The family of a victim and several survivors of a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis filed a lawsuit against companies involved in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of the high capacity magazine used by the gunman who killed 8 people and injured several others in 2021.
The federal lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of New York, targets a gun distributor and magazine manufacturers, and alleges the companies recklessly marketed and sold their products to impulsive young men at risk of violence.
The gunman in the April 15, 2021, attack, Brandon Hole, 19, was previously employed at the facility and opened fire on his former coworkers before killing himself. About a year before the attack, Hole browsed White supremacist websites, CNN previously reported. His mother contacted the police in March 2020 because she was worried about his behavior and threatening statements he’d made after he purchased a gun, according to police.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of the estate of Jaswinder Singh, who was killed during the shooting, Harpreet Singh, who was injured, and his wife Dilpreet Kaur, and Lakhwinder Kaur, who was also injured in the attack. They are each seeking at least $75,000 from the lawsuit and are asking for a jury trial, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit targets American Tactical Inc., an American firearms importer, manufacturer and seller, along with the company’s president and the director of marketing and purchasing. Schmeisser GmbH, a German firearms manufacturer; and 365 Plus d.o.o., a Slovenian company that designs, produces and distributes firearms accessories and other tactical equipment are also listed as defendants.
The three companies were involved in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of the 60-round high-capacity magazines that “have been used repeatedly to slaughter and terrorize Americans in horrific mass shootings since long before April 2021,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit claims these companies made these magazines easily accessible to Hole and targeted their marketing campaign to “a consumer base filled with impulsive young men who feel they need to harm others in order to prove their strength and who have militaristic delusions of fighting in a war or a video game.”
“This case is about what happens when companies recklessly design, market, sell, and distribute these accessories to the general public—indiscriminately—and without adherence to reasonable safeguards,” the lawsuit reads.
American Tactical declined to comment to CNN about the lawsuit. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests.
Schmeisser GmbH manufactured the magazine used in the mass shooting and distributed it in the US through American Tactical and 365 Plus, the lawsuit claims.
“The high capacity of the magazine emboldened the shooter to commit the attack, knowing he had the ability to fire 60 rounds continuously without the need to pause to reload,” the lawsuit says.
The complaint says American Tactical promoted marketing videos that show men dressed in tactical vests similar to what Hole wore during the 2021 attack as they fire “a constant stream of bullets at unseen targets in various offensive, tactical operations.”
The lawsuit alleges the firearm companies placed an “unreasonably dangerous product on the market without sufficient safeguards to prevent its foreseeable unlawful use.”
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the gun control advocacy organization that employs two of several lawyers representing the plaintiffs, wrote in a statement to CNN the nonprofit is “trying to achieve justice for these survivors and their family, and hold American Tactical, Inc. accountable for their irresponsible marketing and sales practices.”
“If you decide to sell such highly lethal products to the general public anyway, you need to be very careful about who you’re selling them to. As we allege in our complaint, defendants here have instead taken a hard turn and specifically marketed their highly lethal products to a dangerous class of individuals,” said Philip Bangle, the Brady Center’s senior litigation council.
A mass shooting tied to a birthday party has left four people dead and a “multitude” of injuries in Dadeville, Alabama, state officials said.
The shooting happened around 10:34 p.m. Saturday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Sunday.
“It was tied to a birthday party,” Sgt. Jeremy J. Burkett said. “There were four lives tragically lost in this incident, and there’s been a multitude of injuries.”
Burkett declined to provide more details, citing the ongoing investigation.
One of the victims killed was a member of the Dadeville High School football team, said Ben Hayes, senior pastor of Dadeville’s First Baptist Church.
Hayes also serves as the chaplain for Dadeville police and the Dadeville High School football team. He said the police chief asked him to go to Lake Martin Community Hospital to help with crowd control and ministering students who had gathered.
“It’s a very close, tight-knit community,” Hayes told CNN’s Isabel Rosales. “Everybody knows everybody. That’s why this is so difficult it’s because this, it’s affecting everybody in the community.”
Hayes said students told him the shooting happened at a “Sweet 16” birthday party.
“I knew these kids personally. Most people did,” the pastor said.
Among those gathered at the hospital, “There was a lot of sadness, a lot of concern on faces,” Hayes said.
“I think at this point it’s shock,” he said. “I think probably the anger will come. I think it’s a matter of time to see how people respond to this. But right now, things are quiet, and we’re just praying that it stays that way.”
A prayer vigil will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday outside First Baptist Church, Hayes said.
“What we’ve dealt with is something that no community should have to endure,” Dadeville Police Chief Jonathan L. Floyd said Sunday.
“I also ask each of you please do not let this moment define what you think about the city of Dadeville and our fine people.”
Dadeville, population 3,000, is about 45 miles northeast of Montgomery.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey publicly sent her condolences to the community. “This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians,” Ivey said in a statement to CNN.
“Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge.”
The Alabama shooting happened the same day that shots were fired into a crowd at a park in Louisville, Kentucky. Two people were killed and four others were wounded.
The US has suffered at least 162 mass shootings in the first 15 weeks of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That’s an average of more than 1.5 mass shootings every day so far this year.
The archive defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter.
After a night out, two women were dumped outside hospitals by masked men. Were the men good Samaritans or did they play a role in the women’s deaths? “48 Hours” contributor Jonathan Vigliotti reports.
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A man convicted for ordering a murder-for-hire hit on his brother and Mafia-associated father in the Bronx, New York was sentenced to life in prison Friday, federal prosecutors said.
Anthony Zottola Sr., 45, and co-conspirator Himen Ross, 37, were each sentenced to mandatory life sentences plus 112 years in federal prison after a jury found them guilty in 2022 of hiring gang members to murder Zottola’s 71-year-old father, Sylvester, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Sylvester Zottola was fatally shot in October 2018 as he waited for a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-thru, authorities said.
Federal prosecutors say the shooting was the third attempt on Sylvester Zottola’s life as part of his son’s scheme to take control of the family’s real-estate business. Prosecutors had previously said Sylvester Zottola was an associate of the Luchese family, one of the five mob families that historically dominated New York, and worked with another known mobster, Vincent Basciano.
In November 2017, Sylvester Zottola was menaced at gunpoint by a masked person, and in December 2017, three men invaded his home, struck him on the head with a gun, stabbed him and slashed his throat. He survived the first two attempts on his life, prosecutors said.
In the final murder attempt – which led to Sylvester Zottola’s death – a tracking device had been placed on his car that allowed Ross, who carried out the shooting, to track him to the McDonald’s restaurant, prosecutors said.
“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks. It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business, that he hired a gang of hit men to murder his father,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “For sentencing his father to a violent death, Anthony Zottola and his co-defendant will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
Separately, the defendant’s brother, Salvatore Zottola, was shot in the head, chest and hand in front of his home in July 2018, authorities said. He survived the attack and testified at the trial, CNN previously reported.
One of Anthony Zottola’s attorneys previously placed blame for the attacks on the Bloods gang.
“A violent street gang preyed upon Anthony and his family and caused their tragic ruin. We will appeal this verdict to prevent Anthony from becoming another victim of the Bloods gang. He is not guilty of these violent crimes,” defense attorney Henry E. Mazurek said in October.
Sylvester Zottola held a residential real estate portfolio valued at tens of millions of dollars, and prosecutors said Anthony Zottola, who helped manage the properties, plotted to kill his father and brother to take control of the business.
The additional 112 years of imprisonment added to Zottola and Ross’ sentences represents the combined ages of Zottola’s father, 71, and brother, 41, when they were shot, the US Attorney’s Office said.
Ilana Haramati, another of Zottola’s attorneys, said her client will “vigorously pursue an appeal to vindicate his innocence.”
“Anthony Zottola is a loving father and husband,” Haramati told CNN Saturday. “His sentence to death by incarceration will only compound the trauma that the Zottola family has already suffered.”
Lawyers for Ross have not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment.
Six other defendants have pleaded guilty for their roles in the murder-for-hire conspiracy, the US Attorney’s Office said.
Hilda Marcela Cabrales, 26, left her Weimaraner, Tomás, with a friend when she moved to Los Angeles from Mexico. She planned to call for her beloved dog when she got her bearings — but tragically, that day never came.
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A man has been taken into custody on a murder charge in last week’s fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee on a San Francisco street. The suspect and victim knew each other prior to the slaying, police said. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.
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The San Francisco Police Department on Thursday arrested Nima Momeni, 38, of Emeryville, Calif., for allegedly stabbing to death tech executive Bob Lee.
Mission Local, an independent local news site, first reported the arrest.
City officials held a press conference Thursday afternoon, saying that the arrest occurred earlier in Emeryville,…
Watch Kaitlan Collins’ full interview with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tonight at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Wednesday he “can’t imagine” what the family of the man who killed five people, including a friend of the governor, in Louisville on Monday is feeling.
Beshear’s comments, made during an emotional interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins which was his first since the mass shooting, came after the 911 call placed by the gunman’s mother was released.
