Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend: 'It never occurred to me' he was planning massacre

A memorial for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting.

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

published 5 October 2017

Marilou Danley, the live-in girlfriend of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, said on Wednesday she had no idea he was planning Sunday night's massacre.

"He never said anything to me, or took any action I was aware of, that I ever understood to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen," Danley said in a statement read by her attorney Matthew Lombard. "I loved him and hoped for a quiet future together with him." Danley arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday night after a trip to the Philippines, where she was visiting family, and is being interviewed by federal investigators.

Danley, who described Paddock as being a "kind, caring, quiet" man, said he purchased a "cheap" plane ticket for her, and while she was in the Philippines wired money to buy her family a house. "Honestly I was worried that first the unexpected trip home, and then the money was a way of breaking up with me," she said. "It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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