Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend claims she had no idea why he went off the rails

Marilou Danley and Stephen Paddock

THE GIRLFRIEND who police hoped would give some insight into the mind of the man who committed the country's deadliest mass shooting says she was surprised as everybody else.

Marilou Danley's first public statement says she had no inkling that her boyfriend Stephen Paddock, was going to gun down scores of concert goers in Las Vegas, killing 58 and wounding almost 500 more.

Police hope that Danley will provide some insight to Paddock's motivations after she arrived from the Philippines late in the night of Oct. 3.
 
“It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone,”  reported The Washington Post reported Danley said in a statement read by her attorney.
 
Danley pledged to cooperate fully in the investigation to help investigators to get to the bottom of what happened. She flew back to the U.S. from the Philippines when she heard what Paddock did in shooting up a Las Vegas concert.
 
“Anything I can do to help ease suffering and help in any way, I will do,” she said according to CNN.
 
“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.”
 
Danley was interviewed Tuesday for several hours by the FBI in Los Angeles where she arrived from the Philippines in the late evening of Oct. 3.

"I knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, caring, quiet man," Danley said in the statement. "I loved him and hoped for a quiet future together with him."

Danley said that, more than two weeks ago, Paddock told her he had bought a plane ticket for her to fly to her native Philippines, saying that he wanted her to visit her family.

While she was in the Philippines, Danley said, Paddock wired her $100,000 that he said was for her to buy a house for her and her family.

Danley said she was grateful but "worried" that the unexpected trip home and the money "was a way of breaking up with me."
 
Danley’s sisters described her as “madly in love” with Paddock, in an interview with 7 News Sydney. 

Danley's sisters told Australian media that Paddock surprised Danley with a ticket to the Philippines several days before he checked into the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas strip, across the street from the outdoor concert venue. 

“She was sent away. She was away so that she will not be there to interfere with what he’s planning,” her other sister said. “In that sense, I thank him for sparing my sister’s life but that won’t be to compensate the 59 people’s lives.”

“Marilou Danley is my sister, she is a good person and gentle soul. A mother, grandmother, a sister, a friend,” the sister added. Danley moved to the U.S. in 1989. She married Geary Danley. Their marriage last 25 years until their divorce in 2015.

Danley and Paddock met while she was working as a waitress at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa.

Paddock's brother, Eric, claimed that Stephen “went of his way to be nice to her,” a rare occurrence for a person who “expected people to wait on him for the most part.”

“He would do what she wanted to do,” Eric Paddock said. “He would defer to her in the way that he wouldn’t to the rest of humanity. Even me.”

However, others painted a different picture of their relationship.

Employees at a local Starbucks allege that they often saw him verbally abuse her in public.

“He would glare down at her and say — with a mean attitude — ‘You don’t need my casino card for this. I’m paying for your drink, just like I’m paying for you.’ Then she would softly say, ‘OK’ and step back behind him,” Esperanza Mendoza, supervisor of the Starbucks in the Virgin River Casino, told the Los Angeles Times. “He was so rude to her in front of us.”
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Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend returns to the U.S.; AAPI victims

Stephen Paddock and Marilou Danley

A LAW ENFORCEMENT officer told the Associated Press that the girlfriend of Stephen Paddock - the man who killed 59 and wounded more than 500 others at a Las Vegas concert - has arrived in the U.S.

Marilou Danley, 62, who lived with Paddock in Nevada, was met by the FBI at the airport after her plane from the Philippines landed.

Also, a Vietnamese/American insurance agent was identified as one of the people who was fatally shot and a Filipino/American who was wounded at the concert was recovering in a Las Vegas hospital.

Michelle Vo

Michelle Vo, 32, a Los Angeles insurance agent, only recently became interested in country music and was attending her first country music festival. She had just sat down with her new friends when the shots rang out. A second volley of shots hit her in the chest.

"She got hit and I turned and saw her immediately fall to the ground," said Kody Robertson, who met Vo that night. "She was literally right beside me, maybe two feet away." With the help of another concertgoer they carried Vo to a pickup truck that was heading to a hospital.

He later walked to the hospital where he waited hours to find out if his newly made friend survived. Thirteen hours after the carnage began, the medical staff told him that she did not survive.

Arthur "Arty" Andrade Jr. was running away from the concert grounds when he was shot in the stomach. His friend helped him escape when they fell. 

According to his father, his son said "The hell with this," and moved off the grounds on his own until he found an ambulance.

Arturo Andrade Jr.

"It went through his stomach," said Arthur Andrade Sr. "through the large intestine, and out his side. He was truly blessed."

Doctors said that his son was on the road to full recovery.

Late last night, the FBI met Danley at LAX and took her into custody. Late night TV news footage showed her in a wheelchair.

The Clark County Sheriff has said Danley is considered a "person of interest" hoping that she could shed some light on what could possibly by Paddock's motivation to commit this assault, the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. 

Paddock, reportedly had sent $100,000 to a bank account in the Philippines, before he checked into the Mandalay Bay Resort, across the street from the outdoor concert venue. It is not clear if the money was sent for Danley.

Danley’s LinkedIn profile reportedly listed her as working as a “high limit hostess” at Atlantis Casino in Reno between 2010 and 2013. 

She has a daughter from a previous marriage, according to her Facebook page, which has since been deleted.

An Australian newspaper, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, reported Monday that Danley was an “Australian citizen originally from the Philippines.”

As expected, there were calls for some kind of legislation to keep guns out of mentally disturbed individuals or to limit the number of guns one person can own. (Paddock had 23 guns in his hotel room that he used as a snipers nest and 19 more at his home.)

In Washington, D.C., Republican Congressional members of the House put on hold legislation that would make it easier to buy and sell silencers and armor-piercing bullets. 

Also, as expected, Republicans and gun advocates said the same line that they've used too many times before: "Now is not the time ..."

They said it after Newtown. They said it after Aurora. They said it after Orlando and they said it after San Bernardino. They said it after John Kennedy was assassinated and they said it after Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed. And so on and so on.

Tell me: When is the right time?

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