Las Vegas authorities have identified Stephen Craig Paddock as the shooter behind last night’s deadly attack on the Harvest 91 festival concert, which left more than 50 dead and upwards of 400 injured.
While details about Paddock’s past and possible motivation are still emerging, we already know quite a bit about the man behind what is now deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Paddock, who is now dead from what police believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a 64-year-old white male from Mesquite, Nevada, per the LVPD.
On Sunday night at approximately 10:08 p.m. PT, he opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concert-goers from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
Paddock had been checked into the room since Thursday. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told the press that “multiple firearms” — specifically rifles — were found in the hotel room.
Born April 9, 1953, Paddock lived on Babbling Brook Court in Mesquite, about 80 miles outside of Las Vegas, according to Heavy.com. Early Monday, authorities began executing a search warrant at his home.
Previously, Paddock resided in Reno and Henderson, and had prior residences in Texas and California.
Paddock is believed to have acted alone in the slaughter.
Marilou Danley, who lived with Paddock, was described by police as a “companion” of the shooter, though she has also been referred to as a “roommate.” She was not with him at the hotel, and was located out of the country. She is not considered a suspect, according to authorities.
NBC News reported that Paddock was married and going through a divorce or otherwise splitting up with his wife, who has not been identified.
Paddock was not known to the federal authorities, but was known to local law enforcement, NBC News reported. He has no known connection to terrorism.
In 2012, Paddock sued the Las Vegas strip’s Cosmopolitan Hotels & Resorts Inc. for “negligence – premises liability,” per Heavy. The slip-and-fall case was dismissed with prejudice two years later and settled through arbitration.
Paddock had a private pilot’s license to fly single engine instrument airplane, per the FAA. He required glasses for near vision.
“We have no idea how this happened,” the suspect’s brother Eric Paddock told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “It’s like an asteroid just fell on top of our family.”
“There is no reason we can imagine why Stephen would do something like this,” the 55-year-old Orlando, Florida, resident continued. “All we can do is send our condolences to the people who died. Just no reason, no warning.”
The younger Paddock repeatedly described his brother as “just a guy” with no serious health or money problems. He also didn’t think Stephen Paddock owned the stock of firearms found by police.
“As far as we knew, he had enough money to live the rest of his life in comfort,” Eric Paddock said of his retired brother, whom he last spoke to following Hurricane Irma’s path through Florida.