Las Vegas: Witnesses describe how gunman left 59 dead

Some thought they could hear fireworks; others reckoned a speaker system had gone on the blink. It wasn’t until the music stopped and screams began to pierce the night sky that panic really set in.

The time was shortly after 10pm, and Jason Aldean had just taken to the stage of the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, a 15-acre outdoor concert venue between the Mandalay Bay Resort and Sin City’s vast airport.

Cheered by a sellout crowd of 22,000, on a balmy desert night, Aldean was headline act on the final of the three-night Route 91 Harvest Festival. He’d got just few lines into one of his best-known hits, When She Says Baby, when the shooting began.

Near the front, Derek Bernard, 53, visiting from Los Angeles with his wife Karen, realised that a woman standing almost next to them had just been shot.

‘There was a woman bleeding – that’s when we realised it was real shots. She just fell.

‘She was shot. There was a lot of blood. It was so many shots – it sounded like 4th of July – just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. So many. I didn’t think it was real because I couldn’t see or feel anything.’ 

The initial burst of gunfire lasted just under ten seconds, and Aldean carried on playing. But, as he noticed more victims fall to the floor, he fell quiet.

‘We heard a succession of pops. Unbelievably it sounded like fireworks,’ concertgoer Joe Pitzel recalled. ‘But they kept rattling off. Then Jason Aldean actually turned around and ran off the stage. That’s when we realised something really bad was going on.’

A video from the venue shows eerie quiet fall on the crowd. It is broken by a man saying: ‘Uh oh. That’s gunshot.’ Then you hear screams. ‘It sounded at first like something was wrong with the speakers,’ said William Walker of Ontario, California.

Following that first burst of gunfire, the peace would last around 35 seconds, presumably enough time for the gunman to reload his weapons in his suite on the 32nd floor of the 43-storey, 4,300-room Mandalay Bay resort. From his window, the 64-year-old attacker, Stephen Paddock, had sweeping views over the festival site, on the opposite side of Sin City’s neon-covered strip, roughly 400 yards away.

He fired a second, ten-second volley of shots.

Revellers again fell to the ground, cowering behind concession stands or equipment vans, or diving on top of loved ones.

Stephen Paddock, who lived in a retirement community, mowed down hundreds of victims in a hail of gunfire at the end of a Las Vegas country music festival

Hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire were reported by witnesses on the scene; one woman in the Mandalay Bay said that there was a shooter on the 32nd floor

A woman cries while hiding inside the Sands Corporation plane hangar after the mass shooting on Sunday

Investigators load bodies from the scene of the mass shooting on Monday 

The shooter has been identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, who opened fire from a 32nd floor room of Mandalay Bay Hotel

‘It was crazy – I laid on top of the kids. They’re 20. I’m 53. I lived a good life,’ Mike McGarry, a financial adviser from Philadelphia, recalled, showing off footmarks on the back of his shirt from people who ran over him in the chaos.

Yellow flashes became visible from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay.

Kodiak Yazzie, 36, said: ‘You could hear that the noise was coming from west of us, from Mandalay Bay. You could see a flash, flash, flash, flash.’

‘I first thought it was like bottle rockets going off,’ Seth Bayles of West Hollywood told the LA Times. ‘Then we saw people dropping. We saw someone get hit and then we started running.’

The gunshots stopped a second time and, in that 17-second pause, crowds began to run.

Footage of the panic in the drinks tent shows some crawling along the floor, and others running.

A third bust of gunfire begins, lasting nine seconds, forcing people to cower behind anything they could find. Outside, when it ends, a woman can be heard on a video screaming: ‘My God! Let’s go!’ Another shouts: ‘Save yourself!’

‘We’re going to get trampled if we don’t go,’ a bystander can be heard saying in another video. But confusion still reigned. ‘Guys its fireworks,’ says a man. ‘Stop! What’s the matter with you?’

Authorities say Paddock had a large room or connecting rooms on the 32nd floor 

Above, the view from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, in an updated photo. The concert was taking place diagonally across the street, where the stage is seen

Above, a view of a typical double room in the Mandalay Bay hotel. It’s unclear what kind of room Paddock was staying in

Three people lie on the ground, one covered in blood, after the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on Sunday

Debris is strewn through the scene of a mass shooting at a music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas

Fifty-eight people are dead and 515 have been left injured after the Sunday shooting at the Las Vegas music festival

Soon the attack fell into a grisly pattern: Ten-second bursts of fire followed by 15 to 30 seconds of silence, while Paddock either swapped weapons or reloaded.

