SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Investigators have learned that the gun used to shoot and seriously wound two kindergartners last month at a small faith-based school in Northern California was sold to the gunman by a convicted felon in Arizona.

Glenn Litton, 56, shot two boys who were outside for recess at Feather River Adventist School in Oroville before fatally shooting himself, Butte County sheriff’s officials have said.

The Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday announced in a news release that Litton used in the school shooting a Glock 19 handgun, a privately manufactured firearm commonly known as a ghost gun.

Butte sheriff’s officials said Litton bought the ghost gun used in the school shooting from Jesse Kitagawa Jr., a convicted felon who is barred from purchasing or possessing any firearms. Kitagawa, 45, of Phoenix sold the ghost gun to Litton for $300 several months earlier in Arizona, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Ghost guns, which do not have serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement officials to track, are made with firearm parts sometimes sold in kits. With limited exceptions, the sale or transfer of ownership of self-manufactured or self-assembled firearms is prohibited under California law, according to the state Department of Justice.

Phoenix man arrested

The Phoenix Police Department arrested Kitagawa on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Butte sheriff’s officials said Kitagawa made his first appearance Friday in Maricopa County court.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said in the news release that his investigators “spent many hours doggedly pursuing leads” to track down who sold the ghost gun to Litton “to carry out his evil plan.”

Kitagawa has since been released from jail after posting a bail bond, Maricopa County sheriff’s records show. Butte sheriff’s officials said Kitagawa’s next court date has not yet been scheduled, and they expect the Maricopa County District Attorney’s Office to formally charge Kitagawa at that time.

In October, California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned that the ghost gun market is increasingly shifting toward “skip-the-background-check products and services,” which are designed to enable people to illegally produce ghost guns without any background check or other protections using 3-D printers, computer numerical control milling machines and similar ghost gun manufacturing machines.

Butte sheriff’s officials said detectives served several search warrants to trace the ghost gun used in the Oroville school shooting and determine how Litton got his hands on the firearm.

School gunman was convicted felon

Authorities have described Litton as a homeless man who for years split his time between the Sacramento and Chico areas. On Tuesday, sheriff’s officials said Litton himself was a convicted felon with an extensive criminal history, so it was illegal for him to possess a firearm.

Sheriff’s detectives, with help from the FBI, analyzed the parts on the ghost gun and found evidence the handgun was previously owned by someone who lived in Buckeye, Arizona, a suburb in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The detectives also found evidence Litton was in Phoenix in April.

Butte sheriff’s detectives traveled to Arizona last month to continue their investigation. The detectives found evidence that a 77-year-old Buckeye man initially purchased the ghost gun that was later used in the Oroville school shooting. Sheriff’s officials said the Buckeye resident bought the ghost gun from the widow of the original owner of the firearm after he died.

The detectives learned that the original owner of the ghost gun purchased the firearm lawfully and the subsequent sale to the Buckeye resident was lawful under Arizona law.

Sheriff’s officials said the detectives then found evidence that the Buckeye resident resold the ghost gun to Kitagawa on April 8. Even though Kitagawa is a convicted felon, sheriff’s officials said this ghost gun was also lawful under Arizona law because Kitagawa has an Arizona driver’s license and assured Buckeye resident that he could lawfully possess firearms.

Ghost gun sold in Arizona

The detectives determined that Kitagawa then sold the ghost gun to Litton on April 10 at a motel in Chandler, Arizona, which is a violation of Arizona law because it’s illegal for Kitagawa to possess a firearm as a convicted felon.

On Thursday, Butte sheriff’s detectives and Phoenix police detectives served a search warrant at Kitagawa’s home.

Sheriff’s officials said the detectives determined that Litton practiced with the firearm at a Phoenix gun range, and he also purchased in Phoenix ammunition consistent with the bullets used in Oroville school shooting. On April 19, Litton returned to California on a Greyhound bus.

The Oroville elementary school is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. On Dec. 4, Litton entered the campus after setting up a meeting with school administrators using a fake name and concocted reason.

Sheriff’s officials said Litton told the school that his daughter recently moved to nearby Gridley, and he was considering enrolling his grandson in the rural kindergarten through eighth grade school, located just off of Highway 70 in Butte County near Palermo and Oroville.

Honea has said that meeting was a “ruse,” there was no connection between Litton and the school and he has no grandson.

The full scope of Litton’s motive was unclear, but investigators believe that the school was targeted because of its Seventh-day Adventist affiliation.

Litton apparently set up a similar ploy at another small Seventh-day Adventist school, this one in Red Bluff about 70 miles northwest of Oroville, Honea said.

At some point in Litton’s youth, Litton had attended a Seventh-day Adventist school in Paradise, also in Butte County, where there is both a Seventh-day Adventist elementary school and high school, the latter of which is called an academy. The sheriff said last month at a news conference it was unclear which school Litton attended or for how long, and investigators were seeking school records to clarify those details.

Honea said it had been “many, many, many years” since Litton attended the Paradise school, and that Litton may have also had a relative who attended the school where the shooting occurred, “but that would have been many, many years ago.”

“It appears again that it’s based on his notion of the activities of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and why he selected that,” Honea has said.

After the planned meeting and tour at Feather River Adventist School, Litton went to leave toward the parking lot. The sheriff said Litton then turned through a breezeway that cuts through the schoolhouse and leads to a playground, near which he shot the two boys, 5-year-old Elias Wolford and 6-year-old Roman Mendez.

Litton then turned the gun on himself and was found dead outside of the school by a California Highway Patrol officer who first responded to the school.

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