But it doesn't reveal why.
Religion. Politics. Terrorism. Video games and media influence. Drugs or alcohol. None appeared to factor into the 18-year-old's decision to walk into the upscale shopping mall on Feb. 12 and fire randomly, killing five people and seriously injuring four more.
The report on one of the deadliest attacks in the city's history has chilling details of the methodical rampage. Talovic moved calmly, steadily through the mall, shooting many of his victims and then, at close range, once again.
But the investigation found no specific motive for Talovic's actions and yields little insight into the life and mind of the young shooter, a native of Bosnia.
"Hopefully, [the report] brings closure for the families," Police Chief Chris Burbank said Tuesday after giving copies to survivors, victims' families and first responders. "Unfortunately, I don't think all of the answers will ever be known."
Experts say that with public mass shootings, particularly those carried out by adolescents or young adults, there often is no specific trigger or recognized mental health problem - but signs of alienation and depression are recognized afterward.
"In a lot of these cases, you do see . . . that this is a troubled individual," said Kathleen Heide, a criminologist at the University of South Florida who has studied juvenile murderers. "Happy, healthy individuals don't go out and do this."
Anxious, nervous, isolated: The report recounts the disturbing cruelty of Talovic's attack. In the Cabin Fever card shop, Teresa Ellis, Brad Frantz and Kirsten Hinckley were shot as they lay flat, trying to hide.
After reloading outside, Talovic returned and shot Hinckley and Ellis in the head.
The report debunks rumors, specifying that Talovic, a Muslim, was not carrying a copy of the Quran and did not shout any religious slogans. He was wearing a hamalija, a small locket, when he died, but police found no evidence in his car or bedroom of an extremist ideology.
Officers spoke to his family, co-workers, teachers and friends, and concluded no one could have predicted the shootings. His father, Suljo Talovic, declined to comment Tuesday.
But the report also describes Talovic as isolated, someone who would only speak when spoken to. The high school dropout worked at times in construction and rolled mats on an assembly line at Aramark Uniform Services. One work supervisor said Talovic "always appeared to be nervous, at times acting strangely."
He had a habit of placing his fingers in or near his mouth when speaking and "tended to look furtively around when walking by himself at work," the supervisor said.
A relative said Talovic was riddled with anxiety, and was once taken to Salt Lake Regional Hospital because his hands shook badly at work. He never received follow-up medical care, however, because his family is uninsured.
In previous interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune, Talovic's aunt, Musa Smajlovic, and his girlfriend, Monika Ibrahimovic, have said he was traumatized during his childhood in war-torn Bosnia.
"They didn't have food, they didn't have shelter, it was every man for his own," Smajlovic, who was with his family, said in March. ''It was horrible.''
Ibrahimovic, also a Bosnian, never met Talovic, but spoke to him for hours by phone from her home in Amarillo, Texas. She said he described hiding in the woods, lying face down in the dirt as Serbs decapitated countrymen nearby, and seeing people shot in the head or stomach.
'A sense of power': His family once lived within blocks of Trolley Square, but Talovic had no other known connection to the mall - another factor experts say is a marker of unfocused rage.
Shooters in mass killings usually anticipate news-media coverage and choose a place that will get attention, not because of a personal tie, Heide said.
"They want to kind of signal to the world their acute pain and make a dramatic statement," Heide said. ". . . They are causing death and destruction to innocent people, but to them it makes sense to play out their pain on a worldwide scale. . . . There is a sense of power in the destruction."
Talovic gathered his guns months in advance, and four men have pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the illegal sales. Six weeks before the shootings, Talovic proudly showed three young relatives his guns and a backpack full of ammunition, The Tribune has reported.
The report does not discuss the guns. The strongest evidence of premeditation, it said, was Talovic's three-hour call to his Texas girlfriend on the eve of his rampage.
"'Something is going to happen tomorrow that you'll never be able to forgive me about,'" she quoted Talovic as saying in a March interview with The Tribune. "He said it was supposed to be the happiest day of his life and that it could only happen once in a lifetime."
When she pressed for details, he gave a small hint.
"I would never in the world want something like that to happen to you," he said.
lrosetta@sltrib.com
brooke@sltrib.com
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* PAMELA MANSON contributed to this report.