“This person murdered my friend. But still, I can’t imagine what his parents must be feeling right now,” Beshear said.
The call by the mother of the gunman, 25-year-old Old National Bank employee Connor Sturgeon, was among a number of 911 calls released to the public Wednesday detailing the panic and fear during the mass shooting that left five dead and three hospitalized.
Relaying details from her son’s roommate, she said her son “apparently left a note” and expressed her shock and confusion.
“My son might be (redacted) has a gun and heading to the Old National on Main Street here in Louisville,” she said in the call. “This is his mother. I’m so sorry, I’m getting details secondhand. I’m learning about it now. Oh my Lord.”
In the interview with CNN, Beshear discussed his friend Tommy Elliott, a bank executive who was among the victims of Monday’s shooting. He said he wanted his friend to be remembered as a loving father and husband.
“Man, he had a great smile. His eyes lit up. Loved life. Was always into something. Trying to make the city a better place, he was just always into something,” he said.
Elliott, the bank’s senior vice president, had chaired Beshear’s 2019 inaugural committee and was a well-known figure in Kentucky Democratic politics.
“He was trying to plan for me for when I’m done being governor, which was something that I hoped we could eventually plan for together,” Beshear said. “An amazing human being, a loving dad.”
Louisville is set to host a vigil Wednesday to let community members grieve the five people killed this week in a downtown bank shooting, as the public absorbs fresh details that investigators are releasing about how the massacre unfolded.
The vigil comes a day after police released dramatic police body camera footage of Monday’s shooting at Old National Bank, in which authorities say a 25-year-old employee opened fire on his colleagues who were in a staff meeting and then engaged in a shootout with police before he was shot dead.
The attacker killed five of his coworkers around 8:30 a.m. in Kentucky’s most populous city, about 30 minutes before the facility was to open, a gruesome assault that the shooter livestreamed online, authorities said. Several others were hospitalized, including a rookie police officer who was shot in the head and was in critical condition Tuesday.
“Our city is heartbroken,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday evening. “These five victims should not be dead – just like everyone else who was killed by gun violence in our city, in our country, should not be dead.”
Police say they’re still trying to determine the shooter’s motive. As an investigation continues, officials expect to release audio Wednesday of 911 calls about the shooting, the mayor said.
And the city will hold a vigil at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, the mayor said.
The vigil will “acknowledge the wounds, physical and emotional, that gun violence leaves behind,” Greenberg told reporters Tuesday. “It will be an interfaith opportunity for our entire community to come together – to grieve, to heal, to begin to move forward.”
On Tuesday, Louisville police released bodycam video from the officers who responded to yet another mass shooting in the US.
The public footage begins with a video from Officer Nickolas Wilt – a 26-year-old rookie who’d graduated from a police academy just 10 days prior – who drove up to the scene with his training officer, Cory “CJ” Galloway.
As Wilt ran toward the gunshots that officers faced upon arrival, Wilt was shot in the head, police said. The released version of Wilt’s footage cuts off before he is shot.
Body camera footage from Galloway shows him taking fire, and then retreating to a safe position behind a planter as officers talk about how they can’t see the gunman, and that the gunman is shooting through windows in the front of the bank. At some point, Galloway was also shot.
Police eventually took down the shooter after he broke the bank’s lobby glass windows, giving officers a vision on his location, Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said.
The entire situation – from when the gunman began firing his assault weapon to when he was killed by police – lasted for about nine minutes, according to Louisville police Lt. Col. Aaron Cromwell.
Those killed in the shooting were Joshua Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; Deana Eckert, 57; Tommy Elliott, 63; and James Tutt, 64, police said.
Nine people – including Eckert, before she died Monday – were hospitalized after the shooting, officials said. Among the eight current survivors, five had been discharged as of Tuesday, a hospital spokesperson said.
The three victims who remain hospitalized include Wilt, who underwent brain surgery and was in critical condition Tuesday, and two others who were in fair condition, the hospital spokesperson said.
Monday’s massacre in Louisville was one of at least 147 mass shootings this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.
It took the assailant one minute to complete the bloodbath before he stopped and waited for police to arrive, according to footage of the massacre described by a city official to CNN.
The shooter, identified by police as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, had livestreamed the gruesome attack on Instagram – the video has since been taken down.
The Instagram video begins by showing an AR-15-style weapon, followed by a worker in the bank saying good morning to the gunman, the official said.
The gunman then tries to shoot her in the back but fails because the safety is on and the weapon still needs to be loaded, the official said. Once the shooter loads the weapon properly and takes the safety off, he shoots the worker in the back, the official said.
The assailant then continues his rampage, firing at workers while they tried to outrun him, the official said. The shooter does not go to other populated floors of the bank, the official said.
Once the shooter finishes firing, he sits in the lobby area that looks out onto the street, apparently waiting for police, the official said.
Police arrive about a minute and half later, the official said, at which point a gunfire exchange ensues before police eventually shoot and kill the gunman.
Sturgeon used an AR-15-style rifle in the shooting, police said. Six days before the killings, he legally purchased the rifle from a local gun dealership, the interim Louisville police chief said Tuesday.
Sturgeon had interned at the bank for three summers and been employed there full-time for about two years, his LinkedIn profile showed. The assailant had been notified that he was going to be fired from the bank, a law enforcement source said Monday.
The mayor, however, said doesn’t believe the shooter was given a notice of termination.
“From what I have been told from an official at the bank, that is not accurate,” Greenberg told reporters Tuesday.
A former high school classmate of Sturgeon’s who knew him and his family well said he never saw any “sort of red flag or signal that this could ever happen.”
“This is a total shock. He was a really good kid who came from a really good family,” said the classmate, who asked not to be identified and has not spoken with Sturgeon in recent years. “I can’t even say how much this doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe it.”
As Louisville investigators piece together what led up to a mass shooting inside a downtown bank that left five people dead, several victims remain hospitalized, including a police officer in critical condition after a shootout with the 25-year-old gunman.
The gunman, identified by police as employee Connor Sturgeon, was livestreaming online as he carried out the shooting at Old National Bank, officials said. He opened fire inside a conference room during a morning staff meeting, Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, amanager at the bank, told CNN.
Buchheit-Sims, who was attending the meeting virtually, watched in horror as the shooting played out on her computer screen, saying the incident “happened very quickly.”
“I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to say that,” she said.
One of the hospitalized victims, 57-year-old Deana Eckert, died later Monday, police announced, though it is unclear if she was among the three people in critical condition earlier in the day.
The four other victims, who died Monday morning, were identified by police as Joshua Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; Tommy Elliott, 63; and James Tutt, 64.
Sturgeon, whose LinkedIn profile showed he had internedat the bank for three summers and been employed there full-time for close to two years, had been notified that he was going to be fired from his job at the bank, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
The source said the gunman left behind a note for his parents and a friend indicating he planned to carrying out a shooting at his workplace, though it is unclear when the message was found.
The gunman, who was still firing when police arrived, was killed in a shootout with officers, police officials said. At least two officers, including one who was shot in the head, were injured during the gunfire.
Monday’s massacre is the 146th mass shooting so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, as such tragedies continue to strike at the hearts of American communities while they go about their daily lives. It also falls exactly two weeks after three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a Christian school in neighboring Tennessee, fueling a fierce fight between Democratic and Republican state lawmakers over gun control.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered flags across the state to fly at half-staff until Friday evening in honor of the victims, but some Democratic lawmakers are concerned that the expressions of grief will come and go without meaningful gun violence solutions.
“My worry is that everybody will raise their fists in anger and mourn and then in six weeks, eight weeks we go back to doing the same – nothing,” state Sen. David Yates told CNN Monday. “I hope that they all don’t have to die in vain like so many of the other victims of these mass shootings. Maybe something positive can come from it.”
President Joe Biden also echoed his repeated push for gun reform legislation and called on Republican lawmakers to take action.
“Too many Americans are paying for the price of inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?,” the president said in a tweet.
Members of the Old National Bank executive team, including CEO Jim Ryan, were in Louisville Monday on the heels of the shooting, the company said on Facebook.
“As we await more details, we are deploying employee assistance support and keeping everyone affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers,” Ryan said in a statement that morning.
The shooting began around 8:30 a.m., police said, about 30 minutes before the bank opens to the public. Bank staff were holding their morning meeting in a conference room when the shooter opened fire, Buchheit-Sims, the bank manager, said.
One bank employee frantically called her husband as she sheltered inside a locked vault, the husband, Caleb Goodlett told CNN affiiliate WLKY. By the time he called 911, police were already aware of the shooting, he said.
“Just a very traumatic phone call to get,” Goodlett told the affiliate, adding that he has since seen his wife and she is okay.
The gunman died at the scene after being shot by police during an exchange of gunfire, officials said.
Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie officer, ran toward the gunfire and was shot in the head, interim Louisville Metro Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. He had graduated from the police academy just 10 days before the shooting.
Wilt underwent brain surgery and was in critical but stable condition as of Monday afternoon, the chief said.
