MESQUITE, Nev.: Stephen Paddock lived in a tidy Nevada retirement community where the amenities include golf, tennis and bocce. He was a wealthy real-estate investor, recently shipped his 90-year-old mother a walker and liked to play high-stakes video poker in Las Vegas.
Nothing in his background suggests why he would have been on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay
Bay Hotel and Casino with at least 17 guns+
on Sunday night, raining an unparalleled slaughter upon an outdoor country music festival below.
Law enforcement and family members could not explain what would
motivate a one-time accountant with no known criminal record to inflict
so much carnage+
. Paddock had apparently planned the attack in great detail, including showing up at the hotel with at least 10 suitcases.
"I can't even make something up," his bewildered brother, Eric Paddock, told reporters Monday. "There's just nothing."
At least 59 people were killed+
and nearly 530 injured in Paddock's attack on the Route 91 Harvest
Festival, where country music star Jason Aldean was performing for more
than 22,000 fans. It was the worst mass shooting in modern US history.
The 64-year-old gunman killed himself in the hotel room before
authorities arrived.
A night time view of the scene of mass shooting, at right, on the Las Vegas Strip. (AP)
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, without offering
evidence, but Aaron Rouse, the FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas, said
investigators saw no connection to international terrorism.
Asked about a potential motive, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said he could not "get into the mind of a psychopath at this point."
Public records offered no hint of financial distress or criminal
history, though multiple people who knew him said he was a big gambler.
"No affiliation, no religion, no politics. He never cared about any of
that stuff," Eric Paddock said as he alternately wept and shouted. "He
was a guy who had money. He went on cruises and gambled."
Eric Paddock also told The Associated Press that he had not talked to
his brother in six months and last heard from him when Stephen checked
in briefly by text message after Hurricane Irma.
Their mother spoke with him about two weeks ago, and when he found out
recently that she needed a walker, he sent her one, Eric Paddock said.
Las Vegas Boulevard lights-up with with signs for the victims and first responders after the mass shooing. (Reuters)
Eric Paddock recalled receiving a recent text from his brother showing
"a picture that he won $40,000 on a slot machine. But that's the way he
played."
He described his brother as a multimillionaire and said they had
business dealings and owned property together. He said he was not aware
that his brother had gambling debts.
"He had substantial wealth. He'd tell me when he'd win. He'd grouse
when he'd lost. He never said he'd lost $4 million or something. I think
he would have told me."
Heavily armed police searched Paddock's home Monday in Mesquite, about
80 miles northeast of Las Vegas near the Arizona border, looking for
clues. Paddock lived there with his 62-year-old girlfriend, who
authorities said was out of the country when the shooting happened. Eric
Paddock described her as kindly and said she sometimes sent cookies to
his mother.
Police also searched a two-bedroom home Paddock owned in a retirement community in Reno, 500 miles from Mesquite.
So far, Paddock doesn't seem like a typical mass murderer, said Clint
Van Zandt, a former FBI hostage negotiator and supervisor in the
bureau's behavioral science unit. Paddock is much older than the typical
shooter and was not known to be suffering from a mental illness.
"My challenge is, I don't see any of the classic indicators, so far,
that would suggest, 'OK, he's on the road either to suicide or homicide
or both," Van Zandt said.
Nevertheless, his actions suggest that he had planned the attacks for at least a period of days.
Some of the rifles had scopes, the sheriff said. And two were modified
to make them fully automatic, according to two US officials briefed by
law enforcement who spoke on condition of anonymity because the
investigation is still unfolding.
"He knew what he wanted to do. He knew how he was going to do it, and
it doesn't seem like he had any kind of escape plan at all," Van Zandt
said.
While Stephen Paddock appeared to have no criminal history, his father
was a notorious bank robber, Eric Paddock confirmed to The Orlando
Sentinel. Benjamin Hoskins Paddock
tried to run down an FBI agent with his car in Las Vegas in 1960 and
wound up on the agency's most wanted list after escaping from a federal
prison in Texas in 1968, when Stephen Paddock was a teen.
The oldest of four children, Paddock was 7 when his father was
arrested for the robberies. A neighbour, Eva Price, took him swimming
while FBI agents searched the family home.
She told the Tucson Citizen at the time: "We're trying to keep Steve
from knowing his father is held as a bank robber. I hardly know the
family, but Steve is a nice boy. It's a terrible thing."
An FBI poster issued after the escape said Benjamin Hoskins Paddock
had been "diagnosed as psychopathic" and should be considered "armed and
very dangerous." He'd been serving a 20-year sentence for a string of
bank robberies in Phoenix.
The elder Paddock remained on the lam for nearly a decade, living
under an assumed name in Oregon. Investigators found him in 1978 after
he attracted publicity for opening the state's first licensed bingo
parlor. He died in 1998.
Stephen Paddock bought his one-story, three-bedroom home in a newly
built Mesquite subdivision for $369,000, in 2015, property records show.
Past court filings and recorded deeds in California and Texas suggest
he co-owned rental property.
Brother: Las Vegas gunman was wealthy real-estate investor
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October 03, 2017
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