Las Vegas shooter's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, tells family she has a 'clean conscience'
— -- The Las Vegas shooter’s girlfriend assured her family she has a "clear" conscience in the wake of Sunday night’s deadly rampage, her brother told ABC News today in the Philippines.
Reynaldo Bustos said he immediately contacted his younger sister, Marilou Danley, when he saw the news that her boyfriend, Stephen Paddock, had allegedly opened fire on a music festival crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people and injuring 489 others.
"I called her up immediately and she said, 'Relax, we shouldn't worry about it. I'll fix it. Do not panic. I have a clean conscience,'" Bustos said in his native Tagalog language today outside the capital of Manila in their homeland.
Danley told her brother, "I didn't have anything to do with this," Bustos said.
Danley returned to the United States from the Philippines Tuesday night. The 62-year-old Filipino-born woman landed at Los Angeles International Airport at 7:17 p.m. PT on Philippine Air Flight 102.
She was taken out a back way so she wouldn't be seen in public, and she was met by FBI agents immediately upon landing, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.
An official familiar with Danley’s travels told ABC News that the FBI engaged in a highly choreographed scheme to get her back in the country, keep her from being surrounded by a "media zoo" and ensure her comfort so she cooperates with investigators.
The FBI had at least one decoy vehicle at Los Angeles International Airport when Danley landed. She was escorted quickly through customs and then rushed out a secure rear entrance of the airport, the official said.
Investigators from Las Vegas are in Los Angeles to participate in interviewing Danley, but there were no immediate plans to return her to Nevada. While agents met Danley upon landing, the official told ABC News, she is being treated as a "witness" and is not being held in custody, so she is free to go where she pleases.
Detectives did not interview Danley immediately after she landed, instead allowing her to get some rest after a long flight and amid the stress of the ongoing investigation. They plan to question her when she's ready today, the official said.
The law offices of Matthew Lombard confirmed to ABC News this afternoon that Danley is at the FBI field office in Los Angeles with Lombard, who is representing her.
With no clear indication yet of what led Paddock to allegedly carry out the massacre, investigators hope Danley will shed some light on the motivation behind Sunday night's shooting.
Authorities say Danley, who lived with Paddock at his home in a Mesquite, Nevada, retirement community where officials searching the residence found a number of weapons, is more than a mere witness.
“Currently she’s a person of interest,” Lombardo said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
She was previously just referred to as a witness whom they were interested in interviewing.
Bustos said Danley had traveled to the Philippines to scout locations for a business she was thinking about opening and that her plans were always to come back to the U.S. on Tuesday. The last time she had gone to her home country was in 2014, when she was broken-hearted over problems she was having with her former husband, Bustos said.
Bustos described his sister as a kind person, adding that she became the breadwinner of the family around age 16 and helped their mother raise their others sisters. After she got married and moved overseas, she would then send money back to their mother in the Philippines, Bustos said.
Once Danley began dating Paddock, he would give her money and support her, Bustos said.
Bustos had never met Paddock but had spoken to him on the phone on at least one occasion, he said. Paddock had even told him, "We'll see you someday," Bustos said.
Bustos expressed surprise that Danley would have allowed guns in the home she shared with Paddock, saying that they are dangerous.
Australia's Channel 7 interviewed Danley's sisterst today, with one of them saying Danley was sent away by Paddock so she didn't interfere with his plans to carry out the shooting. Danley traveled with an Australian passport.
"I know that she don't know anything as well, like us," one sister told Channel 7. "She was sent away. She was away so that she will be not there to interfere with what he's planning."
The sisters spoke on the condition of anonymity and had their faces blurred during the interview.
"No one can put the puzzles together, no one except Marilou," one of the sister's told Channel 7. "Because Steve is not here to talk anymore, only Marilou can maybe help out."
Danley was in a relationship with Paddock for a few years, reportedly meeting while she worked as a hostess at a Reno, Nevada casino. Danley left her husband, Geary Danley, in 2013 and moved in with Paddock. She officially filed for divorce in 2015.
Danley and Paddock lived together in Mesquite but she was in the Philippines when Paddock allegedly carried out Sunday's massacre of 58 people at a Las Vegas country music festival. Police recovered 19 guns, as well as explosive material and large quantities of ammunition, from the home Paddock and Danley shared.
The shooter rained machine gun fire down on the more than 20,000 attendees of the concert, with over 500 people suffering injuries in the resulting chaos. Police say Paddock shot himself before a SWAT team broke down the door to the hotel suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
As for his girlfriend, travel records obtained by ABC News show Danley, who uses an Australian passport, traveled to her home country of the Philippines on Sept. 15. She flew from Manila to Hong Kong on Sept. 22 and then returned to Manila three days later on Sept. 25.
Paddock had wired tens of thousands of dollars to someone in the Philippines over the past few months, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
ABC News' Sabina Ghebremedhin, Alex Stone and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
