The Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock.
Summary: The girlfriend of Stephen Paddock will be questioned by the FBI in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
On Wednesday afternoon, the girlfriend of the Las Vegas shooter will be questioned by the FBI, according to her attorney. The woman, Marilou Danley, has been cleared as a person of interest, and she was out of the country when her boyfriend, Stephen Paddock, killed 59 concertgoers and wounded almost 500 on Sunday night.
On Sunday, Paddock used several weapons to shoot into the crowd of a country music festival from his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay. His massacre was deemed the biggest mass shooting in recent history, and police remain baffled why the 64-year-old man would commit such an atrocity.
Paddock had no known religious ties or links to hate groups. He had family, who said that he was rich and liked to gamble, and he had a girlfriend, Danley, who originally came from the Philippines, where she was visiting when the shooting occurred.
Before Sunday, Paddock had made several money transfers to the Philippines for a total of almost $100,000. It is unclear why or who the money went to, but people are speculating that he was supporting his girlfriend’s family.
According to ABC News, Danley is considered a “witness” because she may provide insight into Paddock’s state of mind before the shooting. The FBI has worked tirelessly to shield her from the media and keep her comfortable so that she will cooperate fully with the investigation.
Danley is now in Los Angeles, where she was allowed to rest before she will be questioned. She is not being held in custody, and she is staying at a hotel.
While the media waits for Danley’s statements to be released, they spoke to Las Vegas Starbucks employees who said that Paddock was emotionally abusive to his girlfriend, often berating her in public.
Danley’s sisters who live in Australia told a local television station that there was no way that their sister would’ve known about Paddock’s plans.
“She probably was even (more) shocked than us because she is closer to him than us,” said one of the sisters.
They concluded that Paddock must have sent Danley away before the shooting so that she would not be around.
Besides Paddock’s temper with Danley, Paddock’s history of violence is unclear. He had no criminal record, and his legal history only included a lawsuit against The Cosmopolitan casino for negligence and a separation from his wife, who has not been identified. His brother, Eric Paddock, said that Stephen had no signs of mental illness.
While Paddock’s motive is unclear, Sunday’s shooting was carefully calculated. Paddock had stockpiled multiple guns and thousands of bullets, and he had checked in on Thursday morning, presumably to scope out the location.
On Sunday, Paddock reportedly broke his Mandalay Bay window with a hammer so that he could shoot out of it, and police said that he had killed himself before they swarmed his room.
“The fact that he had the type of weaponry and amount of weaponry in that room, it was preplanned extensively,” Las Vegas sheriff Joe Lombardo said. “And I’m pretty sure he evaluated everything that he did and his actions, which is troublesome.”