Sheriff: Las Vegas shooter was depressed over losses

Gunman killed 58 people at country music festival.

The man who killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month had been depressed after losing a significant amount of money in the past two years and that may have been a “determining factor” in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the city’s sheriff said.

Gunman Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old highstakes gambler and real estate investor, had lost a “significant amount of wealth” since September 2015, which led to “bouts of depression,” Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said in an interview this week with Las Vegas news station KLAS-TV.

“This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family,” Lombardo said. “So, obviously, that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did.”

Investigators still have not determined exactly what led Paddock to unleash a barrage of gunfire at concertgoers from his high-rise suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino on Oct. 1.

Paddock killed himself after the massacre that also wounded more than 500 people. Las Vegas police and the FBI have examined his politics, any possible radicalization and his social behavior but turned up little.

Investigators have found that Paddock planned his attack meticulously and was “purposeful in concealing his actions,” the sheriff said.

The gunman requested an upper-floor room overlooking the Route 91 Harvest Festival; stockpiled 23 guns, a dozen of them modified to fire continuously like an automatic weapon; and set up cameras inside and outside his room to watch for approaching officers.

One of the laptops found in Paddock’s hotel suite was missing a hard drive, and searches of his internet history turned up nothing unusual.

Investigators found no evidence that Paddock had help carrying out the attack but are continuing to question his girlfriend, who was visiting family members in the Philippines during the massacre.

Marilou Danley is still considered a “person of interest” in the investigation and was being questioned again this week, Lombardo said. The FBI previously questioned her about Paddock’s gun purchases and what she may have noticed about his behavior.

Danley has repeatedly denied knowing anything about the attack and said Paddock never said or did anything that would have led her to believe he was going to carry out a massacre.