BREAKING: Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock used hotel freight elevator before deadly massacre

“In this company’s history, no public person has ever walked in a service elevator unless they were accompanied by security,” the hotel mogul said in a recent interview, before backpedaling

The gunman behind last week’s deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas used a freight elevator at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino before he opened fire on a crowd of thousands attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival. It was the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, with 58 people killed and nearly 500 injured.

CBS News reports that law enforcement officials have confirmed that Stephen Paddock rode a freight elevator at the hotel during his recent and final stay there. The report does not indicate how frequently, what day or days, or for what purpose Paddock rode the elevator.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Paddock brought 23 firearms into his room on the 32nd floor of the hotel, reportedly carrying ten or more suitcases.

The new report calls to mind a recent Fox News interview with hotel and casino mogul Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, which operates multiple hotel casinos in Vegas. In the interview, Wynn made an unsolicited remark about access to hotel freight elevators.

“Nobody in this company’s history, public person has ever walked in a service elevator unless they were accompanied by security,” Wynn said in Sunday’s interview with Chris Wallace, who had not previously asked him any questions about service elevators.

Wallace interrupted: “Did [Paddock] go in the service elevator, Steve?,” the host asked.

Wynn stuttered for a moment before he responded.

“I’m just saying .. anything like that. I’m not sure he did. But nobody ever goes in the back of the house unaccompanied by security.”

In hindsight, Wynn’s unsolicited comment raises the question of what he may have known before law enforcement made it public. It also raises a more serious question of how Paddock was able to access the service elevator.

A representative for the Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel & Casino could not immediately comment on an inquiry regarding access to the hotel’s freight elevators.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, local law enforcement announced a dramatic revision to the earlier reported timeline of the shooting massacre, revealing that hotel security guard Jesus Campos was shot six minutes before Paddock opened fire on a crowd of thousands from a hotel room window he smashed with a hammer.

Last week, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said that authorities believed Campos appeared in the hallway of the hotel after Paddock had already began the mass shooting, and that it was his presence that stopped the shooting. Lombardo said in a news conference this past Monday that he is now not sure why Paddock stopped firing at the crowd. Police found his body, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, when they breached his hotel room about an hour after the shooting stopped.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Wynn is the owner of Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Wynn is the CEO of Wynn Resorts, which operates multiple properties in Las Vegas, but not Mandalay Bay. 

[Feature image: Associated Press]