Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old maths sophomore wearing a ski mask and a dark suit, began shooting near a fountain in front of the UT Tower.
The site is infamous for being the site of one of America's deadliest shooting rampages more than four decades ago, when a gunman ascended the clock tower and fired down on dozens of people.
He then turned the gun on himself. No one else was killed or injured - despite there being many people around.
The nearly 50,000-student campus was put on lockdown while officers with bomb-sniffing dogs carried out a building-by-building manhunt for a possible second suspect.
However authorities have now determined that Tooley acted alone. The confusion arose because shots were fired in multiple locations, and officers received varying descriptions from witnesses, campus police Chief Robert Dahlstrom said.
There was no clue as to Tooley's motive.
Within hours of Tuesday's gunfire, the school issued an all-clear notice, but the university remained closed, and the area around the library was still considered a crime scene.
'Our campus is safe,' school President Bill Powers said.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo expected the school to be 'completely open and back to normal' by Wednesday morning.
Campus police spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said a man fired an automatic weapon on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castaneda Library, then shot himself dead. Acevedo said the weapon was an AK-47.
Acevedo said police were investigating what he described as a second crime scene outside the library where shots also were fired.
Before reaching the library, the gunman apparently walked unheeded for several blocks wearing a mask and dark clothing and carrying the automatic weapon, witnesses said.
Within hours a Facebook page in Tooley's name had been created.
The page showed just one status update, which read: 'Today was not a good day. Colton Tooley had to use his AK.'
The profile picture simply showed the logo of the University of Texas: an orange graphic of a longhorn. Beneath it was written: 'This is exactly who you think it is.'
The only information included in the description was: 'Former 19-year-old sophomore at UT, majoring in Math.'
Two links had been added to the page - one to a news story about the shooting.
A bizarre discussion had also been started on the page under the topic 'Magic', where users began discussing how AK-47s work.
When other users accused them of being 'sick', an argument kicked off. 'How is this a joke to any of you. you guys f****** make me sick [sic],' one user wrote.
Barely an hour after the status was updated, the profile was removed - but not before 88 people had pressed the 'like' button on the page.
Randall Wilhite, an adjunct law professor at the university, said he was driving to class when he saw ‘students start scrambling behind wastebaskets, trees and monuments,’ and then a young man carrying an assault rifle sprinting along the street.
‘He was running right in front of me ... and he shot what I thought were three more shots ... not at me. In my direction, but not at me, clearly not at me,’ Wilhite said.
The professor said the gunman had the opportunity to shoot several students and Wilhite, but he did not.
The university posted a notice on its emergency information website emphasizing that the school remained closed and that the area around the Perry-Castenada Library was still an active crime scene.
Tuesday’s shooting is not the first at the school, which is one of the largest universities in the country.
On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman went to the 28th floor observation deck at the UT clock tower in the middle of campus and began shooting at people below. He killed 16 people and wounded nearly three dozen before police killed him about 90 minutes after the siege began.
The Perry-Castaneda Library is one of several on the campus and is one of the busiest undergraduate libraries.
Students gather on campus after the shooting
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