Last October, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds more when he opened fire on a concert crowd in Las Vegas, a city with cameras everywhere. However, we know almost nothing about this case and it’s about to get worse.
Clark County Nevada Coroner John Fudenberg has refused to obey a court order and release Paddock’s autopsy.
Fudenberg fought to keep the autopsies private, but District Judge Timothy Williams demanded he release the autopsies of the victims and Paddock.
Well, Fudenberg complied with the order for the victims, but refuses to release Paddock’s report. From Las Vegas Review-Journal:
But as of late Tuesday, Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg had not complied with the order. He indicated he wouldn’t release Paddock’s autopsy report until it was “finalized.”“I don’t believe this is consistent with what the court ordered,” said Las Vegas attorney Maggie McLetchie, who represents the Las Vegas Review-Journal and The Associated Press in their November action demanding the release of the reports. “They (the coroner’s office) have delayed this for too long, and whatever stage the coroner’s report on Paddock is in, it should be provided to the Review-Journal and Associated Press without further delay. No more games. Release the records.”Review-Journal Editor-in-Chief Keith Moyer added: “The shooter’s body was cremated Dec. 21. How can the autopsy report not be ‘finalized’ when the body was cremated more than five weeks ago? The law is squarely on the side of the public’s right to open government.”
The judge even told the coroner to pay $32,000 towards the legal fees of the Review-Journal since he refused to release these public records. Fudenberg is speaking with other people in his office and we do not know when the autopsy report will come out.
The coroner ruled Paddock’s a suicide and that he shot himself in the head after the massacre.
This is not the first time Fudenberg has played politics with Paddock. His remains went to his younger brother Eric:
The younger Paddock said he had to fly to Las Vegas to pick up his brother’s ashes because Fudenberg refused to send the remains directly to him in Orlando. Paddock said he did not understand why Fudenberg “decided to play games” with the remains.Fudenberg maintained that he wanted to deliver the remains in a secure manner because of security concerns.As of Tuesday, Paddock said, the coroner had not given him a copy of his brother’s report.“It’s a shame the courts had to tell the guy to do his job,” Paddock said Tuesday.
The police released a preliminary report on January 19, but it left out crucial information like, you know, A MOTIVE. I still cannot believe we do not know important information about one of the worst shootings in America.
But the report showed that Paddock spent months to cover her tracks and throw off an investigation into the massacre as he planned it. From The Washington Post:
The Las Vegas gunman who opened fire on concertgoers in October carefully prepared both for the attack and the investigation that would follow, according to hundreds of pages of court documents made public late Friday.In the court documents, which detail some of the early days of the investigation, 64-year-old gunman Stephen Paddock is described as spending significant time amassing his weapons and stockpiling ammunition while also seeking “to thwart the eventual law enforcement investigation” into the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Paddock really put a lot of thought into this and makes me want to know the motive even more:
An FBI special agent wrote in one affidavit seeking a search warrant that “the methodical nature of the planning employed by Paddock, coupled with his efforts to undermine the preceding investigation, are factors indicative of a level of sophistication which is commonly found in mass casualty events such as this.”Paddock purchased the items used in his attack during the year leading up to it, the FBI said, and a large share of the ammunition and accessories he amassed appear to have been bought online. Federal authorities said Paddock used “anonymously attributed communications devices,” destroyed or concealed digital storage and had at least three cellphones in the hotel suite where he opened fire.
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