Neighbors in the Florida retirement community where Las Vegas shooter Stephen Craig Paddock spent some of his time say he was just like them, and had the same hopes for a quiet retirement and desire for peace.
Or so they thought.
Paddock, is suspected of killing at least 58 people and injuring 515 when he opened fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas on Sunday night
Stephen Paddock is suspected of killing at least 58 people and injuring 515 when he opened fire on concertgoers Sunday night
His former Florida neighbors tell DailyMail.com that they were quizzed by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Florida Department of Law Enforcement today, scouring Paddock’s old neighborhood in suburban Melbourne asking if anyone had heard him rant about politics or religion.
And every one they spoke with told DailyMail.com that the 64-year-old Paddock only talked about routine matters of life and gambling.
Nothing about politics,’ said next-door neighbor Sharon Judy.
‘He didn’t talk about religion,’ said Cecelia Franzen, on the other side of Paddock’s $250,000-house.
‘Never saw him with guns,’ said Jules Rothus, across the street.
Those who knew Paddock in the adult 55+ Heritage Isle community say they’d never thought in their wildest imagination that Paddock, whom they referred to as a ‘senior citizen,’ would kill 58 people and wound 515 in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Local records show Paddock bought his earthy-colored Mediterranean-style villa on Sansome Circle in May 2013 and sold it two years later for $235,000.
‘We moved in at the same time as him,’ said Judy, a semi-retired insurance worker. ‘He said he bought the place as investment. He told me he liked to speculate on the price of a home going up.’
All his neighbors said they rarely saw Paddock, who did tell them he had family in nearby Orlando.
Neightbors said the 64-year-old Paddock only talked about routine matters of life and gambling. Nothing about politics,’ said next-door neighbor Sharon Judy
Neighbors Kathy and Jules Rothus never saw him with a gun
‘He came maybe five or six times in the two years he owned the house,’ Judy added. ‘He said he was a professional gambler and showed me a photo on his cell phone of a slot machine that paid him $20,000.’
Paddock also talked of his travels. During the time he owned the house just west of I-95 in Brevard County, Paddock bragged about going to The Philippines and Europe.
Paddock, who sprayed bullets into a concert crowd on The Strip from a 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay, wasn’t extravagant, Judy added.
‘He rented regular mid-sized cars when he came, usually for the weekend,’ she said of the tall, often well-dressed man next door. ‘His house barely had any furniture.’
Rothus said she first talked to Paddock when he came over in 2014 to welcome her and her husband George to the neighborhood.
‘We talked quite a bit about the neighborhood,’ she said. ‘Nothing, but nothing he ever said could’ve led me to believe he’d do something like this. It’s horrible.’
Paddock had both hunting and fishing licenses according to public records, as well as his pilot’s license, but no criminal record in the state of Nevada
Paddock had no prior criminal convictions in the state of Nevada.
He was lived just 90 minutes outside Las Vegas in the city of Mesquite, where he purchased a home in a retirement community for just over $369,000 in 2015 according to public records.
He lived there with his 62-year-old girlfriend Marilou Danley, the same woman police announced they were seeking to question on Sunday night as they began their investigation into the horrific terror attack.
Paddock had both hunting and fishing licenses according to public records, as well as his pilot’s license, but no criminal record in the state of Nevada.
The retired accountant had worked as an internal auditor at Lockheed Martin for three years in the late 1980s, and previously managed apartment building complexes in Mesquite, Texas and California.
Paddock was also the son of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, a serial bank robber who ended up on the FBI Most Wanted list back in 1969 when he escaped from federal prison in Texas while serving a 20 years sentence.
The FBI kept him on the list for the next eight years, and he was eventually found one year after he was removed from the list in 1978 while outside an Oregon Bingo hall.
The agency said that the fugitive had been ‘diagnosed as psychopathic’ and also had possible ‘suicidal tendencies.’