After spending most of the day at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, Marylou Danley, the 62-year-old longtime girlfriend of Mandalay Bay shooter Stephen Paddock, has released her first official statement since Paddock, a 64-year-old retired account and inveterate gambler, carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history Sunday night.
It’s unclear whether Danley has provided any useful information to authorities, who have reportedly been baffled by the utter lack of any clues about Paddock’s motives. No official statement about the interview has been released, and so far, nothing has leaked (although we imagine that will soon change). Searches of Paddock’s homes and electronic devices have provided no indication about what might’ve inspired the shooting – which authorities say was meticulously premeditated. And Paddock’s brother
Eric Paddock said he isn’t aware of any religious or political affiliations that might’ve inspired the shooting.
WATCH: Attorney reads statement from Marilou Danley, the Vegas attacker"s girlfriend pic.twitter.com/YAmyM8KpfH
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 4, 2017
The full statement was delivered by Danley’s lawyer, Matt Lombard, via CNN.
“I am devastated by the deaths and injuries that have occurred and my prayers go out to the victims and their families. I have faith in God and I will continue to pray for everyone who has been harmed or hurt. I am a mother and a grandmother and my heart breaks for all who have lost loved ones.
I knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, caring quiet man. I loved him and hoped for a quiet future together with him. He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen.
A little more than two weeks ago, Stephen told me that he’d found a cheap ticket for me to the Philippines and he wanted me to take a trip home to see my family. Like all Filipinos abroad, I was excited to go home and see family and friends. While there, he wired me money which he said was for me to buy a house for me and my family. I was grateful, but honestly, I was worried, that first the unexpected trip home, and then the money, was a way of breaking up with me. It never occurred to me that he was planning violence against anyone. I have not made a statement until now because I’ve been cooperating with the authorities and I voluntarily flew back to America because I know that the F BI and Las Vegas Police Department wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to them. I will cooperate fully in their investigation.”
Paddock committed suicide shortly before a SWAT team stormed his two-room suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino and resort. Paddock, who killed 60 people – including himself – according to the most recent official count, while also injuring more than 500 others. Paddock reportedly set up a system of cameras around his room to tip him off when police were closing in.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has said he"s surprised that police have yet to determine the shooter"s motives, the Washington Post reported.
“There’s all kinds of things that surprise us in each one of these events,” McCabe told CNBC.
“This individual and this attack didn’t leave the sort of immediately accessible thumbprints that you find on some mass casualty attacks….We look for actual indicators of affiliation, of motive, of intent, and so far we’re not there. We don’t have those sort of indicators.”
McCabe said investigators have been reconstructing “the life, the behavior, the pattern of activity of this individual and anyone and everyone who may have crossed his path in the days and the weeks leading up to this horrific event.”
Police believe Paddock acted alone when he sprayed gunfire on the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest festival. However, footage suggesting that there may have been another shooter on a lower floor has raised questions about the official narrative that police haven’t even begun to address.
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