Investigators Discover Las Vegas Shooter Hired Prostitute Days Before

In the week since Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concertgoers on the [...]

In the week since Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of more than 22,000 concertgoers on the Las Vegas strip, investigators believe the 64-year-old domestic terrorist had hired a prostitute in the days leading up to the event.

U.S. officials briefed by federal law enforcement officials tell CBC News investigators are interviewing sex-trade workers for information in hopes to gain further perspective on motive. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, but spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The director of homegrown violent extremism studies at the University of Southern California, Erroll Southers says it's unusual to have "so few hints" regarding motive five days after a mass shooting like that one that took place Oct. 1.

"The lack of a social media footprint is likely intentional," said Southers. "We're so used to, in the first 24 to 48 hours, being able to review social media posts. If they don't leave us a note behind or a manifesto behind, and we're not seeing that, that's what's making this longer."

What authorities are discovering though is that Paddock planned his attack most meticulously, with Adam Le Fevre, a friend of the shooter saying "we'll never know" why he carried out the attack.

"Everything he did seemed to be planned with precision," Le Fevre said during an interview on Australia's Nine Network Friday night.

In the days since Las Vegas became the site for the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, authorities are revealing they're close to finding out a motive in an attack that left 58 people dead and hundreds injured in Las Vegas.

Sheriff Joe Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that in the "spirit of safety" for the community and elsewhere in the United States, he doesn't have a solid answer at the moment, but reports "I'm pretty confident we'll get there."

In an interview with the New York Times, Lombardo said he was "not at liberty to say" what information had been learned on behalf of the FBI and police department.

0comments