VIEW TO A KILL
Inside lair of Vegas sniper
MACHINE-gun psycho Stephen Paddock turned his Las Vegas hotel room into a deadly sniper’s lair – as these first pictures show.
The millionaire monster, right, had a perfect view from the 32nd floor as he unleashed “death from the sky”, murdering at least 59 and wounding 527 in a music festival bloodbath.
Assault rifles litter the floor, along with the hammer he used to smash holes in two windows.
PSYCHO Stephen Paddock had 23 guns in his hotel room.
It took police 72 minutes to zero in on his sniper’s nest.
Paddock had spent four days lugging an arsenal of assault rifles – including an AK-47 – in 10 suitcases past guards to build his lair on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Vegas.
He turned semi-automatic weapons into machine guns capable of firing 800 rounds a minute.
Two rifles were set up on tripods with scopes to boost their accuracy as he fired at 22,000 country music festival revellers below.
Paddock, 64, a gambler who had being losing up to $10,000 a night in the run-up to the massacre, stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition including bullets used by Nato troops.
Alert
He killed at least 59 and wounded 527 after opening fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival at 10.08pm on Sunday during a performance by US singer Jason Aldean.
The killer had set up cameras in the corridor to alert him when SWAT teams arrived.
He had weapons trained on the door and planned to open fire on police when they arrived.
But when they blew the door off and burst in, they found him lying dead among his weapons and hundreds of smouldering spent cartridges after shooting himself.
Officers found another 19 weapons at his home in an over55s retirement complex 80 miles away in the desert town of Mesquite, Nevada.
His car contained several pounds of ammonium nitrate fertiliser which could make explosives similar to that used in the 1995 Oklahoma bombing.
Inside the house officers found several thousand rounds of ammunition. Last night the first photos and videos of Paddock’s room were released as police tried to uncover the motive for his attack.
Sources said the property millionaire may have decided on a suicide-by-cop rampage after a string of heavy gambling losses. Footage of his hotel bolthole showed the remains of the door covered in police crime scene tape.
Photos showed two semi-automatic AR-15-style assault rifles inside the room.
Yesterday two men who sold weapons to Paddock said that he seemed like a normal customer at the time. Christopher Sullivan, general manager of Guns & Guitars in Mesquite, said he had flogged him a handgun and two rifles.
Paddock, who had a hunting licence, had passed standard federal screening checks and seemed like “a normal fellow, a normal guy, nothing out of the ordinary.
“He never gave any indication or reason to believe he was unstable or unfit at any time.’’
Chris Michel, owner of Dixie GunWorx in St George, Utah, said Paddock came into his store three times and bought a shotgun.
He added: “He was an average, everyday Joe Blow.
“Nobody that stood out – no red flags.’’ Last night police trying to discover what sparked the massacre were attempting to locate Paddock’s live-in girlfriend Marilou Danley, 62, a cookie-baking grandma who worked as a casino hostess.
She was out of the country when he struck and was reportedly travelling across Japan.
Last night the FBI said it had found no evidence linking Paddock to international terrorism despite a claim by Islamic State he was a soldier who had recently converted to Islam.
Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said: “We have no idea what his belief system was.
“I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.’’