The gun used in the shooting was an AR-15-style rifle, a federal law enforcement source told CNN. The semi-automatic rifle is the most popular sporting rifle in the US, and 30% of gun owners reported having owned an AR-15 or similar-style rifle, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey. The AR-15 and its offshoots have been the weapon of choice in many of the most horrific mass shootings in recent memory, including the Covenant school shooting in Nashville just two weeks ago.
The bank sits on the fringe of Louisville’s developing downtown business district, stateSen. Gerald Neal, who represents the district where the shooting happened, told CNN. “You wouldn’t really expect anything to happen at this location,” he said.
Despite the shock of the shooting in Kentucky’s most populated city, Neal believes discussions about gun control in the state will still be an “uphill battle.”
“This is not a state that’s friendly to those who would think about gun reform … or gun control in some way or even reasonable, as you might consider, gun steps that we could take in terms of restricting them. This is not that state. However, the effort continues.”
One of the shooting victims, bank senior vice president Tommy Elliot, was remembered by several local and state leaders as a close mentor and beloved community leader.
“Tommy was a great man. He cared about finding good people and putting them in positions to do great things. He embraced me when I was very young and interested in politics,” state senator Yates told CNN. “He was about lifting people up, building them up.”
Elliot was also close friends with Gov. Beshear and Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who said he spent Monday morning at the hospital with Elliot’s wife.
“It is painful, painful for all of the families I know,” Greenberg said while speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “It just hits home in a unique way when you know one of the victims so well.”
Beshear remembered Elliot an “incredible friend” and also called the others who were killed “amazing people” who will be missed and mourned by their communities.
The city is setting up a family assistance center in collaboration with the American Red Cross to provide support for those impacted, Greenberg said.
“To the survivors and the families, our entire city is here to wrap our arms around you,” Greenberg added.
But the GOP had almost nothing to say, reflecting the way that it is locked into positions that animate its most fervent grassroots voters but risk alienating it from much of the public.
A controversial ruling from a conservative judge in Texas that could halt the use of a popular abortion drug nationwide, and another shooting spree – this time in Kentucky – sparked outrage among Democrats and calls for strengthening gun safety measures and protecting abortion rights.
Most Republicans stayed silent on the two issues on which they have achieved their political and policy goals but that are threatening the party’s long-term viability.
After the shooting in downtown Louisville on Monday, Kentucky’s Republican senators issued condolences but offered no solutions about how the tragedy, which killed five people and injured eight others, might have been avoided. The gunman used a rifle in the attack after being notified of his impending dismissal from a job at a bank, a law enforcement official said.
“We send our prayers to the victims, their families, and the city of Louisville as we await more information,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wrote in a tweet that also praised first responders. And Sen. Rand Paul tweeted that he and his wife were “praying for everyone involved in the deadly shooting,” adding that “our hearts break for the families of those lost.”
Democrats offered condolences too, but also had a more practical response. President Joe Biden called for the kind of gun safety reform that is impossible with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and without Democrats holding more seats in the Senate. “Too many Americans are paying for the price of inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?” Biden asked in a tweet.
Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who represents Louisville in Congress, called for action to tackle gun violence. “Thoughts and prayers for those we lost, those who are injured and their loved ones and families are appreciated, but today serves as a stark reminder that we need to address gun violence at the national level,” the freshman congressman said.
Over the last few decades, Republicans have expertly used gun rights and a push to overturn a constitutional right to end a pregnancy to energize their most loyal voters. And on each issue, in a purely political sense, it’s hard to argue that they have not racked up considerable wins.
There are more guns than ever in the US. Republicans around the country are leading efforts to slash firearms regulation and broaden citizens’ capacity to carry guns. Despite a murderous run of massacres in schools, nightclubs, places of worship and, on Monday, in a bank, the party has effectively closed down all significant attempts in Congress to make it harder to buy weapons – including the assault-style rifles used in recent shootings. A bipartisan effort to persuade states to embrace red flag laws, which could help authorities confiscate weapons from people thought to pose a risk, did pass Congress last year. But its success was all the more notable because of the paucity of other federal legislation in previous decades.
On abortion, meanwhile, the 50-year conservative campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade ranks as one of the most stunning victories for a long-term political movement in history. It reached its apex with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.
Yet it’s possible that these famous wins could carry a significant risk for the party.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace calls herself “pro-life,” but also warns that GOP-backed state laws that don’t provide exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother alienate large and vital sections of the US electorate. Mace was a rare Republican to publicly respond to Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s abortion drug ruling last week, which Democratic groups have seized on to renew claims Republicans want a national ban on abortion.
“We are getting it wrong on this issue,” Mace said on “CNN This Morning” on Monday. “We’ve got to show compassion to women, especially to women who’ve been raped. We’ve got to show compassion on the abortion issue, because by and large, most of Americans aren’t with us on this issue.” She called for the US Food and Drug Administration to ignore the judge’s ruling, aligning her with progressive Democrats like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
One reason Republicans have been successful in tightening abortion restrictions and loosening those on guns has been that their voters have embraced these two issues. They are make-or-break for many activists, and candidates have shaped their platforms as a result. Democrats, however, have traditionally been less successful in energizing their core supporters on both. The disparate intensity level among the parties was one factor in the sequence of events that led to a new conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe. For years, Democrats trod carefully around the guns issue, wary of alienating more moderate or soft conservative voters.
But there are signs this could be changing. Abortion was a huge motivator for Democratic voters in last year’s midterms and the Supreme Court’s ruling clearly hamstrung Republican candidates in several key swing races. In Wisconsin, which reverted to a pre-Civil War law banning almost all abortions once Roe was overturned, the issue was critical to the victory of a liberal candidate in last week’s state Supreme Court race, which flipped the conservative majority.
Liberal fury over the failure to enact new gun laws stoked a political storm in Tennessee last week. Republicans expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers from the state’s House of Representatives for leading a gun reform protest inside the chamber after a mass shooting at a Nashville school the week before that killed six people, including three nine-year-olds. This highlighted a growing frustration among Democrats at their impotence in the face of endless mass shootings. (One of the lawmakers, Justin Jones, was sworn back into the chamber on Monday on an interim basis after the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted to appoint him.)
Despite this shifting political terrain, there are few signs that top Republican leaders are willing to change the party’s tack on guns or abortion. Or that they have the political room to do so. Even though it makes sense for Republicans to appeal to a more general audience to avoid alienating crucial suburban, moderate and female voters, the vehemence of their core supporters makes this an impossible straddle. It’s a similar dynamic to the one many GOP power brokers have long faced with Donald Trump. The former president remains so popular with base voters that his GOP critics risk their careers by publicly opposing him. And yet, he has long been a liability among general election voters – as proved by the GOP’s performance in 2020 and 2022.
The party’s failure to align with most Americans on abortion and on some aspects of gun safety may not be sustainable. Polls show that many voters, including younger Americans, are being driven away from the party because of its positions.
In a Harvard Youth Poll released last week, which was completed before the shooting in Nashville, 63% of 18-to-29-year-olds said that gun laws should be made more strict, with 22% saying they should be kept as they are, and 13% that they should be made less strict. Young Americans are generally on the same page as the public as a whole. In October 2022, 57% of all Americans said that laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, with 32% saying laws should be kept as they were and 10% that laws should be made less strict, according to a Gallup survey from October 2022.
On abortion, only 26% of Americans favor laws making it illegal to use or receive through the mail FDA-approved drugs for a medical abortion, while 72% oppose such laws, according to a PRRI report that analyzed polling on the issue over the last year. While 50% of White evangelical Protestants favor making it illegal to use or receive those drugs, less than half of any other racial, gender, educational or age group agree.
In a Gallup poll in January, 46% of Americans said they were dissatisfied with US abortion policies and would prefer to see less strict abortion laws. That’s a record high in the firm’s 23-year trend, up from 30% in January 2022 and just 17% in 2021.
Given these numbers, and recent election results, it’s not surprising that some Republicans not actively courting the base may choose not to speak at length on guns and abortion. And such data may also help to explain the GOP’s increasingly anti-democratic turn as it seeks to cling onto power – whether in efforts to expel Tennessee lawmakers for disturbing decorum with their anti-gun protests or through Trump’s insistence he won an election he actually lost.
The 32-year-old man accused of stabbing an imam at a mosque Sunday in New Jersey pleaded not guilty to an attempted murder charge in court Monday afternoon.
Serif Zorba was arrested for allegedly stabbing Imam Sayed Elnakib of the Omar Mosque in Paterson. Elnakib, who is in stable condition, was stabbed during the first prayer of the day around 5:30 a.m. while the congregation was kneeling, mosque spokesperson Abdul Hamdan told CNN.
Surveillance video of the incident shows a group of worshippers at the mosque positioned in five long rows. As they knelt down in prayer, a person wearing a hoodie in the third row moved to the front of the room, stepping over other worshippers, and then thrust his right hand into the back of the kneeling imam, the video shows.
