It’s been over a month since the tragic Las Vegas shooting and many details regarding Stephen Paddock, his motive, witnesses and the timeline of events remain unclear.
Las Vegas Sherriff Joseph Lombardo went into detail about the shooting last week, touching on Paddock, the persistent conspiracy theories, and Marilou Danley – the girlfriend of Paddock.
“There is a lot of people that have hundreds and hundreds of guns but for [Paddock] to do it at a certain point in time and to do it all with such robust action, you would think that Ms. Danley would have some information associated with that,” Lombardo said in an hour-long interview with KLAS. “But currently we haven’t been able to pull that out of her, if it is in her.
“It could have been prevented on many levels,” Lombardo continued. “Marilou Danley, [Paddock’s] brother, anybody that may have had some modicum of information that would have presented this individual’s state of mind, but apparently right now we don’t know that.”
Lombardo added that Danley will be interviewed again this week. He also talked about the pressing questions of a conspiracy.
“There is no conspiracy out there for us to conceal anything, to hide anything,” Lombardo said. “Ya know, people are frustrated … what is the reason why? I’m frustrated too. What is the reason why? Why would this individual take it upon himself to cause the worst mass shooting in our lifetime without reason or cause or understanding? We haven’t gotten that answer yet.”
In the interview (see below), Lombardo did suggest that Paddock had lost a great deal of his wealth and that he was embarrassed by his financial decline.
“[Paddock] 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.”
In recent weeks, conspiracy theories on witnesses who have died since the Las Vegas shooting have grown popular on YouTube (although – truth be told, you can find a conspiracy theory on just about anything on YouTube).
Dennis and Lorraine Carver died in a fiery car crash in Murietta, California in October when they hit a guard rail.
Conspiracy theorists also point to the death of 35-year-old Danny Contreras as mysterious, though in the Las Vegas Review-Journal (which has done a tremendous job covering the Las Vegas shooting) story regarding Contreras’ death there is no mention that he was in attendance at the country music festival on Oct. 1. The way in which Contreras died is what alarmed most conspiracy theorists as he was shot multiple times and the death was ruled a homicide. The initial investigation shows that the killing was “likely related to narcotics” as “residents on the street described the northeast Las Vegas home as a problem place with possible drug activity in and out of the home.”
The Contreras homicide is the 149th shooting homicide in Clark County this year (not including the 58 persons who died in the Oct. 1 massacre).
It should also be pointed out that over 22,000 people attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival the night of the shootings.
