Vegas probe shifts to killer’s Pinay partner
The investigation of a gunman who killed 59 people at a Las Vegas concert has shifted to his Filipina-Australian girlfriend, who has returned to the United States from the Philippines.
Investigators are hoping to get some insight from 62-year-old Marilou Danley on why her boyfriend Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert crowd from a high-rise hotel room, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said.
Danley had been out of the US for weeks before the shooting.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents met Danley as she arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday night (yesterday in Manila), reports said.
She was led out of the airport in a wheelchair as seen on footage
obtained by NBC News, which also reported her sisters’ claim that she had been sent back to the Philippines by Paddock two weeks before the Las Vegas carnage.
In the footage, Danley was wearing a hat and light blue jacket and was pushing a black suitcase in front of her. It was not clear why she was in a wheelchair or where she was taken.
Records seen by Newsweek showed she was married to Geary Danley in 1990 and Jose Bustos in 1996. Geary Danley, 76, lives in Arkansas.
But she did not divorce him until 2015, the report adds. It is not clear when or if she divorced Bustos.
Public records also indicated she lived in multiple addresses in different states and had two dates of birth.
In Manila, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is digging deeper into reports Paddock transferred $100,000 to Danley.
Bureau of Immigration (BI) spokesperson Ma. Antonette Mangrobang yesterday confirmed that Danley left Manila last Tuesday on Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight 102 for Los Angeles, California.
“Danley left the country and she passed through our immigration officer at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 at 5:56 p.m.,” said Mangrobang.
The BI has no information if Danley had any companion on her return trip to US.
Paddock killed himself after mowing down country music concertgoers outside Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.
Also in Manila, an official who declined to be named said Paddock traveled at least twice to the Philippines in 2013 and 2014, staying for five to six days on both occasions. There were no immediate details available about those trips.
Although still a “person of interest” to investigators, Danley remains free to go wherever she wants, US media reported.
The NBI said the FBI had sought its help in finding Danley.
“The FBI has coordinated with the Philippine office of the Interpol to look for her,” NBI spokesman Nick Suarez said in an AFP report.
Mangrobang said US authorities had also coordinated with the bureau. “The BI has been in close coordination with Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation insofar as providing them with information,” she said.
She revealed that Danley visited the Philippines almost every year. Immigration records showed that she came to the country in 2013, 2014 and 2015. –