The congregation then rose together, and the assailant tried to push through the crowd and flee out of the back of the mosque, the video shows.
Zorba was charged with first-degree attempted murder, third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, according to a news release from the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office.
Zorba, a native of Istanbul, also pleaded not guilty to the unlawful weapon possession charges. His plea was entered Monday by a public defender on Zorba’s behalf.
The suspect appeared in court before Paterson Municipal Court Judge Vincenzo Stampone wearing an orange jumpsuit, with his long hair mostly covering his face. Zorba communicated with court officials through a Turkish translator.
When Stampone asked Zorba about his current address, Zorba indicated that he lived in Paterson but did not offer a proper address.
Zorba is being held on pretrial detention. His next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
The prosecutor’s office said they could not provide any further details on Zorba’s possible motive, citing the ongoing investigation.
The maximum sentence for his alleged crimes is around 26 years, according to the release.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace Monday morning, killing four people — including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor — while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said.
Police arrived as shots were still being fired inside Old National Bank and killed the shooter in an exchange of gunfire, Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. The city’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, called the attack “an evil act of targeted violence.”
The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the country this year, comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, about 160 miles to the south. That state’s governor and his wife also had friends killed in that shooting.
In Louisville, the chief identified the shooter as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, who she said was livestreaming during the attack.
“That’s tragic to know that that incident was out there and captured,” she said.
Meta META, -0.62%,
the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement that it had “quickly removed the livestream of this tragic incident this morning.”
Social company companies have imposed tougher rules over the past few years to prohibit violent and extremist content. They have set up systems to remove posts and streams that violate those restrictions, but shocking material like the Louisville shooting continues to slip through the cracks, prompting lawmakers and other critics to lash out at the technology industry for slipshod safeguards and moderation policies.
Nine people, including two police officers, were treated for injuries from the Louisville shooting, University of Louisville Hospital spokeswoman Heather Fountaine said in an email. One of the officers, 26-year-old Nickolas Wilt, graduated from the police academy on March 31. He was in critical condition after being shot in the head and having surgery, the police chief said. At least three patients had been discharged.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends in the shooting — Tommy Elliott — in the building not far from the minor league ballpark Louisville Slugger Field and Waterfront Park.
“Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad,” said Beshear, his voice shaking with emotion. “He’s one of the people I talked to most in the world, and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend.”
Also killed in the shooting were Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt and Juliana Farmer, police said.
“These are irreplaceable, amazing individuals that a terrible act of violence tore from all of us,” the governor said.
It was the second time that Beshear was personally touched by a mass tragedy since becoming governor.
In late 2021, one of the towns devastated by tornadoes that tore through Kentucky was Dawson Springs, the hometown of Beshear’s father, former two-term Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. Andy Beshear frequently visited Dawson Springs as a boy and has talked emotionally about his father’s hometown.
Beshear spoke as the investigation in Louisville continued and police searched for a motive. Crime scene investigators could be seen marking and photographing numerous bullet holes in the windows near the bank’s front door.
As part of the investigation, police descended on the neighborhood where the suspect lived, about 5 miles south of the downtown shooting. The street was blocked as federal and local officers talked to residents. One home was cordoned off with caution tape. Kami Cooper, who lives in the neighborhood, said she didn’t recall ever meeting the suspect but said it’s an unnerving feeling to have lived on the same street as someone who could do such a thing.
“I’m almost speechless. You see it on the news but not at home,” Cooper said. “It’s unbelievable, it could happen here, somebody on my street.”
A man who fled the building during the shooting told WHAS-TV that the shooter opened fire with a long rifle in a conference room in the back of the building’s first floor.
“Whoever was next to me got shot — blood is on me from it,” he told the news station, pointing to his shirt. He said he fled to a break room and shut the door.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey said the actions of responding police officers undoubtedly saved lives.
“This is a tragic event,” he said. “But it was the heroic response of officers that made sure that no more people were more seriously injured than what happened.”
Just a few hours later and blocks away, an unrelated shooting killed one man and wounded a woman outside a community college, police said.
The 15 mass shootings this year are the most during the first 100 days of a calendar year since 2009, when 16 had occurred by April 10, according to a mass killings database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
Going back to 2006, the first year for which data has been compiled, the years with the most mass killings were 2019 and 2022, with 45 and 42 mass killings recorded during the entire calendar year. The pace in 2009 slowed later in the year, with 32 mass killings recorded that year.
Using security videos and cellphones, investigators pieced together the final moments of Kassanndra Cantrell’s life — which helped them find the man suspected of kill
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A young woman vanishes. Eerie surveillance video captures a man in a hat. Investigators learn the two are linked by a secret. “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports.
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Two police officers and another person were killed in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop in northwestern Wisconsin on Saturday, authorities said.
The gunfire erupted after an officer from the Chetek Police Department conducted a traffic stop in Cameron around 3:38 p.m. local time, according to a news release from the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
A Chetek officer and an officer from the Village of Cameron Police Department were both pronounced dead at the scene, the state agency said.
The “involved individual” was taken to a hospital and was later also pronounced dead, the news release said.
Neither the officers nor the third person killed have been publicly identified. Authorities did not provide information on what prompted the traffic stop or how the shooting unfolded.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice said it is investigating the “officer involved critical incident.”
The department’s Division of Criminal Investigation “is continuing to review evidence and determine the facts of this incident and will turn over investigative reports to the Barron County District Attorney when the investigation concludes,” the news release said.
For Marie Smith, the realization that her daughter Kassanndra Cantrell had been missing for more than two days was almost more than she could take.
Marie Smith: I called everybody … anybody I could think of, and nobody had heard from her. … I was … hoping that she might be alive somewhere (emotional).
Marie Smith: I never thought … that I’d be the person sitting here … talking about my daughter. … I wanted her found.
Kristi Sinclair: I don’t even know how to explain how wrenching it is.
Smith’s close friend, Kristi Sinclair, says it was agony.
Kristi Sinclair: This can’t be happening. This isn’t real. … she lost her phone. She lost her car. She had no money. … I don’t know. … Anything but what you don’t want to think about, anything but that (emotional).
As Kassanndra’s family and friends grappled with her disappearance, police got to work. Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Franz Helmcke was assigned to the case. His first step was to talk to those who knew Kassanndra best.
Natalie Morales: How did Marie describe Kassanndra?
Det. Franz Helmcke: Normal.
Natalie Morales: Responsible.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Yeah. Responsible. She would call and let her know where she was going.
Kassanndra Cantrell
Kassanndra Cantrell/Instagram
Detective Helmcke learned Kassanndra was close with her family and good about staying in touch. She enjoyed making YouTube shopping videos and loved being on stage. She’d even once joined a local production of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” where people act alongside the movie. Smith says it was a perfect fit for her daughter.
Marie Smith: She was with a group of people who were … a little wacky like her.
Cheri Mueller: She was good. … She was just adorable.
Cheri Mueller, the show’s producer, recalls Kassanndra’s natural talent.
Cheri Mueller: She was playing a character by the name of Janet Weiss … She also learned the character of … Columbia.
By all accounts, at the time of her disappearance, Kassanndra was a happy 33-year-old, and not someone who would run off.
Det. Franz Helmcke: This wasn’t the — the typical … missing person that was going to come home in a — in a couple of days.
Detective Helmcke canvassed the area around where Marie and Kassanndra lived and found, on a neighbor’s security camera, a clip of Kassanndra’s white Mazda on the morning of August 25. It was seen leaving the neighborhood.
Natalie Morales: Did you see any video of the car coming back?
Det. Franz Helmcke: No.
As the hours ticked by with no sign of Kassanndra, her family and friends tried to remain hopeful. It was particularly difficult for Kassanndra’s twin brother, Rob. Growing up, the two were inseparable and would stay up late at night to watch scary movies.
Natalie Morales: She was never scared of that stuff?
Rob Cantrell: No.
Natalie Morales: No? Wow. She’s tough —
Rob Cantrell: We laughed at most of it.
Natalie Morales: OK. She’s a tough girl, then.
Rob Cantrell: Yeah.
As they got older, their shared passion for movies evolved into collecting memorabilia. They even dreamed of opening their own collectibles shop.
But as close as they were, Rob couldn’t imagine where his sister went, and he was filled with remorse about their last conversation.
Rob Cantrell: We were having an argument … she wanted to actually come over on the 25th … but I ignored her.
The 25th of August 2020 – the day Kassanndra went missing.
Natalie Morales: That’s a big regret I imagine still for you.
Rob Cantrell: Yeah, because then she probably would have told me what she was doing that day. And I would have … at least known … where she had gone.
Kassanndra’s family and friends organized searches.
Natalie Morales: I can’t imagine what that must feel like to be out there searching and — and knowing what you could possibly be looking for.
Kristi Sinclair: You put it in the back — you don’t think about that. … just help me find a clue, help me find a clue.
Three days after Kassanndra vanished, police found her white Mazda unlocked with the keys still inside in an industrial area where groups of homeless people often camp.
