The FBI has ended its investigation into the deadly Las Vegas shooting after finding no motive to explain why a shooter opened fire on a country music festival from a hotel room overlooking the concert grounds.
The end of the investigation comes nearly 16 months after gunman Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured some 900 others in October of 2017.
Paddock then took his own life from inside a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort.
Aaron Rouse, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas Office, said that Paddock had acted alone both in planning and carrying out the assault.
Why he did so, however, remains a mystery to investigators.
The end of the FBI investigation follows after the Las Vegas Police Department ended its own probe in August. That department also failed to determine a motive in the case.
Paddock used 23 rifles and a revolver in his attack, and photos from inside the hotel suite where he launched the deadly attack showed something of a small arsenal left behind in the suite.
Another 18 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition were later found inside the gunman’s home in Mesquite, Nevada.
An anonymous donor recently offered to donate $62,300 — the value of those weapons — in order to have the guns destroyed. The money would go towards financial relief for the families.
That donation came from a California source, and The New York Times, which originally reported on the donation, was told by the donor: “It was tugging at my heartstrings and it seemed like a horrific situation for the families to deal with this choice. I wanted to alleviate some of the pain or at least not allow it to get worse”.