‘People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on,’ said Steve Smith, a 45-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona.

‘Probably 100 shots at a time. It would sound like it was reloading and then it would go again.’

In the silences, those who escaped injury jumped over walls and climbed under cars.

Professional poker player Dan Bilzerian filmed himself fleeing, saying: ‘Holy f***, this girl just got shot in the f***ing head.’

Concertgoer Mike Cronk told ABC News he realised a friend next to him had been hit three times in the chest. ‘It was pretty much chaotic,’ he said. ‘Lots of people got hit… It took a while to get him out. We had to get him over the fence and hiding under the stage for a while, you know, to be safe. And, finally, we had to move him.’

Cronk tracked down an ambulance, but another man he had been helping died in his arms. ‘My buddy got in there,’ he added. ‘We got three more people in the ambulance… But I just got a message from my buddy – and he’s going to be okay.’

A woman told CNN: ‘There was a man that was shot right there. He was all bloody, he was unconscious.

‘Everybody was hiding everywhere, hiding under the stands and anywhere they could… and everyone is telling us to run, run as fast as you can. My husband and I ran out towards our car and there were people hiding underneath my car for cover. There was a gentleman who was shot, he said can you help me so I put him in my car and I had like six people in my car, people without shoes, running just to get away.’

A body lies under a sheet on The Strip in Las Vegas as police secure the area after 59 people were killed on Sunday

Police on guard on the streets outside the Mandalay Bay. The shooter was killed inside the hotel

A general view of the property believed to be the residence of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock situated in Mesquite, NV

The shooter was in the far left tower of the Mandalay Bay (bottom right), shooting into the crowds at the Las Vegas Village, located diagonally across the intersection in the middle. 

Once they had escaped the stage area, where most of the fatalities occurred, many festival-goers attempted to hide. Michael Seiden locked himself in a container filled with beer cans, later tweeting pictures of it riddled with bullet holes. ‘I was fortunate enough to get away,’ he said.

Desiree Price, from San Diego, hid behind a car with two strangers. ‘We huddled together. That’s why I have their blood on me,’ she said. ‘One girl was shot in her leg, the other had it in her shoulder. It didn’t stop so we all ran – we kept going.’

Concertgoer Ivetta Saldana ducked into a sewer. ‘It was a horror show,’ she told the Las Vegas Review Journal. ‘People were standing around, then they hit the floor.’

William Walker cowered behind lighting apparatus. ‘We were under a big spotlight and someone said, “Turn off the light,”’ he said. ‘They shut it off and you could see and hear bullets hitting the ground.’

No one yet knows exactly how long the assault lasted, but witnesses put it at five to 15 minutes. A guest who believes he was staying next door to the suspect told CNN that, after it stopped, ‘you could smell the gun powder.’ Country singer Jake Owen, on stage with Aldean, told CNN the attack was like ‘shooting fish in a barrel’.

The city’s roads and airports were closed and major resorts put under lockdown, while hospital emergency rooms were soon jammed with victims, many brought by others attending the festival. ‘I saw a lot of ex-military jump into gear and start plugging bullet-holes with their fingers,’ said concertgoer Russell Beck. ‘While everyone else was crouching I saw police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people and tell them where to go.’

Las Vegas Police began trying to neutralise the attacker. The City’s under-sheriff Kevin McHaill said officers at the concert were able to pinpoint roughly where the gunfire was coming from.

Above, the type of weapons found in the room. On the top is an Ak-47 and on the bottom is an AR-15. AR-15s are typically semi-automatic, while AK-47s can be either fully automatic or semi-automatic

A police officer takes cover behind a police vehicle during the shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino (left); people take cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival (right)

President Trump spoke about the shooting at a morning press conference, calling it a ‘senseless murder’ and ‘an act of pure evil’

‘They could see that the rounds were coming from that particular location as heavy fire, automatic fire at times. And so they were corralling all of the people that were actually at the concert behind a block wall,’ he said.

