The Australian girlfriend of the gunman who killed 59 people in Las Vegas still has ‘questions to answer’ about the shocking mass murder, according to U.S. sheriffs.
Marilou Danley, the housemate and partner of Stephen Paddock, will be asked to aid police in their investigation although no longer being seen as a person of interest.
The 62-year-old, who was born in the Philippines before moving to Australia and later to Las Vegas, is believed to have left the United States to visit her home country just a fortnight ago.
Despite initial claims that Ms Danley had been among the crowd at the Mandalay Bay precinct at the time of the shooting, police later located her in Tokyo, Japan.
A raid on the home Paddock and Ms Danley shared found 18 firearms, explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition, plus a stash of ammonium nitrate in his car.
That was in addition to 16 assault rifles and other guns with scopes found alongside Paddock in the large 32nd floor suite of the Mandalay Bay casino room from where he launched his attack.
But in response to a question of how Ms Danley could ‘not know all of that was inside her home?’, Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo dismissed claims their investigation into her had been ‘discontinued’.
Authorities said later Monday morning that Danley is no longer a person of interest in the shooting and is currently out of the country, though it’s unclear where exactly she is. Police said Paddock had used Danley’s slot card to gamble in the hotel
‘We are continuing the investigation into that female,’ he told a media briefing.
‘There are several questions that need to be answered similar to what you proposed but she is currently out of the country.’
Paddock reportedly used Ms Danley’s ID to check in to the lavish Mandalay Bay hotel alone, days before he opened fire from a vantage point in his suite.
Ms Danley is originally from the Philippines but holds an Australian passport, it has been reported.
‘I would never have thought she would be tied up in anything like this,’ her friend, who lives in Robina, Queensland, told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
The woman said she lived next door to Ms Danley in the Gold Coast suburb of Nerang around 30 years ago.
But she has not seen her neighbour of nine years since attending Ms Danley’s mother’s funeral near Brisbane five or six years ago.
‘She is bubbly, petite and full of life,’ the 66-year-old woman said. ‘She still looks the same.’
She added that she visited Ms Danley, who has a daughter and a granddaughter, and stayed with her and her daughter in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2000.
Other friends revealed that Ms Danley worked in the gaming industry and had an Australian husband, who has since died, before she moved to the US more than 20 years ago.
She was previously married to Geary Danley, who now lives in Arkansas, the Reno Gazette-Journal.
They married in Las Vegas in 1990, but jointly filed for divorce in February 2015, according to the Gazette-Journal.
Ms Danley has lived in Nevada since 2003, according to records obtained by the
One of her sisters, Liza Werner, who still lives in Australia, told the Bulletin: ‘I can’t comment at the moment. I can’t say anything. I’m sorry, sorry.’
Stephen Paddock (pictured) used her ID to check into the Mandalay Bay hotel alone
Records show that Ms Danley (above) and Paddock lived together in the tiny desert community of Mesquite
On her now deleted Facebook page, Ms Danley described herself as a ‘proud mom and grandma who lives life to the fullest.’
Her LinkedIn page says she is a ‘gambling and casino professional’ living in Reno.
But it’s understood that she was sharing a house near Las Vegas with Paddock.
The gunman’s girlfriend Marilou Danley (pictured) has been located and their home raided by police
Records show she and Paddock lived together in a two-bedroom home on Babbling Brook Court in the tiny desert community of Mesquite, which is 80 miles north east of Las Vegas near the Arizona state border. The property cost $396,000 (£297,554).
The shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, told CBS News that Ms Danley was his brother’s girlfriend and that he had met her ‘three to four times.’
‘They might have got married, but I don’t think they’re married. She’s just his girlfriend,’ he said.
‘She’s a nice lady, I’ve met her three or four times. She’s got a Facebook page, she sends my mom cookies.’
Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree from Mesquite, rained heavy fire down on a crowd of over 22,000 at an outdoor country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.
Concertgoers screamed and ran for their lives Sunday night outside the 44-story hotel after hearing what at first sounded like firecrackers but turned out to be dozens of bullets in rapid-fire bursts.
Country music star Jason Aldean was performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival when the gunman apparently used a hammer-like device to smash out windows in his room and opened fire, the muzzle flashes visible in the dark, authorities said.
Eric Paddock, brother of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, speaks to reporters near his home in Orlando, Florida
The shooter appeared to fire unhindered for more than 10 minutes as Las Vegas police frantically tried to locate the man in one of the Mandalay Bay hotel towers, according to radio traffic.
For several minutes, officers could not tell whether the fire was coming from Mandalay Bay or the neighboring Luxor hotel.
SWAT teams using explosives stormed the gunman’s hotel room in the gold-colored glass skyscraper and found he had killed himself.
Paddock had as many as 10 guns with him, including rifles, authorities said.
The sheriff said a check of federal and state databases showed Paddock was not on law enforcement authorities’ radar before the bloodbath.
A broken window at the Mandalay Bay resort is seen in the aftermath of the massacre
The Mandalay Bay is seen the morning after a gunmen fired on concert goers in Las Vegas
Aaron Rouse, the FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas, said investigators saw no immediate evidence connecting the attack to an international terror organization, despite a claim of responsibility from the Islamic State group.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Before Sunday’s attack, it was the June 2016 massacre, when a gunman who professed support for Muslim extremist groups opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49.
Sunday’s shooting came more than four months after a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people.
Almost 90 people were killed by gunmen inspired by ISIS at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal in 2015.