KIRO
And then, three days after Kassanndra vanished, police found her white Mazda unlocked with the keys still inside.
Det. Franz Helmcke: It was … almost underneath Interstate 705 … which … goes into the heart of the downtown Tacoma.
It’s an industrial area where groups of homeless people often camp.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Her car’s in the area. … did something happen down here?
Natalie Morales: Strange place for a young woman to park a car then —
Det. Franz Helmcke: Yeah.
Natalie Morales: — and then go missing.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Yeah.
Natalie Morales: Are alarm bells going off, then?
Det. Franz Helmcke: Yeah, yeah. Increasingly.
Marie Smith: She had clearly gotten ready to go somewhere. … Where did — where did she go? Who did she go to see?
Detective Helmcke had ordered an emergency trace on Kassanndra’s cell phone to try and find her last known location. And he discovered her phone last pinged about 2 miles south of a tower on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound.
Det. Franz Helmcke: One of the first things I did was just get on Google Earth and strike an arc from that tower to see where — where it lands. … and it — it showed as landing … around this shoreline at Owen Beach or Point Defiance Park.
Natalie Morales with detectives at Owen Beach.
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Natalie Morales (at Owen Beach): And when you’re … seeing this huge body of water, you thinking, “we’re just never gonna be able to find this”?
Det. Franz Helmcke: Yeah.
A SECRET REVEALED
Investigators chasing that last ping from Kassanndra’s cell phone knew it was somewhere in the vast waters of the Puget Sound which is nearly 100 miles long.
Natalie Morales: What’s the next step about trying to recover that?
Det. Franz Helmcke: We debated about that because … it’s a needle in a haystack … it’s a … huge body of water.
But Detective Helmcke had a starting point. He knew someone likely had tossed the phone into the water from Owen Beach. Finding it was a longshot, but Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke was up for the challenge. He brought the Pierce County Metro Dive Team out to the beach on a summer day.
Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke: We got lucky with the tides that day. The tide was extremely low, so it made our search area a little less.
Van Dyke had a plan to dramatically reduce the area where the phone might be. First, he asked members of his team to throw stones from the beach to simulate how far someone could throw a cell phone.
Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke: If you picture throwing something from here, it limits the distance that I would have to search for what you threw.
Investigators had ordered a trace on Kassanndra’s cellphone to try to identify her last known location. The phone pinged about two miles south of a tower near Puget Sound. Based on that location, they believed her phone was likely somewhere in the water near Owen Beach in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park. The Pierce County Metro dive team went to the beach and formed a line and searched the area underwater.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
The dive team then formed a line, essentially creating an underwater dragnet.
Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke: We had a boat out in the water and … a line of people on snorkel that day, just looking down.
They were told that Kassanndra’s phone had a case decorated with glitter. The dive team was in the water for little more than an hour when incredibly …
Det. Sgt.Brent Van Dyke: One of the guys on the line said, “Hey, I think I got it.” They saw a sparkle. … “I think I got the phone” and it was the phone.
Incredibly, after a little over an hour, one of the divers spotted Kassanndra’s cell phone with its sparkly case.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
The phone was sent to a specialist to determine if any information could be recovered. The hunt to find Kassanndra was intensifying as detectives learned more about her.
Natalie Morales: She felt like she could … tell you pretty much everything about what was going on in her life, right?
Alexandra McNary: (Laughs) Yes.
Natalie Morales: Even her deepest, darkest secrets, she would tell you first.
Alexandra McNary: Yup.
“Kass is … a rare person,”Alexandra McNary says of her best friend. “She didn’t care what you thought of her … She didn’t care if you liked her. She didn’t care if she was too loud or too in your face. She just was. “
Alexandra McNary
And a month before she disappeared, Kassanndra confided a secret to her best friend.
Alexandra McNary: She texted me a positive pregnancy test and said, “I think I might be preggers.”
And the day she was supposed to meet McNary, but never showed up? It was going to be her first ultrasound. For Det. Franz Helmcke, learning Kassanndra had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance changed everything.
Det. Franz Helmcke: This is what is now piquing my — my interest.
Natalie Morales: Normally in a situation where a pregnant woman disappears … you look at who the partner is first.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Correct.
Kassanndra had also told her mother she was pregnant but didn’t provide details.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I ask Marie … “did she tell you who the father was?” … and she says, well, it was some guy … she met online or through a dating app.
Marie Smith: She told me … it was not somebody that she was actually seeing. … and that he didn’t even live in the area.
It was no secret Kassanndra was actively dating, using apps like Tinder. And Smith told detectives about an old boyfriend Kassanndra was still in touch with, Colin Dudley. The two had dated back in 2006 while in the Rocky Horror acting group. The show’s producer, Cheri Mueller.
Alexandra McNary says Kassanndra told her the father of her future baby was an ex-boyfriend that she had been seeing again: Colin Dudley. He and Kassanndra met in 2006 during a local production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and dated for a few months. Dudley then began a relationship with another “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cast member, and by 2020 they were living together.
Sue Evans
Cheri Mueller: Colin played a character called the Criminologist on stage. Outside of the stage, when he wasn’t performing, he was the head of tech. And he kind of ran the cast.
But after dating for several months, Dudley and Kassanndra broke up. Colin started a relationship with another cast member, Rebecca, and the two eventually moved in together. Steve Ammann hung out at their home regularly to play a game called Dungeons & Dragons.
Natalie Morales: Explain what Dungeons & Dragons is … it’s not a board game, right?
Steve Ammann: No, not a traditional board game. Uh, it’s more of a theater of the mind-type gameplay. … doing things that you wouldn’t normally do in real life … role play a wizard, a rogue, a fighter.
The game always took place in Dudley’s basement.
Steve Ammann: Colin was kind of the Dungeon Master of it. The one who ran the show.
And Ammann liked being around him. Dudley was quick to help if someone needed money, he says, and he still remembers the meals Colin cooked for game nights.
Steve Ammann: He was a chef by profession, so it was nice food.
In 2014, after Dudley’s father died, he rekindled a friendship with Kassanndra.
Marie Smith: She assured me … you know, that she was just there to be a friend. … She’s like … “He’s got a girlfriend.”
According to Smith, Kassanndra and Dudley would sometimes watch movies or grab a bite to eat. At some point, McNary says, even though Colin was living with Rebecca, his relationship with Kassanndra once again turned romantic.
And Kassanndra told McNary that Colin Dudley was the father of her baby.
Alexandra McNary: She was very excited. She talked about, you know, names and games she wanted at the baby shower … She — she had an Amazon registry already made.
Kassanndra’s only hesitation: whether she should tell Dudley. He was with Rebecca and had mentioned he didn’t want to have kids. But McNary says Kassanndra did tell Colin she was pregnant, and he was fine with it.
Alexandra McNary: She called me … and she said, “Well, I told him.” … and “it went better than expected.” … He was calm and said not to worry about it, and that they would talk.
Detective Helmcke wondered if Dudley knew where Kassanndra was.
DET. FRANZ HELMCKE: We’re just trying to follow up with people who knew Kassanndra, you know … places she likes to go that we could maybe look.
Colin Dudley sat and talked with Detective Helmcke on his front porch – and the conversation was recorded.
DET. FRANZ HELMCKE: This is a recorded statement … we are going to be taking from Colin Patrick Dudley.
Det. Franz Helmcke: So, you know, we just kind of begin with just simple, hey, tell us about … you and Kassanndra. … “How did you meet?”
COLIN DUDLEY: I met her at “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” … we were in a relationship for a couple of months and then we broke up in 2006.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I then started kind of running some of these things by him that — that people were telling me.
DET. FRANZ HELMCKE: Talking to other people, talking to Kassanndra’s family and some of the friends … They reported that she was about 10 weeks pregnant … and what we’ve been hearing is that she’s been telling people that you are the father.
COLIN DUDLEY: No way. No. Hell no.
Dudley was adamant. He and Kassanndra were not in a relationship, and he was most definitely not the father of her child.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I asked him, are you sure? You know, no — no one-night stands? No, you know, hookups after the fact or anything like that? No, absolutely not, he says.
In fact, Dudley insisted he hadn’t seen or spoken to Kassanndra since they broke up back in 2006, except once, when he ran into her at the mall.
DET. FRANZ HELMCKE: You haven’t had any – no contact with her. No messages? Or no Facebook or anything?
COLIN DUDLEY: No.
Helmcke believed Dudley was lying. But could he prove it? It turned out a clue to finding the answer was in Smith’s paperwork.
THE MAN IN THE HAT
Detective Helmcke believed Colin Dudley was lying when he said he had not seen or spoken to Kassanndra for years. But it was Kassanndra’s mother Marie Smith who provided some proof. She had been combing through Kassanndra’s old phone bills, where she noticed a mystery number that kept reappearing.
Marie Smith: We didn’t know … whose it was … because it didn’t have a name attached to it.
Natalie Morales: Going back how far in the past?
Marie Smith: Oh, we looked back … months and months, you know … as far back as we could see that this number kept popping up.
