Stephen Paddock managed to pull off the most deadly mass shooting in modern American history, but there’s something about his awful attack that stands out from all those who have come before him.

That’s the lack of a ‘why’, because after sifting through everything with a fine comb investigators are still no closer to figuring out what led him to open fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel and Casino.

Images circulating last week showed a note on one of the tables in his room (HERE), and many thought this would finally shed light on Paddock’s motives.

Turns out that note was just another example of how meticulous his planning was, with this below via Slate:

Police say that the cryptic note found in Stephen Paddock’s hotel room were really calculations to help him kill as many people as possible. Four of the officers who were the first to storm into the hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel talked to CBS’ 60 Minutes and revealed what was on the note.

“I did notice, a note on the nightstand near his shooting platform. I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was going to be for the crowd,” said David Newton, from the Las Vegas Police Department’s K-9 unit. “So he had had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there.”

The note didn’t include any of the calculations, but rather the “final numbers.” ABC News confirms that the note had numbers for wind, trajectory, and distance, among others.

Newton went on to describe the “eerie” feeling of storming the hotel room while law enforcement was still trying to figure out what was going on. “Very eerie. Yeah, the dust from the explosive breach. And then you have the flashing lights,” Newton said. “And that looked straight, like, out of a movie, you know?”

I imagine those law enforcement personnel who burst into Paddock’s room will never see anything like that again, although given America’s reluctance to change their gun laws that can’t be said with any certainty.

It’s also being reported that investigators are looking into whether or not Paddock may have had a “severe mental illness that was likely undiagnosed”, (or that brain tumour his brother talked about), but for now it remains largely a guessing game.

[source:slate]