(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In the aftermath of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, there were reports that gunman Stephen Paddock had told people around him he was a “government experiment,” and would often lie in bed “moaning and screaming” in mental anguish.
This week, the FBI released a trove of records that may be related to those claims.
The new, heavily redacted FBI records show that a special agent interviewed a worker at Mesa View Hospital in Mesquite, Nevada about a week after the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting, which killed 60 people.
The agent apparently asked the Mesa View worker about rumors that Paddock had been on a “psychiatric hold”—when a patient is being mentally evaluated, often involuntarily.
“[Redacted] told [REDACTED] that Paddock had been at Mesa View on a psychiatric hold and that [REDACTED],” the heavily redacted FBI memo says.
The FBI memo also says that a hospital official sent an email to employees, instructing them not to search for Paddock’s medical records. The name of the official who sent the email was redacted, and no more details about this incident are included in the records.
Additionally, the FBI memo discusses who Paddock’s “sitter” may have been. At Mesa View, somebody is required to sit outside of the room where the psychiatric patient is being held.
“[REDACTED] also heard a rumor that [REDACTED] had ‘sat’ with Paddock,” the FBI memo says.
The FBI also interviewed at least one other Mesa View worker about Paddock. According to a memo from that interview, only one person at Mesa View said the rumor was true.
“Nobody had said that Paddock was ever a patient at Mesa View other than [REDACTED],” the FBI memo says. “[REDACTED] had heard from somebody that [REDACTED] had said that Paddock was a ‘frequent flyer.’”
The Mesa View worker was also asked about rumors that the hospital had destroyed records related to Paddock. The worker reportedly said the person spreading this rumor was “full of crap.”
“[REDACTED] believed it would be impossible to obliterate records,” the FBI memo says. “[REDACTED] felt that whoever was claiming that the records were being destroyed ‘just wanted to be heard.’”
Yet another FBI memo from Oct. 7, 2017, reports the findings of a special agent’s interview with a worker from Envision Physician Services, which had been billing for ER doctors at Mesa View since 2004. The billing worker told the FBI that Paddock’s social security number could not be found in Envisions system, but that two other Stephen Paddocks with different social security numbers were in the system.
The billing worker also advised the FBI that Envision’s records were current through Sept. 28, 2017, which was three days before the shooting.
Paddock’s rumored Mesa View trips were first revealed in December 2017, when the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that law enforcement issued a search warrant for all of Paddock’s medical records from the facility. The warrant reportedly cited an anonymous tip that Paddock had self-admitted to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, but the search revealed no such records, according to reports from the time.
There were also media reports from 2017 about Paddock being prescribed Diazepam, a sedative-hypnotic drug.
However, little attention has been paid to Paddock’s possible Mesa View visits since then. Even when the FBI released new records about the subject this week, most media outlets concentrated on records about a possible motive for his killing spree: some $38,000 in gambling losses—a dubious reason, considering that Paddock was reportedly a multimillionaire.
Indeed, local police are already dismissing the notion that gambling losses may have played a motivating factor for Paddock.
Kelly McMahill, a retired deputy chief, reportedly said it was “unprofessional” for the FBI to publish the new information without first notifying the Metropolitan Police Department.
“It will be very damaging to the 22,000 people that attended the concert, the victims of the family members that were lost and the survivors,” McMahill, who is married to Sheriff Kevin McMahill, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “There is still no known motive five years later, and LVMPD would never hide a potential motive from any of our victims.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
