The girlfriend of the gunman who carried out Sunday’s massacre in Las Vegas is back on U.S. soil, a law-enforcement official confirmed, opening up a new avenue for investigators searching for a motive in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
Marilou Danley left the Philippines on Tuesday night local time and headed for Los Angeles, said Maria Antonette Mangrobang, spokeswoman for the Philippine Bureau of Immigration. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents met Ms. Danley when she landed in L.A., the law-enforcement official said.
Police have said they don’t believe Ms. Danley was involved in the shooting, and she was out of the country when it happened. But she could potentially help authorities gain insight into the elusive motive behind Stephen Paddock’s Sunday-night rampage, which left 58 people dead after he fired bullets from a hotel room onto a crowd at a country-music festival across the street. More than 500 people were injured in the shooting and the chaos that followed.
She’s “a person of interest,” said Joseph Lombardo, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department sheriff, during a press conference Tuesday.
Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree and avid gambler, killed himself before a SWAT team breached his 32nd-floor hotel suite and firing perch at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, police said.
While the search for Paddock’s motive continues, a picture of how he carried out the attack is steadily emerging. Authorities believe he…