And the last time it popped up, Smith told Detective Helmcke, was the morning Kassanndra disappeared.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I said, “OK, so what — what’s that number?” And she tells me … And … I immediately know it’s Colin’s.
Helmcke wanted forensic investigators to take a closer look at Dudley’s phone, which Detective Helmcke had taken when they’d met on Dudley’s front porch.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I told him … I have a warrant to seize your phone. I read him the warrant. Grabbed the phone … and we left.
Investigators later obtained the phone records for both Kassanndra and Dudley’s phones. They were turned over to Detective Ryan Salmon, the cell phone forensics analyst for the sheriff’s department. Salmon noticed something curious: the name “Kassanndra” never appeared in Dudley’s phone.
Natalie Morales: What name was he using for Kassanndra?
Det. Ryan Salmon: He had it under Velma.
Natalie Morales: Why Velma?
Det. Ryan Salmon: We learned later through … Kassanndra’s mother that she had gone as Velma from “Scooby Doo” as a Halloween … costume.
And it’s likely, Salmon said, that Colin Dudley did not want his live-in girlfriend to know he was still in touch with Kassanndra. Even without the information from her water-logged phone, Salmon was able to see when and where she and Dudley interacted simply by having those phone records.
Det. Ryan Salmon: It’s … extremely helpful … in determining where somebody was … during a critical time frame … people have a cell phone with them almost all day, every day.
The phone records showed Kassanndra’s white Mazda driving to the spot where it was found. But had Kassanndra or someone else parked it there? Detective Helmcke knew the city’s light rail system was nearby and asked their security people if they could find any footage of Kassanndra’s car. What they found proved crucial.
Det. Franz Helmcke: “We have the video you want. … you need to get down here and look at it.”
On Aug. 28, 2020, police found Kassanndra’s car parked on a street in an industrial neighborhood; it was unlocked, with the keys on the center console. A light rail system operated along that same street, so investigators requested its train camera footage from the Aug. 25. One video showed a man in a dark hat walking away from Kasssanndra’s car and continuing to the nearby light rail station around 11:50 that morning.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
The videos have never been shown publicly. In one video from a moving light rail train taken the late morning of August 25, Helmcke could see a man in a black hat walking away from where Kassanndra’s car was parked. Then, a different camera shows that same man from a much closer angle.
Det. Franz Helmcke: He’ll cross right in front of this camera. … So, he comes walking across and you can see –
Natalie Morales: Fedora.
Det. Franz Helmcke: — all black, the blue gloves, then the fedora … And he just sits down at the stop.
The time was 11:50 a.m. The man sits for four minutes and then keeps walking.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Now he gets up, continues walking …
Surveillance image of the masked, gloved man in the black fedora.
PCSD
His face, covered by some type of mask, is hard to see but, based on his build and gait, Helmcke suspected that Colin Dudley was the man wearing that fedora. The detective had been told that Dudley often had asked — demanded even — that people call him “Hat” or “Hat Man.”
Alexandra McNary had heard all about it from Kassanndra.
Natalie Morales: Was he always wearing a hat?
Alexandra McNary: He would put it on and switch into his persona of the Hat Man and preferred to be called the Hat Man. The persona was basically the main character from “Clockwork Orange.” Very dark, intentionally so. Morally dubious.
Natalie Morales: Did you see the security video at all of the man in the hat?
Alexandra McNary: I — did get to see it.
Natalie Morales: Did you look at it and say, “that’s Colin?”
Alexandra McNary: Well, who else would it be?
In that video from the light rail system, the man in the hat keeps walking — right into the Tacoma Dome Station parking garage, only blocks away from where Kassanndra’s car was found. Helmcke asked security personnel at the garage if they had any footage. The answer was a resounding “yes.”
Det. Franz Helmcke: They find him walking into the parking garage to a truck.
Det. Ryan Salmon: You can see him using … a remote-control opener, gets into the truck … And then as he exits the parking garage, you can see pretty clearly in the video the license plate which comes back to Mr. Dudley.
That was Colin’s Chevy truck, proving, the detective said, that the man in the video and Colin Dudley were one and the same.
Detective Helmcke was convinced that Colin had done somethingto Kassanndra, and he wanted to get into Dudley’s house—immediately.
Det. Franz Helmcke: We don’t have a body. We don’t have … any true evidence that … Kassanndra is dead. We’re still hoping … maybe she is tied up in the basement.
Six days after Kassanndra Cantrell vanished, a SWAT team burst into Colin Dudley’s house.
“THE MAJOR BREAK IN THE CASE”
Authorities were out in force after they raided Colin Dudley’s house, but they found no sign of Kassanndra.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Kassanndra was … not found inside … but Colin … was detained temporarily for us to do the fingerprints and DNA.
Investigators seized several items from the house, including Colin’s Chevy Colorado truck and a black fedora.
Investigators seized several items from Colin Dudley’s house, including his Chevy Colorado truck and a black fedora.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
DET. FRANZ HELMCKE: I don’t know if it’s the same one he’s wearing in the video or not … there were numerous areas that they identified in the basement where there was possible DNA, blood evidence … And they said that the cadaver dogs showed particular interest in the basement … specifically a brown sofa in the basement.
Det. Helmcke believed something terrible had happened to Kassanndra. Dudley had stopped talking to investigators, but his live-in girlfriend Rebecca Fischer, a carpenter, agreed to sit down for an interview.
DETECTIVE: Do you think he would be capable of hurting Kassanndra?
After a 13-second pause:
REBECCA FISCHER: Physics would say yes, he’s got size and strength on her. I don’t think he would … No, he would not.
And investigators could not prove otherwise. Dudley was free to go.
Natalie Morales: Why can’t you arrest him?
Det. Franz Helmcke: Well … he’s guilty of something. But … what is he guilty of?
Det. Helmcke wanted to know every move Dudley made on August 25, the day Kassanndra went missing. And he said it became clear that Dudley had hatched a well-thought-out plot to get rid of Kassanndra.
Det. Franz Helmcke: He had planned this, and he probably was pretty meticulous in his planning.
In his police interview, Dudley said that early on the morning Kassanndra disappeared, he’d visited Costco.
Det. Ryan Salmon: So, the first stop he makes is at a Costco gas station.
That was at 6:31 a.m. Then he went to a second Costco to pick up supplies for what he had told detectives was a “spring cleaning.” Investigators subpoenaed receipts and the store provided video. Surveillance cameras pick up Dudley in the store around 7 a.m.
Colin Dudley is seen on surveillance video at a Costco store the morning of August 25 — the day Kassanndra went missing. Dudley told detectives he was shopping for supplies for a “spring cleaning.”
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
Natalie Morales: This is where he said he stopped because he needed supplies for his spring cleaning.
Det. Ryan Salmon: Correct. Yes.
Natalie Morales: The video is so crystal-clear.
Det. Ryan Salmon: We think that’s probably the garbage sacs.
Store records show that Dudley purchased a box of heavy-duty trash bags.
Natalie Morales: Goes back to his house.
Det. Ryan Salmon: Right.
Detectives say then Dudley dropped off the supplies at home and drove to the Tacoma Dome Station parking garage arriving at 8:17 a.m.
Det. Ryan Salmon: We have surveillance video for that, too, which shows that truck again … Now, in the back, you’ll see a bike. … And then you’ll see him get out and put on a helmet and get on a bike and ride it away.
Dudley left his truck in the garage and began pedaling home. It’s about a 20-minute ride. Investigators believe he wanted to be home by 9 a.m. because, as it turns out, he and Kassanndra had made plans to meet at his house.
Sure enough, text records show that Kassanndra was outside Colin’s house at 8:49 a.m.
Det. Ryan Salmon: She said, “I’m a bit early, that ok?”
Natalie Morales: And he says?
Det. Ryan Salmon: He says, “Yep, come on down.” And those two messages were both deleted out of his phone.
Natalie Morales: And, so, the two phones are then pinpointed in that same location at the house for a couple of hours.
For a little more than two hours, neither phone showed any movement, and it was during this period of time investigators believe Colin Dudley likely killed Kassanndra Cantrell.
Natalie Morales: It … shows you the amount of premeditation –
Det. Ryan Salmon: Right.
Natalie Morales: — that went into planning this.
Det. Ryan Salmon: Right.
It appears, investigators say, that around 11:40 a.m., Dudley turned off his cell phone as Kassanndra’s phone shows it moving away from the house. Det. Salmon says that’s because Dudley had her phone with him as he drove her car to the spot where he abandoned it near the light rail station.
Natalie Morales: He turns his cell phone off, but doesn’t turn her cell phone off and is driving around with it? What was he thinking?
Det. Franz Helmcke: Apparently … he wasn’t — he wasn’t thinking well enough … not as smart as he thought he was.
Det. Ryan Salmon: You’ll see Kassanndra’s car –
Natalie Morales: Is that it right there?
Det. Ryan Salmon: Yep, that white one coming down.
