Sixty-two-year-old Filipino American woman Marilou Danley, described by police as a “companion” of Las Vegas shooting suspect Stephen Craig Paddock, has been located by the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation late Sunday night (Monday in Manila) and is cooperating in the investigation.
The massacre that happened on Sunday night Pacific Standard Time, left 59 people dead and 500 others injured, after Paddock opened fire from the 32nd story of the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
The victims were attending a music festival at the same hotel.
Police say Paddock was seen regularly at his two Nevada homes with Danley.
Danley was out of the country at the time of the shooting and has not been named a co-conspirator in the massacre. But they did not specify if Danley was in the Philippines or in another country.
Paddock is a retired accountant and a high-stakes gambler whose bank-robber father was once on the FBI’s most wanted list.
According to his younger brother Eric Paddock, he showed no sign he was poised to commit one of the worst mass murders in American history.
The Islamic State group claimed Paddock was one of its “soldiers,” converting to Islam in recent months and carrying out the attack in its name. Islamic State gave him a jihadist nom de guerre, Abu Abdel Bar al-Amriki — “The American.”
But the FBI said they saw “no connection” between Paddock and international terror groups.
Paddock was found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, when a police SWAT team burst into his room.
“He had nothing to do with any political organization, religious organization, no white supremacists, nothing, as far as I know. And I’ve only known him for 57 years,” Eric Paddock said outside his Orlando, Florida home.
“We’re still just completely befuddled, dumbstruck,” he added. “It’s like I just said, an asteroid fell out of the sky.”
According to Danley’s LinkedIn, she had worked previously at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno as a hostess.
Local news site Rappler was able to look at Danley’s Facebook page before she took it down.
Danley described herself as a grandmother and mother, and her public profile showed pictures of her in the Philippines with numerous comments in the Filipino language.
In a statement on Monday, California time, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles was monitoring developments after the attack.
“We are coordinating with Las Vegas police authorities and with leaders of the Filipino community to check on our kababayans (countrymen) there,” Consul General Adelio Angelito Cruz said.
“We hope and pray that all of them are safe and accounted for,” Cruz said.
with reports from AFP
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