1 of 4 | Billboards are shown on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and next to the historic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign Friday in Las Vegas. In an interview scheduled to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," police said they found a note in the shooter's hotel room calculating the trajectory for firing down on a crowd of concert goers outside the Mandalay. Photo by Ronda Churchill/UPI |
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Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Las Vegas police said they found a handwritten note in Stephen Paddock's hotel room detailing bullet trajectory calculations for a mass shooting that killed 58 people.
Officer David Newton of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, one of the first people to enter the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino hotel room on Oct. 1, spotted the note. He and other police officers were the first to find the body of Paddock and his arsenal of weapons and ammunition after he shot from a hotel window at concert goers across the street. The assault killed 58 people and injured more than 500 in the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history.
"I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop [decent] of what his bullet was going to be for the crowd. So he had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there," Newton told CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview scheduled to air Sunday.
An unnamed law enforcement source confirmed the existence of the notes to CNN.
The crowd was about 400 yards from Paddock's hotel window, within range of the 23 weapons he stockpiled. Paddock shot himself to death in the room as police officers arrived.
Investigators found about 50 pounds of explosives in Paddock's car at the hotel, but Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said police were not aware of any plans to use them. He said video recovered from various spots in and around the hotel suggest there was no accomplice to the shootings.
Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, continues to cooperate with police, McMahill and her lawyer, Matthew Lombard, said Saturday.
Investigators believe there was no connection between Paddock's actions and any terrorist group.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the son of John Phippen filed papers in Family Court seeking to freeze Paddock's assets. The elder Phippen, 56, of Santa Clarita, Calif., died in the shooting. The court filing asks that Clark County Public Administrator John Cahill take control of assets which include a home in Reno, Nev., valued at $369,000.
The assets must be preserved so Travis Phippen's lawsuit, and others, can be filed against Paddock over the "loss, distress and injuries" sustained by those targeted, attorney Richard Chatwin wrote.