Surveillance video shows Colin Dudley seated at the light rail station stop. Det. Salmon believes he was gathering himself after murdering Kassanndra.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
And then you see Dudley in the hat walking away from her car. Remember how he paused for a few moments and sat down? Det. Salmon believes he was gathering himself after murdering Kassanndra.
Det. Ryan Salmon: I think he is just physically tired because of probably how violent the incident was.
Detectives say Dudley then retrieved his truck from the garage where he had stashed it earlier that day, drove to Owen Beach and tossed Kassanndra’s phone into the Puget Sound.
Natalie Morales: And what time roughly was … that last ping?
Det. Franz Helmcke: It was around 12:45 p.m.
But while investigators had discovered her phone in the water, they still hadn’t found Kassanndra. They had no idea what Dudley had done with her, but they did have his Chevy Colorado truck, and Helmcke had an idea.
Det. Franz Helmcke: As an investigator, I’ve been exposed to … different technologies … and we knew cars had … electronic … evidence contained in them.
Almost every car or truck has reams of data that can be extracted.
Det. Ryan Salmon: So, this is where the major break in the case, you know, came through.
Natalie Morales: You can turn your cell phone off and not necessarily be able to track. But you can’t turn your car’s black box off.
Det. Ryan Salmon: Exactly.
The black box from Colin Dudley’s truck had a record of Dudley’s movements on August 26 — the day after Kassanndra visited his house.
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department
Helmcke got a warrant to remove the truck’s black box—essentially a computer that tracks and records nearly every move a vehicle makes. He reviewed the data which confirmed much of what they already knew from the phone records. But there was something new that caught everyone’s attention. The truck’s black box had a record of Colin Dudley’s movements on August 26 — the day after Kassanndra visited his house.
Natalie Morales (looking at a monitor): And this is the next morning.
Det. Ryan Salmon: Correct. So, now, we’re at 6:00 a.m. … And then, of course, we noticed where the vehicle stops … that there’s a large, wooded ravine.
On Sept. 22, 2020, Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke rushed to that ravine, which is 8 miles from Dudley’s house. It was nearly a month since Kassanndra had gone missing.
Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke: I, uh, got there first and looked over the hillside, and, uh, you could clearly see that there was, uh, a … garbage can halfway down the hill. … you could see that the garbage can had, uh, a bag liner and, uh, some ropes around it …
He also spotted blood.
Natalie Morales: So, you clearly at this point knew you had remains?
Det. Sgt. Brent Van Dyke: Oh, absolutely.
Helmcke, also at the scene, wanted to make a quick identification and he knew that Kassanndra had a distinctive tattoo.
Det. Franz Helmcke: I asked them to take a picture of it. So, they took a picture and came walking up the hill.
Helmcke recognized the tattoo immediately. Kassanndra Cantrell was dead. Helmcke’s heart sank when he thought about calling Kassanndra’s mother.
Det. Franz Helmcke: So, I called Marie and … I told her that I had information that I needed to share with her.
Marie Smith: My first question was, “is she OK?” (emotional)
Natalie Morales: Mm-hmm.
Marie Smith: And he said … “No, I’m sorry, she’s not.”
Kassanndra’s twin brother Rob overheard that phone call.
Rob Cantrell: The second I heard her screaming, I knew that they had found her.
Colin Dudley was arrested that night and later charged with first-degree murder.
Investigators felt they had built a strong case, so strong that they decided not to try and retrieve the information on Kassanndra’s waterlogged phone.
The case barreled toward trial for two years, and then Kassanndra’s friends and family heard that prosecutors were considering making a plea deal with Dudley. They could not believe it.
Marie Smith: It was premeditated … it was literally cold-blooded.
Kristi Sinclair: I have no words.
Natalie Morales: A lot of anger, though.
Kristi Sinclair: A lot.
HONORING KASSANNDRA
Alexandra McNary: She was an optimist. … She never lost that even up until the end. I believe that she entered his house hopeful.
Hopeful that Colin Dudley was getting comfortable with her pregnancy. Instead, investigatorsbelieve he brutally murdered her. An autopsy revealed exactly how brutal.
Det. Franz Helmcke: There were fractures, major fractures to her skull.
Natalie Morales: So, hit over the head. Many times.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Investigators say they were never able to identify a murder weapon. But they did find those traces of blood — likely Kassanndra’s — in Dudley’s basement.
Det. Franz Helmcke: Basement floor, walls, a stainless-steel table and the laundry room sink.
Police suspect Colin cleaned the basement multiple times after killing Kassanndra and kept her body there overnight, before dumping her in that ravine the next morning. And they believe Colin’s live-in girlfriend Rebecca was home during some of that time.
Det. Franz Helmcke: And thinking about, you know, Rebecca’s there in the house, too.
Natalie Morales: That was my next question. Was there any thought that she had to have been involved?
Det. Franz Helmcke: There was — I mean, some people thought that.
Investigators confronted Rebecca.
DETECTIVE: Did you have anything to do with her disappearance of Kassanndra on any level?
REBECCA FISCHER: Nope.
Det. Franz Helmcke: We did not find any information that … she knew that it went on, that she had anything to do with it. … They kept separate areas of the house. And so, I could see, you know, her doing her own thing and … not going down the basement.
But Rebecca did confirm to police that Colin never wanted to be a father.
REBECCA FISCHER: He does not want to be a dad.
Pierce County Deputy Prosecutors Brian Wasankari and Patrick Vincent went to work on proving Dudley’s guilt.
Brian Wasankari: I thought this was a very strong case, at least circumstantially. I mean, oddly, it’s not one in which we had a great deal of physical evidence. … It was a case that relied on essentially digital records.
Like that video of Colin leaving Kassanndra’s car, those phone records placing Kassanndra at Colin’s house the morning she disappeared, and the data showing Colin’s truck where Kassanndra’s remains were eventually found. For the prosecutors it seemed like a lot, but they were concerned about convincing a jury at trial.
Brian Wasankari: We don’t have an eyewitness, we don’t have a murder weapon, we don’t have a confession.
So, when the defense offered to accept a deal, the prosecutors negotiated. Eventually, Colin Dudley agreed to plead guilty to murder in the first degree for killing Kassanndra. The prosecutors brought the deal to Kassanndra’s family. They were furious.
Colin Dudley was arrested that night and was Charged with first-degree murder Colin Dudley would plead guilty and the case did not go to trial. On Nov. 14, 2022, he was sentenced to just over 26 years in prison for the murder of Kassanndra Cantrell.
KIRO
But on Nov. 14, 2022, Colin Dudley formally entered his guilty plea.
JUDGE: With regard to the charge, Murder in the First Degree, how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?
COLIN DUDLEY: Guilty.
He was sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Kristi Sinclair: I have no words that would even encompass the frustration, anger, sadness, heartache.
Kassanndra’s family and friends had wanted a trial where the full story was told. They are also upset that someone guilty of murdering a pregnant woman would only get 26 years in prison.
Natalie Morales: Do you think the system is broken?
Kristi Sinclair: Very broken in this case. … How is it that somebody can do what he did and not have to spend his life in prison?
It was a sentiment Steve Ammann shared. He felt betrayed by his one-time friend and had even written a letter to the judge saying, “He should not be out at all. He won’t learn from this.”
Colin Dudley likely will get out. And with good behavior, he could be free again as early as 2044.
Marie Smith: He should never see the light of day again.
Natalie Morales: Because when he gets out, he could be in his early 60s.
Marie Smith: Yeah. … and he’s still got all that time to live.
Kassanndra’s family wants to make sure that no one else suffers the way they say they have. They would like a law in Washington State that if someone is guilty of knowingly killing a pregnant woman, they would automatically get a life sentence.
Rob Cantrell: No possibility of parole. You die in jail. … Until there’s any sort of resemblance of justice, I’m not letting this go.
And while the family wages that fight, Kassanndra’s twin brother is trying to honor his sister in other ways she would have loved.
Natalie Morales: You did, though, finally open that dream that you had together, your own store.
Rob Cantrell: Yes. I got a big mural of her hanging in the window and then photos throughout the store of her. It’s a living tribute to her.
Rob Cantrell is trying to honor his twin sister in other ways she would have loved — including a mural of Kassanndra and photos of her in the store they had once dreamed of opening together.
CBS News
The store is not far from Kassanndra’s grave, where he and his mom go to visit her.
Marie Smith: You know, say hi, keep her headstone clean. … bringing her flowers.
Natalie Morales: Do you think what life could be like with her now if she had had the chance to live her life and be a mom?
Marie Smith: Yeah. I think about it a lot because she had all of these plans …She had all of these sweet plans. (emotional)
Marie says her daughter lived life to fullest, immortalized by that distinctive tattoo she had of her favorite quote.
Marie Smith: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”
Marie Smith: she always had something up her sleeve. She would spring little surprises on me … and that’s what I miss most. It’s just a happy presence.
Kassanndra Cantrell’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Colin Dudley.
It is scheduled to go to trial in August 2023.
