As the probe into the Las Vegas massacre, during which Stephen Craig Paddock shot dead about 59 people and injured over 500, continues, the focus is now gradually shifting on the gunman's girlfriend Marilou Danley. The 62-year-old was earlier said to have been out of the country when the shooting took place.
While she was earlier said to be in Tokyo, Danley has reportedly turned up in the Philippines after Sunday's shooting and the police are now in touch with her. She was earlier a "person of interest" in the case, but the police have said that they believe there are no other suspects in the case, except Paddock.
"We are in conversations with her," Reuters quoted Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo as saying. "We anticipate some information from her shortly."
Danley is likely to be interrogated when she reaches the US regarding Paddock and his motive behind the massacre and she will also be asked if Paddock had asked her to leave the US before he went on the rampage.
The police had earlier also searched Paddock's home in Mesquite, where the duo lived. Even though her involvement in the incident is said to be unlikely, the police plan to question her on the $100,000 that the gunman had transferred to the Philippines that "appears to have been intended" for Danley, a senior US homeland security official told Reuters.
Even though Paddock did not have any criminal record against him, his father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, was a notorious bank robber. He was even on the FBI list, which said Benjamin had been "diagnosed as psychopathic" and should be considered "armed and very dangerous."
Meanwhile, Paddock's family has spoken up on the incident and said that they had no clue that the 64-year-old retiree was planning something like this. He was a multi-millionaire and made most of his money by investing it in real estate, according to his brother Eric.
Eric said that he was shocked his brother had killed so many people and revealed that he had earlier worked as an accountant and was a gambler. Paddock was someone with "no religious affiliation, no political affiliation" and was "not an avid gun guy at all."
While Eric did say that his brother was "not a normal guy" and "played high-stakes video poker," the family never saw him as someone who could have had so many guns and could kill people. "Our condolences to everyone. We just don't understand. It's like I said, an asteroid just fell out of the sky. And we have no reason, rhyme, rationale, excuse. There's just nothing," the Associated Press quoted Eric as saying.
He also said that there was no indication that Paddock was planning something like this and was in Vegas on a cruise. The gunman is also said to have sent his mother a walker as she had trouble walking.
Explaining that the family did not even know that Stephen had guns, Eric said that he would like to know where his brothers managed to get the guns from.
"We're working with the cops since the first thing, trying to you know understand, trying to make it do what we could. There's just nothing. We have nothing to give you. He was just a guy," he added
"I mean he's definitely only himself. There's no affiliations, once again that I know of, there's no affiliations. There's no church, there's no politics, there's no anything."
