'Stephen Paddock's note contained calculations to maximise killings'
8 Oct 2017 10:22 PM IST
Washington: A note discovered in the hotel room of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock featured hand-written calculations on where he needed to aim to increase his accuracy and number of kills, US network CBS has reported. The piece of paper was found by police officers who stormed Paddock's room after he launched his attack from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel Sunday night – killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500.
In an interview set to air today, Officer David Newton of the Las Vegas Police Department's K-9 unit, told CBS' "60 Minutes" he noticed Paddock's note "on the nightstand near his shooting platform."
"I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was going to be for the crowd. So he had had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there," he said.
Newton added that forcing entry into the room with an explosive before finding Paddock's body and an arsenal of weapons was like something "out of a movie." It was "very eerie," he said. Paddock's hotel suite gave him an ideal perch from which to carry out his attack on a crowd of more than 20,000 people attending a country music concert across the street, some 400 yards (365 meters) away.
The note has not shed any light on the gunman's motives, which authorities are yet to uncover nearly a week after the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history.
"We still do not have a clear motive or reason why," Undersheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters Friday, adding that law enforcement was continuing to search for answers with "great tenacity."
The shooting has refueled debate on gun control in the US, with even the powerful pro-gun National Rifle Association calling on authorities to review laws surrounding "bump stocks."
Used by Paddock, a bump stock's spring-loaded mechanism uses a rifle's recoil to repeatedly and rapidly pull the trigger, allowing the user to fire several hundred rounds per minute.
Meanwhile, Stephen Paddock was a contradiction: a gambler who took no chances.
A man with houses everywhere who did not really live in any of them. Someone who liked the high life of casinos but drove a nondescript minivan and dressed casually, even sloppily, in flip-flops and sweatsuits.
He did not use Facebook or Twitter, but spent the past 25 years staring at screens of video poker machines.
Paddock, a former postal worker and tax auditor, lived an intensely private, unsocial life that exploded into public view last week,
when he killed 58 people at a country music festival and then shot himself. But even with nationwide scrutiny on his life, the mystery of who he was has only seemed to deepen.
On Friday, a law enforcement official said Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley , told investigators that he seemed to be deteriorating in recent months both mentally and physically. Perhaps his methodical and systematic mind had turned in a lethal and unpredictable new direction. To the few people who knew him well, it is the only plausible explanation.
"I wish I could tell you he was a miserable bastard, that I hate him, that if I could have killed him myself, I would have," said Eric Paddock, a younger brother. "But I can't say that. It's not who he was. We need to find out what happened to him. Something happened to my brother."
The Las Vegas police believe Paddock may have had a secret life. He had been buying guns since 1982.
But something seemed to change last October. He went on a shopping spree, adding to his arsenal until late last month. One of his purchases, a shotgun, came from Dixie Gunworx in St. George, Utah. Chris Michel, the owner, said Paddock visited the store three times in January and February, making the 40-minute drive from Mesquite, Nevada.
Michel recalled Paddock saying that he was stopping at a number of local gun dealers, that he had retired and moved to the area, and that he was trying to get back into his hobbies.
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