Las Vegas gunman had booked other hotel rooms before attack
Investigators struggle to explain what led gambler to open fire
Stephen Paddock booked rooms overlooking two other music festivals in Las Vegas and Chicago in the days and months before he mowed down concertgoers from his high-rise hotel suite, authorities have said.
The details emerged as investigators struggled for a fourth day to explain what led the 64-year-old high-stakes gambler to fire on Sunday night at the crowd of an open-air country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.
He killed 58 people and injured nearly 500 before taking his own life.
Meanwhile, some Republican politicians have said they might be open to the idea of banning a currently legal firearms accessory used by Padsands dock to deadly effect. Twelve of his weapons were fitted with a “bump stock”, which speeds up the rate of fire of a weapon to many hundreds of rounds per minute.
Gun lobby group the National Rifle Association (NRA) has also called for “additional regulations” on bump stocks.
However, in a statement, NRA chiefs Wayne Lapierre and Chris Cox cautioned against further gun control legislation, writing: “Banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks.”
Authorities have been trying to reconstruct Paddock’s movements leading up to the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
In early August, Paddock booked a room at Chicago’s 21-story Blackstone Hotel that overlooked the park where the Lollapalooza music festival was being held, a law enforcement official said yesterday.
But the official said no evidence has been found that Paddock ever came to Chicago that weekend. Lollapalooza draws hundreds of thougunman of music fans every year to Grant Park.
Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said on Tuesday that the weekend before the Las Vegas attack, Paddock rented via Airbnb – and checked into – a condo in a 21-story luxury building in Las Vegas that overlooked the Life is Beautiful alternative music festival.
Paddock’s renting of the condo was curious, because as a high-roller, he could have easily have got a free room at one of the casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.
When Paddock checked into the Mandalay Bay last week, he requested an upperfloor room with a view of the Route 91 Harvest music festival, according to a person who saw hotel records turned over to investigators.
While other mass killers have left a trail of clues that helped investigators quickly understand what drove them to violence, Paddock led a low-key, private life. He had no known criminal record and almost no close friends or social media presence.
The deputy director of the FBI said on Wednesday he was surprised investigators had not uncovered more. Andrew Mccabe said: “There’s all kinds of things that surprise us in each one of these events. That’s the one in this one, and we are not there yet. We have a lot of work to do.”
Investigators have zeroed in on a weapons-buying binge Paddock went on in the year before the attack.
They are also looking at his gambling habits and checking records for any disputes he might have had with casinos or fellow patrons.
On Wednesday, FBI agents questioned his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, 62, who was out of the country during the attack visiting her native Philippines.
In a statement read by her lawyer 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.”