Stephen Paddock, the gunman who murdered 59 people in Las Vegas over the weekend, previously booked two hotel rooms that would have overlooked the Lollapalooza grounds during the dates of the Chicago festival earlier this year, TMZ is reporting.
Paddock conducted his killing spree from the window of a room at the Mandalay Bay casino and hotel on the Vegas strip. TMZ has screenshots of Paddock’s reservation of two rooms at Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, located across the street from Grant Park, where a reported 400,000 people gathered for Lollapalooza in August. This year’s Lollapalooza headliners included Lorde, Muse, the Killers, Arcade Fire, Blink-182, Chance the Rapper, and the xx. According to TMZ’s sources, Paddock specifically requested a “view room” with a window overlooking the park, and booked both rooms for dates that would encompass the entirety of the festival.
Previously, the Daily Beast reported that Paddock had also booked rooms in Vegas for the weekend before his attack on the Route 91 Harvest festival. That weekend, the Life Is Beautiful festival, which also included Chance the Rapper and Lorde on its lineup, was in the city. According to the report, the rooms Paddock rented had a direct line of sight to the festival grounds.
