The Slatest

Note Found in Las Vegas Gunman’s Hotel Room Had Calculations to Maximize Killings

The damaged windows on the 32nd floor room that was used by the shooter in the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 2, 2017.

MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

There may finally be an answer to one of the biggest unanswered questions from last week’s Las Vegas mass shooting. Police say that the cryptic note found in Stephen Paddock’s hotel room were really calculations to help him kill as many people as possible. Four of the officers who were the first to storm into the hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel talked to CBS’ 60 Minutes and revealed what was on the note.

“I did notice, a note on the nightstand near his shooting platform. I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was going to be for the crowd,” said David Newton, from the Las Vegas Police Department’s K-9 unit. “So he had had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there.” The note didn’t include any of the calculations, but rather the “final numbers.” ABC News confirms that the note had numbers for wind, trajectory, and distance, among others.

Newton went on to describe the “eerie” feeling of storming the hotel room while law enforcement was still trying to figure out what was going on. “Very eerie. Yeah, the dust from the explosive breach. And then you have the flashing lights,” Newton said. “And that looked straight, like, out of a movie, you know?”

Investigators increasingly believe that Paddock suffered from a severe mental illness that was likely undiagnosed, according to sources who talked to ABC News. Even though he was well off financially, the 64-year-old seems to have had trouble building significant relationships with people. That seems to be in line with what Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, told investigators, saying she witnessed a physical and mental deterioration over the past few months of the man who spent hours playing video poker.