of blood to an area where they noticed the carpet had been pulled away to expose telecommunications cables and other wires. There was also a gas can nearby, along with burned towels and a black, hard-sided suitcase, according to the affidavit.



As they followed the blood through the basement area where Howard worked, they also saw a lighter and at least two knives, according to the affidavit. They located a bleeding, shirtless Howard underneath a table. He was attempting to slit his throat when paramedics found him and he asked them to leave him alone, authorities said.



Howard apparently used gasoline to start the fire and had also tried to slit transmission lines, burning and cutting himself in the process, said Tom Ahern, spokesman for the Chicago office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.



"Whatever his motivations were is yet to be determined," Ahern said. "We just don't know at this point why he may have done this."