Mass murdered Stephen Paddock committed the most deadly mass shooting by a lone individual in US history when he opened fire at at concertgoers in Las Vegas.
Paddock shot dead 58 people and injured 867 others when he shot at a crowd of more than 20,000 people on the Las Vegas Strip from his hotel window on October 1, 2017. Three more people have died as a result of the shooting in the years that followed.
The 64-year-old had booked out two connected rooms on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel - both of which overlooked the festival site which was 450m away.
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He opened fire at 10.05pm with the rampage lasting around 10 minutes. In this time Paddock fired more than 1,000 rounds from two windows. He then killed himself and his body was found by SWAT officers in his room an hour later.
Inside the suite were 24 guns, a large amount of ammo and numerous high-capacity magazines which could hold up to 100 rounds each.
A new four-part BBC docuseries is revisiting the events that unfolded that night and the stories of those who were caught up in the horrific chaos that unfolded. But who was Stephen Paddock and why did he carry out the horrific shooting?
Who was Stephen Paddock
Stephen Paddock was said to be a millionaire and lived in Mesquite, Nevada, at the time of the mass shooting. He was the son of notorious bank robber Benjamin Paddock, who was on the FBI's most-wanted list in the 1960s.
Paddock had worked as a real estate investor, property manager, accountant, private pilot and video poker gambler. It was in real estate where he is said to have made millions of pounds - with IRS records showing that he made $5m to $6m in profits in 2015 from the sale of an apartment complex he invested in.
He is said to have been an avid video poker gambler which he had played for more than 25 years.
Paddock had been married and divorced twice and had a girlfriend who he lived with at the time of the shooting.
Speaking to CBS news in November 2017, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Paddock had become depressed after losing a significant amount of money in the two years prior. He said: "This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family.
"So, obviously, that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did."
What motive did Stephen Paddock give for the shooting?
Paddock killed himself as Swat officers closed in on his hotel room. He left no manifesto or “even a note to answer questions” about his motive for the rampage, then-Sheriff Joe Lombardo said in 2018.
Las Vegas police and the FBI determined Paddock, who was a retired accountant and high-stakes poker player, meticulously planned the attack and acted alone.
Both agencies said Paddock burned through more than 1.5 million US dollars, became obsessed with guns, and distanced himself from his girlfriend and family in the months leading up to the shooting.
They put forward a theory suggesting he may have sought notoriety, but said they never determined a clear motive for the attack.
However FBI documents that were made public in March stated Paddock may have been angry over how the casinos were treating him despite his high-roller status.
A fellow gambler, whose name is redacted from the hundreds of pages of documents, told the FBI that casinos had previously treated high rollers like Paddock to free cruises, airline flights, penthouse suites, rides in “nice cars” and tours in wine country.
In the years leading up to 2017 the red carpet treatment had faded, the gambler said, and casinos even began banning some high rollers “for playing well and winning large quantities of money”.
Paddock had been banned from three Reno casinos, the gambler said.
The gambler said he believed “the stress could easily be what caused” Paddock “to snap”.
In a statement issued in March, Las Vegas police defended their inconclusive findings and dismissed the importance of the FBI documents released which had been released in response to an open-records request from the Wall Street Journal.
“We were unable to determine a motive for the shooter,” the statement said. “Speculating on a motive causes more harm to the hundreds of people who were victims that night.”
Kelly McMahill, a former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department official who headed the criminal investigation into the shooting, said there was never any indicator that Paddock’s motive was anger at the casinos.
“There’s no way that LVMPD would have hidden any potential motive from our victims and survivors for five years,” Ms McMahill said.
The first two episodes of 11 Minutes: America's Deadliest Mass Shooting air on BBC 2 on Wednesday night from 9pm.
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