A number of officers went to the Mandalay Bay’s 32nd floor. Guests said they were woken by SWAT teams bursting into their rooms. Brad Baker, 38, of Austin, Texas, was in Las Vegas for a conference. ‘[The police] came into my room, I was totally out – I thought I was in trouble! They yelled at me like, “Get some clothes on.” I got my shirt on but I left my phone, my wallet. When I came out of my room, they were telling us to run. I saw all the cops with guns. It was crazy.’

On a recording of the moment a SWAT team blew Paddock’s door off its hinges, an officer can be heard saying: ‘We have sight of the suspect’s door. We need to pop this and see if we get any kind of response from this guy, see if he’s in here or if he’s actually moved out somewhere else.’

Soon afterwards, the words ‘Breach! Breach! Breach!’ were shouted, followed by a large bang.

Paddock’s father, Benjamin, was a serial bank robber who ended up on the FBI’s most wanted list back in 1969

The gunman died at the scene. He was found alongside an arsenal of weapons including at least ten rifles, and appeared to have shot himself. At 11.58pm Las Vegas Police tweeted ‘suspect down’, bringing the terror to an end.

Paddock’s family said he held no extreme views and had no history of mental illness. Police said he was not connected to any militant group.

That left speculation as to whether his actions were a response to gambling debts. He was, however, said to have become a multimillionaire through property investment.

Paddock rented connecting rooms at the Mandalay Bay resort and used a hammer to smash holes in the windows so he could fire at will at the crowds 400ft below him.

Many in the 22,000 audience thought the gunfire was fireworks until they saw bloodied victims dropping to the ground.

Survivors hid behind walls and under cars. Others dragged the injured to safety while Paddock stopped to reload.

A number of the injured were trampled during a stampede to escape the bloodshed the Route 91 Harvest Festival.

The mayhem lasted for 72 minutes and ended only when police burst into Paddock’s hotel room to find he had shot himself. Ten to 20 military-style automatic weapons lay by his side.

The death toll, which is expected to rise, surpassed the shooting at a nightclub in Orlando in June 2016 that cost 49 lives. In other developments:

• Donald Trump said it was ‘an act of pure evil’;
• The US President faced criticism over his failure to challenge gun laws;
• UK soldiers on leave in Las Vegas rushed to help victims;
• Paramedics used wheelbarrows to take the injured to safety;
• British tennis star Laura Robson had a narrow escape;
• Paddock’s brother Eric said his involvement had struck the family like an ‘asteroid’.

Paddock, who lived in Mesquite, an hour’s drive north-east of Las Vegas, is understood have checked in to the Mandalay Bay on Thursday and spent the weekend planning the attack. His live-in Australian girlfriend Marilou Danley was visiting family in the Philippines at the time of the massacre.

Police initially said they were hunting her as a ‘companion’ of his. It has emerged Paddock had used her ID in the casinos over the past few days.

His 55-year-old brother Eric said: ‘We have no idea how this happened. It’s like an asteroid just fell on top of our family and we have no reason, rhyme, rationale, excuse – there’s just nothing. Something happened, he snapped or something.’

He said they had last been in contact a few weeks ago when the gunman texted him after Hurricane Irma to check on the welfare of their 90-year-old mother. Speaking from his home in Orlando, he said: ‘He was a wealthy guy who liked to play video poker, he went on cruises. He sent his mum huge boxes of cookies. He doesn’t even have parking tickets.’

He admitted his brother had owned two handguns and a rifle, but nothing like the arsenal that was discovered in Las Vegas. ‘He’s not an avid gun guy at all. He never hit anyone, he’s never drawn a gun,’ he added.

Paddock’s brother Eric said he wasn’t religious, political or had any mental illness that he knew of 

Stephen Paddock, right, seen with his brother Eric in this undated image provided to the Today show 

Police surround the stage at the Route 91 Harvest festival on Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 02 October, 2017

Law enforcement walk on the Las Vegas Strip near Mandalay Bay hotel-casino Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas

A wounded person is walked in on a wheelbarrow as Las Vegas police respond to the active shooter situation

Paddock is understood to have placed a large number of bets totalling up to $30,000 (£22,600) a day in recent weeks. It remains unclear whether he won or lost.

As investigators continued to unravel his background, terrifying phone footage taken by revellers at the concert emerged.

As the bullets continued to rain down on to the crowd, many risked their lives to save those who had been left with horrific injuries. Some ran back into the crowd, despite managing to escape themselves. Others flagged down passing cars and asked drivers to help take the wounded to hospital.

