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Police still have no idea what the Vegas shooter's motive was

It’s been eight months since one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern American history, and police still can’t definitively say what led Stephen Paddock to open fire on a country music festival outside his hotel room in Las Vegas, leaving 58 dead and

It’s been eight months since one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern American history, and police still can’t definitively say what led Stephen Paddock to open fire on a country music festival outside his hotel room in Las Vegas, leaving 58 dead and more than 700 injured.

On Friday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released their final 187-page report on the Oct. 1, 2017 shooting to the public. Police Chief Joseph Lombardo announced the news in a press conference, dispelling theories that there was a second shooter, and asserting that Paddock did not act on behalf of a wider conspiracy. Investigators also found no nexus to terrorism, despite ISIS claiming responsibility.

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According to the report, authorities investigated 2,000 leads, watched 22,000 hours of video footage, obtained 252,000 related images, and served approximately 1,000 legal processes, and still couldn’t find a motive.

Investigators did turn up breadcrumbs that hinted at Paddock’s mental state, but found nothing that definitively explained what led him to stockpile weapons with the ultimate goal of killing as many people as possible.

Investigators did find evidence of elaborate planning, however.

Between Oct. 2016 to Sept. 2017, according to the report, Paddock bought over 55 firearms, mostly rifles, all of which were purchased legally, and more than 100 firearm-related items. According to the report, Paddock made a reservation for a hotel room during Chicago’s Lollapalooza Festival in Aug. 2017, specifically requesting a room overlooking the festival. He canceled it two days before check-in. He also made another reservation at a hotel overlooking downtown Las Vegas’ Life is Beautiful festival, held in late September. This time, he reserved three different units, all of which overlooked the festival venue, and was seen on surveillance cameras “transporting several suitcases from his vehicle to the units he reserved.”

“Paddock was alone for the trip,” the report states. “Investigators have been unable to determine if Paddock intended an attack during this festival or if he used it as a means to plan a future attack.”

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“It’s a puzzle,” Scott Stewart, a former special agent at the U.S. State Department and vice president of tactical analysis at Stratfor, a global intelligence consulting company, told VICE News. “One of the things we usually ascribe to terrorism is that it’s the propaganda of the deed. It’s done for a specific purpose. Its perpetrators usually make very clear statements about why they are doing it. That’s what’s so puzzling here. There’s no unabomber manifesto. It’s left to us to try to piece things together.”

Nor was there any obvious reason why Paddock chose the country music festival as his target.

“It’s not like other mass shooting events, where he was a disgruntled former employee or customer or bullied school student,” Stewart said. “There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of linkage between him and his specific target.”

The report notes that Paddock regularly complained to friends and family that he “consistently felt ill, in pain or fatigued.” His primary care physician described Paddock as “odd” and displayed “little emotion,” and believed he may have had bipolar disorder. The physician said that Paddock was reluctant to discuss his mental health further, and seemed “fearful of medications.”

Investigators also pointed to Paddock’s gambling habit as a possible hint to his motive. “Paddock had a mathematical mind and would only gamble when he believed the odds were in his favor,” Paddock’s brother, Eric Paddock, told investigators. “Paddock had won millions of dollars gambling and was well known in Las Vegas casinos.”

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Paddock was described by casino hosts as a “high-stakes roller,” but Lombardo noted that his bank accounts took a hit in the years running up to the massacre. In Sept. 2015, 14 accounts associated with Paddock had a combined balance of just under $2.1 million; by Sept. 2017, his balance was $530,000. Most of the decline happened that year.

Paddock and his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who was initially the subject of an investigation as a potential co-conspirator, regularly traveled to Las Vegas from their home in Mesquite, about 80 miles away, to gamble and see concerts and shows together. Paddock convinced Danley to stop working in 2015 so that they could travel together, and they subsequently went on cruises and international trips, like Dubai, the Bahamas, and the Mediterranean.

“Eric [Paddock’s brother] believed Paddock may have conducted the attack because he had done everything in the world he wanted to do and was bored with everything,” investigators wrote in the report.

Cover image: The area near Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino is still on police lock-down as law enforcement agencies continue to investigate the cause of the massacre after the shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, that took 58 lives. Photo by Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images.