Produced by Betsy Shuller, Paul La Rosa and Lauren Clark. Greg Fisher is the development producer. Morgan Canty is the associate producer. Doreen Schechter is the producer/editor. Joan Adelman and Marlon Disla are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Thabo Bester, a convicted rapist, escaped from a privately-run prison in Bloemfontein in May last year — but South African police only found out last month.
On Saturday, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said Bester was arrested by Tanzanian authorities on Friday night along with two others: A woman he is reportedly romantically involved with and another person.
“(We) can confirm that escapee Mr. Thabo Bester with his accomplice Dr. Nandipha Maguduma(na) along with a Mozambican national have been arrested in Tanzania late last night,” Lamola told a press briefing.
Bester was believed to have died after setting himself on fire behind bars, but in late March police said DNA tests revealed the charred remains found in his cell belonged to someone else.
Dubbed the “Facebook rapist,” Bester allegedly lured victims on the social media platform before raping and robbing them. He killed at least one victim.
In 2012, he was sentenced to life in prison for rape, robbery and murder.
Police Minister Bheki Cele said the three were held in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha, near the Kenyan border, as they attempted to leave the country.
Authorities stopped the black SUV the fugitives were traveling in after it left a hotel. The suspects had arrived in Arusha from Dar es Salaam, Cele said
The suspects were each in possession of several passports, he added.
Tanzanian authorities identified the third person as Zakaria Alberto.
“All are being held by the police,” Tanzania police spokesman David Misime said in a statement.
“Arrangements for legal communications both locally and internationally are ongoing.”
Doubts about Bester’s death were first raised by local media outlet GroundUp in November.
Last month, police opened a fresh murder investigation after an autopsy revealed the body found in Bester’s cell had died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head before it was set ablaze.
The body’s identity is still unknown.
Earlier this week, police raided a villa in an affluent Johannesburg suburb where Bester was thought to have spent time in hiding with Magudumana.
Lamola said a South African delegation will travel to Tanzania tomorrow to bring the fugitives back.
“We are confident that we will receive maximum cooperation from our sister nation, Tanzania, to assist us to bring these fugitives to justice,” Lamola said.
British private security firm G4S, which operates the prison Bester escaped from, has said three employees were dismissed in connection with the incident.
A former New York police officer and cellmate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein was found guilty Thursday of killing four men in 2015, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced.
Nicholas Tartaglione, who is described by US Attorney Damien Williams as “a former police officer-turned drug dealer,” faces a possible life sentence in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of killing Martin Luna, Miguel Luna, Urbano Santiago and Hector Gutierrez, according to a Thursday news release.
In 2015, Tartaglione suspected Martin Luna had stolen money from him and planned to confront him during an in-person meeting, to which Martin brought along his nephews, Miguel Luna and Urbano and his family friend Gutierrez, the release said. But the meeting was a “deadly trap,” according to Williams, and the events that came thereafter “could only be described as pure terror.”
Tartaglione tortured Martin and then forced one of Martin’s nephews to watch as he strangled him to death with a zip-tie, according to the US Attorney’s Office statement.
The former officer and two of his associates then brought Miguel Luna, Urbano and Gutierrez to a remote wooded location, forced them to kneel and fatally shot them in the back of the head before burying their bodies in a mass grave, the release said.
The three men were “simply at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Williams said.
The four bodies were found in December 2016 on a property belonging to Tartaglione, located about an hour north of New York City, according to the Chester Police Department.
Tartaglione pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment charging him with the four murders and conspiracy to distribute cocaine, CNN previously reported.
Lawyers for Tartaglione have not responded to CNN’s request for comment.
“Tartaglione’s heinous acts represent a broader betrayal, as he was a former police officer who once swore to protect the very community he devastated,” Williams said in a statement.
Tartaglione shared a prison cell with Epstein at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City and had been moved before Epstein’s suicide in August 2019, CNN previously reported.
The former officer was one of the first people FBI agents sought to interview after Epstein, 66, was found dead in the special housing unit of the prison. Epstein was awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of operating a sex trafficking ring from 2002 to 2005 at his Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate in which he paid girls as young as 14 for sex.
A friend of Stephen Paddock, who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history in Las Vegas in 2017, said in letters that he was concerned about Paddock committing a shooting and asked him not to “shoot or kill innocent people,” according to writings obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Ten letters, which were obtained through a public records request, were “found in late November 2017 by the new owners of an abandoned office building in Mesquite, Texas,” according to FBI records, the newspaper reported. CNN has requested the records.
“I can get someone for you who can help you,” Jim Nixon, Paddock’s friend, wrote in a letter dated May 27, 2017, according to the newspaper. “Please don’t go out shooting or hurting people who did nothing to you. I am concern [sic] about the way you are talking and believe you are going to do something very bad. Steve please please don’t do what I think you are going to do.”
In October 2017, Paddock opened fire on a massive crowd of concertgoers from a window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 people in the initial shooting and injuring about 500 others. In the years after the massacre, two more victims have /died of shooting-related injuries.
Paddock sent nine of the letters to Nixon between 2013 and June 2017, according to the report.None were shared in their entirety by the Review-Journal.
Nixon told CNN he exchanged letters with Paddock about two or three times a year.
They first met “around 2010 or 2011” in Virginia and developed a “good relationship,” he said. Nixon said after they became acquainted, he invited Paddock to Nevada to go fishing at Lake Mead and off-road biking in the desert.
Nixon said there were never any problems with their relationship, but later Paddock became “bitter at the system” and started “talking a lot about death.” Paddock mentioned “going postal,” which made Nixon concerned about Paddock’s well-being, Nixon told CNN.
Nixon asked in a letter from August 2014 about a statement Paddock allegedly made about executing an upcoming plan, the Review-Journal said.
“You said in (3) years you would be ready and that your plan would show up in Nevada, California, Illinois, Texas, New York and other cities,” the Review-Journal reported one letter said. “What do you mean?”
In another letter dated March 2, 2017, Nixon wrote: “You must going [sic] on a hunting trip with all those guns you are stockpiling,” according to the newspaper.
“You are a good person and I want you to know that I am concern [sic] about you and your wellbeing,” Nixon wrote in the letter dated May 27, 2017, the Review-Journal reported. “I believe you are lying to me and you are going to hurt someone or kill someone. You sound like a real mad man on the phone tonight.”
Nixon told CNN that he never conveyed his concerns about Paddock to authorities because “he didn’t know [Paddock] was going to do anything” and “couldn’t read [Paddock’s] mind.”
Nixon said he didn’t believe Paddock did it when the first reports identifying the suspect surfaced. But when authorities was confirmed it was Paddock, he said he thought, “Damn, that fool.”
About 22,000 people were attending a country music festival across the street from the Mandalay Bay on October 1, 2017, when Paddock opened fire. Witnesses said the gunfire last 10 to 15 minutes. Paddock, 64, took his own life before law enforcement officers knocked down his door, officials said.
Investigators have for years searched for a motive. Recently, the FBI released a trove of documents that indicate he may have harbored resentment over how casinos treated him and other high rollers.
The heavily redacted documents – which include hundreds of pages of investigation records, evidence inventories and interviews with people who knew Paddock – also provide a fuller picture of the gunman’s obsessive gambling habits.
Still, the investigative documents never arrive at a definitive motive.
Though the FBI said in 2019 that Paddock’s actions were not driven by a grievance against any particular casino or hotel, one fellow gambler interviewed by investigators after the attack said Paddock had become angry about how casinos generally dealt with VIP players.
The gambler, whose name is redacted, told the FBI that Paddock was “upset at the way casinos were treating him and other high rollers” and that he believed the frustration could have caused the gunman to “snap,” according to the documents.
The gambler said that while casinos typically treated high rollers to perks like free cruises and flights, he believed the venues’ approach to such players had changed in the years leading up to the shooting, including banning them from some hotels or casinos, the documents said.
Paddock had been banned from three casinos he frequented in Reno, Nevada, the gambler said.
The gambler also believed the Mandalay Bay “was not treating Paddock well because a player of his status should have been in a higher floor in a penthouse suite.”
Due to the redactions, it is unclear how the gambler knew Paddock.
In order to become the priority player he believed he was, Paddock had spent – and lost – exorbitant amounts of money at casinos, according to people interviewed by the FBI.
The fellow gambler told investigators that Paddock had a bankroll of about $2 million to $3 million, the documents said.
He would regularly play for six to eight hours a day at casinos, and sometimes as many as 18 hours a day, the gambler said.
Investigators also spoke with a woman who worked at the Tropicana Las Vegas casino and resort – just down the Strip from the Mandalay Bay – who said Paddock would visit about every three months, according to the documents.
She described Paddock as a “prolific video poker player” who would only want to discuss gambling when they talked, the documents said.
During a three-day stay at the casino in September 2017, Paddock lost $38,000, she told the FBI.
Real estate agents told CNN in 2017 that Paddock said his income came from gambling and that he gambled about $1 million a year. He paid $369,022 in cash for the home they sold him in 2014, the agents said.