One woman told of how she had crammed six strangers into her car to keep them away from the gunfire. Three off-duty personnel from 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards were in the city when the gunman opened fire and gave life-saving first aid.

It emerged one man died after being shot in the back as he pushed his wife away from danger. Heather Melton said she had felt the bullet strike her nurse husband Sonny.

Mrs Melton, from Tennessee, said: ‘Sonny was the most kind-hearted, loving man I have ever met. He saved my life and lost his.’ One trauma surgeon on duty yesterday described the scene at a hospital where the wounded were being taken as like a ‘war zone’.

Jay Coates said: ‘Every bed in trauma bay was occupied.’

THE FIRST LAS VEGAS VICTIMS ARE IDENTIFIED 

The first shooting victims have been identified after 59 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday in what has become the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

Sonny Melton, 29, Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, Lisa Romero, Jordan McIldoon, 23, Jessica Klymchuk, 28, Jenny Parks, Susan Smith, 53, Adrian Murfitt, 35, John Phippen, Rhonda LeRocque, Dana Gardner, Quinton Robbins, 20, and Bailey Schweitzer, all lost their lives when 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock of nearby Mesquite, Nevada began shooting from his hotel room across the street at the Mandalay Bay Casino.

Another 515 people were injured in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Melton’s wife, Heather, a surgeon, was with him watching Jason Aldean at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. She said her brave and selfless husband died protecting her.

‘He saved my life. He grabbed me and started running when I felt him get shot in the back,’ she told WSMV. ‘I want everyone to know what a kind-hearted, loving man he was, but at this point, I can barely breathe.’

The couple lived in Big Sandy, Tennessee, where Melton worked as a registered nurse in an emergency room and ICU at Henry County Medical Center.

His wife works at the hospital and he aided her in the operating room. They married in 2016.

‘We were the couple that never should have met, fallen in love or had a future together….but life is funny and we believe God brought us together as soul mates,’ read their wedding page on The Knot. 

‘We have shared amazing times together and nearly unbearable heartaches but through it all we have grown stronger in our love for each other and our families.’ 

Heather Melton, left, says her husband Sonny, right, saved her life as gunfire rang out at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday. He was shot in the back and died, while Heather survived

Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, was among the 59 people murdered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday. She is seen with husband Tony Burditus at the festival in a photo posted to Facebook around 9.30pm PDT – minutes before the gunman opened fire

Mother-of-two and kindergarten teacher Jenny Parks, of Lancaster, LA in California, was also killed in the carnage.

Her aunt, Rhonda Boyle, wrote on Facebook: ‘It’s a sad day for me and my family my niece was murdered killed by that SOB in Los Vegas. Please pray for me and my family, she was a sweet woman… and a good mother.’

She leaves behind her husband Bobby Parks, 39, and their two kids.

Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, reportedly died in the arms of her husband of 32 years, Tony Burditus, just minutes after posting a picture of themselves at the festival.

Burditus, a semi-retired grandmother and mom, according to Facebook, regularly posted loving posts about her husband Tony, who was her high school sweetheart from Hedgesville High School. The couple had moved around a lot, according to friends, but had recently returned to Martinsburg to settle down.

Her friend Jeanette McNally said she was in ‘complete shock and grief’ at her pal’s death.

‘Beautiful Denise Salmon Burditus life was taken during the attack on Las Vegas,’ she wrote. ‘What a loss.

‘I’m just praying for comfort for their shattered hearts. Her family…Her adoring husband…Her beautiful children and grandbabies…Her friends whom she loved like family.’

Gallup-McKinley County School confirmed that Romero, a secretary at Miyamura High School, in New Mexico, was also among the dead. Superintendent Mike Hyatt sent out an email to district staffers, saying ‘our prayers go out to her family during this tragic time.’

Adrian Murfitt, from Anchorage, also died at the concert, according to his friend Brian MacKinnon, who attended the festival with him.

MacKinnon told KTUU that Murfitt was ‘one of the happiest people I know’ and that the ‘wrong person’ had died.

Susan Smith, 53, an office manager for the Simi Valley Unified School District since 2001, was also killed, a spokeswoman for the district confirmed. Smith was said to be a big country music fan and was the ‘hub’ and ‘heart’ of Vista Elementary School, where she worked for three years.

