Information released Friday revealed that the gunman who opened fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas last fall, killing 58 and injuring hundreds of others, researched numerous Boston locations online in the months before the massacre.
Immediately after the Vegas shooting, it was revealed that Stephen Paddock had researched Fenway Park and the Boston Center for the Arts.
Investigators in Las Vegas released information Friday about Paddock's Google searches as they revealed the motive behind the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history remains a mystery.
Paddock's queries included Google Map searches for several Boston locations, including Fenway Park, the Royal Rooters Club, Blandford Street MBTA Station, Boston University's School of Business, Hotel Buckminster, the Boston Arts Academy and the official Boston Red Sox team store.
The gunman, whom investigators determined was working alone, had searched for the locations along with several search terms - including "summer concerts 2017," "open air concert venues," biggest open air concert venues in USA" - in mid-May of last year on an Internet Explorer private browser.
There is no evidence that Paddock ever traveled to Boston.
Investigators also revealed Friday that Paddock had Googled locations in Venice and Santa Monica, California around the same time he was researching landmarks in Boston.
In mid-September, Paddock began searching "swat weapons," "SWAT Las Vegas," "ballistic" and "do police use explosives", according to the Clark County Sheriff's Department.
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Late in the evening on Oct. 1, Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 attending a country music festival below. Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant and multimillionaire real estate investor, killed himself with a gunshot to the mouth before police reached him.
Authorities have said they found no link to international terrorism. They believe Paddock meticulously prepared his plan to fire assault-style weapons from the Mandalay Bay into the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
Paddock fired more than 1,100 bullets, mostly from two windows, police have said. That includes about 200 shots fired through his hotel room door into a hallway where an unarmed hotel security guard was wounded in the leg and a maintenance engineer took cover.
