The live-in girlfriend of Las Vegas sniper, Stephen Paddock, returned to the United States on a flight from Southeast Asia late Tuesday night.
Marilou Danley, 62, was seen arriving at Los Angeles International Airport where she was met at the gate by federal agents.
Paddock, 64, shot and killed 59 people and injured 527 others at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday, Oct. 1.
Police found 23 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his sniper’s nest — a 2-room suite on the 32nd floor of the posh Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.
Danley was escorted through the terminal in a wheelchair by an airport employee followed by police and federal agents. She will be transported to Las Vegas, according to published reports.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Clark County, Nevada Sheriff Joe Lombardo described Danley as a “person of interest” after the FBI discovered Paddock wired $100,000 to her bank account in Manila, Philippines a week before the shooting.
Danley’s family told reporters that Paddock purchased a plane ticket to the Philippines for Danley and “sent her away” to “spare her life.”
They said he behaved strangely in the months leading up to the massacre.
A Philippines immigration official confirmed that Danley arrived in the Philippines on Sept. 25.
“She was sent away,” one of Danley’s sisters told NBC’s Australian partner, Channel 7.
The woman added that Paddock sent Danley to the Philippines “so that she will not be there to interfere with what he’s planning.”
A family friend said Paddock was a millionaire who gambled away $160,000 in the months leading up to the nation’s deadliest mass shooting.
A former boyfriend of one of the sisters, Adam Le Fevre, told NBC News that Paddock was a “methodical casino gambler who used algorithms and spreadsheets” to game the system.
Le Fevre described Danley as a shy Catholic who was devoted to her family, and “very different” from Paddock.
“She’s not very confident,” Le Fevre said. “She had a little Subaru Forester and she would go three blocks out of her way so she didn’t have to turn left or cross a big intersection.”
“I wouldn’t say [their relationship] was lovey dovey,” he said. “It always seemed to be one of convenience.”
