World News Las Vegas massacre probe turns to gunman’s girlfriend in Philippines
LAS VEGAS, (Reuters) - The investigation into the motives of a Las Vegas retiree who killed 59 people in the bloodiest mass shooting in modern U.S. history turned yesterday to the gunman’s girlfriend in the Philippines, where she turned up after the massacre, authorities said.
Stephen Paddock, who killed himself moments before police stormed the hotel suite he had transformed into a sniper’s nest on Sunday night, left no clear clues as to why he staged his attack on an outdoor concert below the high-rise building.
But law enforcement authorities are hoping to obtain some answers from a woman identified as Paddock’s live-in companion, Marilou Danley, who Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said was a “person of interest” in the investigation.
Lombardo, who on Monday said Danley was believed to be in Tokyo, told reporters yesterday she had been located in the Philippines and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was in the process of trying to bring her back to the United States. “We are in conversations with her,” he said at an afternoon news briefing. But he reiterated police had no other suspects in the shooting itself.
Danley, an Australian citizen reported to have been born in the Philippines, had been sharing Paddock’s condo at a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas, according to police and public records.
Investigators are examining a $100,000 wire transfer Paddock, 64, sent to an account in the Philippines that “appears to have been intended” for Danley, a senior U.S. homeland security official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The official, who has been briefed regularly on the probe but spoke on condition of anonymity, said the working assumption of investigators is that the money was intended as a form of life insurance payment for Danley.
The official said U.S. authorities were eager to question Danley, who described herself on social media websites as a “casino professional,” mother and grandmother, about whether Paddock encouraged her to leave the United States before he went on his rampage.
The official said investigators also have uncovered evidence that Paddock may have rehearsed his plans at other venues before ultimately carrying out his attack on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival from the 32nd floor suite of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
Fresh details about the massacre and the arsenal of weaponry amassed by Paddock emerged yesterday.
Lombardo said Paddock strafed the concert crowd with bullets for nine minutes before taking his own life, and had set up cameras inside and outside his hotel suite, apparently, in part, to provide him advance detection of police as they closed in on his location.
Video footage caught by people on the ground showed throngs of people screaming in horror, some crouching on the open ground for cover, hemmed in by fellow concertgoers, others running for cover as extended bursts of gunfire rained onto the crowd of some 20,000.
More than 500 people were injured, some trampled in the pandemonium. At least 20 of the survivors admitted to one of several hospitals in the area, University Medical Center, remained in critical condition yesterday, doctors said.
The union representing firefighters disclosed that a dozen off-duty firefighters who were attending the music festival were shot while trying to render aid to other spectators, two of them while performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on victims.
“This is a true feat of heroism on their part,” said Ray Rahne of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
But the central, unanswered question to the bloodshed was what drove the gunman’s actions.
Federal, state and local investigators have found no evidence that Paddock had even incidental contacts with foreign or domestic extremist groups, and reviews of his history show no underlying pattern of criminal behavior or hate speech, the homeland security official said.