This photograph, obtained by the German newspaper Bild, shows the 32nd floor suite in the Mandalay Bay hotel where Stephen Paddock broke out windows Sunday night to open fire on thousands of people at a country music festival across the street.
Through
the police crime scene tape blocking the door, what appears to be an
AR-style rifle rests on the floor. It is fitted with a scope to aid
long-distance shooting and a tripod for steadying the shooter's aim.
No ammunition magazine is in the firearm, which rests by a police evidence marker.
At
the bottom of the image, bullet holes can be seen in what looks like a
portion of the door that has been removed. Investigators said Tuesday
that Paddock had spy cameras installed inside and outside his hotel
room, and that he shot a Mandalay Bay security guard through the door,
wounding him in the leg.
Paddock was found dead after police entered his room.
Stephen Paddock and his girlfriend lived in this house in a Reno retirement community. (Kate Mather / Los Angeles Times)
It
was a quiet Tuesday morning in the manicured retirement community
nestled in the rolling foothills on the outskirts of Reno where Stephen
Paddock and Marilou Danley lived — a scene vastly different than it was
24 hours ago.
Neighbors recounted the armored vehicles parked on
the street, the men in tactical gear, the bomb squad robot rolling up
the street, and the questions they were asked by FBI agents about a
reclusive couple no one seems to know much about.
Susan Page, a
retired financial analyst, learned the Las Vegas shooter lived in the
neighborhood after she was called by a television network Monday. She
didn't even know Paddock's name, she said — the reporter only asked who
lived at the address.
"Oh my God," she said she thought. "It's my next-door neighbor."
Public
records showed Paddock bought the house in 2013, a tidy, tan-and-brown
home in a neighborhood with wide, clean streets, crisp air and sweeping
mountain views. A faded welcome mat sat outside the front door, not far
from a porch swing. The only out-of-place things about the home were
dark tire tracks in the driveway and a small light knocked over along
the walkway.
Like others who live along Del Webb Parkway, Page
said she barely spoke to the couple. In the 2 1/2 months since she
moved in, she said, she saw them maybe half a dozen times in the
driveway.
Page said Paddock left the house for good sometime in
mid-August. She last saw Danley a week later, she said. Danley was
packing up her car, piling things on the roof. Maybe she's going
camping, Page remembered thinking.
She never saw her neighbors again.
Brent
Webb, a retired high school administrator, is acknowledged in the
neighborhood for knowing just about everybody, thanks to his walks with
his dog, Barney. Webb said in the five years that he's lived just a few
houses down from Paddock, he only saw the man once, driving out of his
driveway.
He said he saw Danley just a few more times, picking
weeds in the garden. She'd say hello and ask about the dog, Webb said,
but that was the extent of their conversation.
"They gave no indication they'd be involved in anything like this," he said. "'Course, nobody knew them."
Another
neighbor, Roy Miller, said he knew something was amiss when he walked
out Monday morning, getting ready to run some errands. A police officer
stood down the street.
The rest of the day was a steady stream of
armored trucks, bomb squad vehicles, the FBI, ATF and Reno police,
Nancy Miller said. She watched as they prepared to enter the house, and
worried about what they might find inside.
"Please God, don't let the house be wired," she thought.
When Miller heard them break down the front door, she said, she at first thought the four loud bangs were gunshots.
Authorities
didn't leave until about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, she said, packing up their
trucks and the flood lights they had used to work through the night.
"We
were absolutely stunned," she said. "Everybody watches out for
everybody here. That makes it even more rare that nobody knew them."
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