Las Vegas shooter’s Fil-Aussie girlfriend denies any knowledge of planned carnage

LOS ANGELES/LAS VEGAS (AFP/ Reuters) – The Filipino-Australian girlfriend of the Las Vegas shooter said Wednesday she had no idea he was planning the attack, describing her boyfriend as a “quiet, caring

man” as President Donald Trump declared the United States a nation in mourning.

In her first public comments over the shooting at a country music concert that left 58 dead and 489 wounded, Marilou Danley said she had hoped for a quiet future with Stephen Paddock.

In Las Vegas, Trump visited with survivors and first responders, eulogizing parents and spouses who “used their own bodies to protect their loved ones” from the onslaught that eliminated any future for many.

He toured the Las Vegas Police Department Command Center and the city’s University Medical Center, where he met, among others, officer Tyler Peterson who was injured while responding to the shooting.

“In the months ahead, we will all have to wrestle with the horror that unfolded this week. But we will struggle through it together,” the president said.

Air Force One touched down at McCarran International Airport as the FBI was questioning Danley for clues to what drove Paddock to mass murder.

The 62-year-old returned to the United States from her native Philippines late Tuesday and was met by FBI agents.

In a statement read by her attorney Matthew Lombard, she said she had no hint of what was to come: “I knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, caring, quiet man.”

‘I loved him’ “I loved him and hoped for a quiet future together with him,” she said.

“He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen.”

Danley added that two weeks ago, Paddock had told her he found a cheap plane ticket for her to visit family in the Philippines and had wired her money to purchase a house while she was there.

She said she became concerned at that point, thinking he wanted to break up with her.

“It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone,” said Danley, an Australian citizen who moved to the United States 20 years ago to work on the casino strip.

US authorities have been at a loss as to how a 64-year-old gambler and retired accountant hauled a vast arsenal of weapons to his hotel room and launched his assault.

Investigators say the shooting appeared to be extensively planned: Paddock set up one camera in the peephole of his hotel room door and two in the hallway.

The attack unfolded in just 10 minutes from the first shot to the last, but Paddock was not confirmed dead for more than an hour after that, Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told journalists on Wednesday.

Calls for gun control

Lombardo said the scale of the preparations for the attack – including the weapons, ammunition and electronics he stockpiled -- raise questions about Paddock potentially having had an accomplice, but none has been identified.

He also updated the number of people wounded in the attack, putting the latest figure at 489.

As the victims’ harrowing stories emerged in the media, America once again grappled with calls for reforms to its permissive firearm control laws.

Trump largely stuck to a talking point repeated by dozens upon dozens of Republican officials: “Well, we’re not going to talk about that today. We won’t talk about that.”

US officials have reacted cautiously to a claim by the Islamic State jihadist group that the shooter had carried out Sunday night’s massacre on its behalf.

Gunman ‘doted’ on girlfriend

At the casino in Reno, Nevada, where they met several years ago, Paddock was a “big fish” and Danley a petite hostess.

“They were adorable,” Paddock’s younger brother, Eric Paddock, told reporters this week. ”He loved her. I mean he doted on her.”

The brother was not surprised, then, by news reports that wealthy retiree Stephen Paddock may have sent $100,000 to the Philippines to be collected by Danley.

She was travelling there when her live-in boyfriend carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. his- tory, gunning down 58 people at a Las Vegas concert on Sunday night before killing himself.

Eric Paddock also said Danley might not be able to give investigators any clues.

”Mary Lou (sic) is absolutely the closest person to Steve,” the brother told Reuters in a series of text messages elaborating on their relationship. “My fear is that he manipulated around her, and she’s not going to know any more than anyone else does.”

Danley has not been charged in the case and told her family she has a “clean conscience” following the Las Vegas attack, her brother said in an interview with ABC News in the Philippines.

The portrait emerging of her stands in stark contrast to that of Paddock.

While he had few friends and kept to himself, Danley is warm and outgoing, according to media interviews with family, neighbors and friends.

Danley was born in the Philippines and moved to Australia where she married and became an Australian citizen, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin, an Australian newspaper.

She was married for more than 20 years to her second husband, Geary Danley, and the couple moved to Nevada when they retired, the New York Times reported.

A voicemail recording for Sheila Darcey, Marilou Danley’s daughter, directed reporters to her mother’s attorney.

“She is a good and gentle person, and I know she has to be devastated by what has happened,” Dionne Waltrip, the daughter of Geary Danley and Marilou’s former stepdaughter, told KHOG-TV in Arkansas.

Marilou Danley described herself on her now-disabled Facebook as a “proud mom and grandma who lives life to the fullest.” Her account was full of photos with family members and trips overseas.

She was working as a hostess at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, Nevada’s third-largest city, when she met Paddock, a wealthy gambler, according to his brother.

The casino said in a statement only that she stopped working there “several years ago.”