‘She was wonderful. She had a great sense of humor. She’s patient and kind,’ spokesman Jake Finch told the Ventura County Star.

Vista PTA released a statement which read: ‘Our hearts are full of sorrow for the passing of Susan Smith. She was a wonderful woman, an advocate for our children, and a friend.’

Mom-of-four Jessica Klymchuk (left) and Quinton Robbins, 20, (right) are among the 59 people who were gunned down and killed during the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival last night

Rhonda LeRocque, a minister’s wife, from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, had been at the concert with her six-year-old daughter, father-in-law and husband of 20 years, Jason. Her father-in-law had just taken LeRocque’s daughter home when the gunfire began.

LeRocque died instantly after being shot in the back of the head.

Her devastated family told Boston 25 News that she was a country music lover, who loved her family and dreamed of owning her own company one day. She was ‘close to perfection as you can get,’ they said.

Fellow victim John Phippen, of Santa Clarita, California, was at the concert with his son Travis – a medic – when he was shot dead.

Travis, who was shot in the arm, was able to patch up at least 14 others at the scene, but tragically wasn’t able to save his own father.

John, who owned remodeling and repair company JP Specialties, in Clarita, was remembered by friends as a ‘good man’ and an ‘amazing soul’ who would often like to sing as he worked.

He had a ‘smile that would light up a room,’ friend Thomas Polucki told KHTS . ‘He will be missed.’

Two Canadians were among the dozens killed in the mass shooting McIldoon, 23, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and Klymchuk, a mother-of-four, visiting Vegas with her fiance from Edmonton. 

Jordan McIlldoon (left) and Lisa Romero (right) are reportedly among the 59 people who lost their lives during the mass shooting

Adrian Murfitt, 35, (left) was confirmed dead by a close friend, while married mother-of-two, and kindergarten teacher Jenny Parks (right) was also killed in the carnage

Klymchuk was a librarian and school bus driver at St. Stephen’s School in Valleyview, Canada. Superintendent Betty Turpin, of the Holy Family Catholic Regional Division, passed on her condolences to the family for the ‘unimaginable attack’.

Premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, added on Twitter: ‘Our hearts go out to the loved ones of Jessica Klymchuk, an Albertan who was killed in the Las Vegas attack. We are so sorry for your loss.’

McIldoon, 23, was attending the festival with his girlfriend, his parents told CBC, when he was gunned down.

Fellow festival goer Heather Gooze of Spring Valley, Nevada spread word of his death on Facebook.

‘Friends and family, I am OK. I am right outside of the festival grounds. We are not allowed to go anywhere,’ Gooze wrote Monday morning. 

‘I am with a young man who died in my arms! RIP Jordan McIldoon from British Columbia. I can’t believe this just happened!!!’

Susan Smith, (left) an office manager for the Simi Valley Unified School District since 2001, and Dana Gardner (right) who worked for the County of San Bernardino

Rhonda LeRocque (left) a minister’s wife, from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, died instantly after being shot in the back of the head. Fellow victim John Phippen, (right) of Santa Clarita, California, was at the concert with his son Travis – a medic –  but tragically Travis wasn’t able to save his own father

Bailey Schweitzer, Bakersfield, California, was the 13th Vegas mass shooting victim to be identified on social media

McIldoon’s parents, who are flying down to Las Vegas, said he was a heavy-duty mechanic’s apprentice and was soon to attend trade school.

‘We only had one child,’ they said. ‘We just don’t know what to do.’

His grandfather Bob McIldoon told CityNews Vancouver; ‘It’s a terrible thing, terrible for everyone.’

Quinton Robbins, 20, of Henderson, Nevada, is another shooting victim who has been identified by family and friends on social media.

His aunt, Kilee Wells Sanders, confirmed on Facebook that Quinton had died on Sunday night, describing him as ‘the most kind and loving soul.’

‘Everyone who met him, loved him. His contagious laugh and smile. He was truly an amazing person. He will be missed by so many, he is loved by so many.’

Robbins studied at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and worked as a recreational assistant at the City of Henderson.

‘Quinton was a pay-it-forward kinda guy,’ Tyce Jones, a long time friend of the family, told Newsweek. 

‘Always had a smile on his face and was a nice guy. He loved his family and loved to coach his little brother’s flag football team. He will be missed.’