Las Vegas Shooter’s Laptop Missing Its Hard Drive

[edpc]

A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.

Paddock is believed to have removed the hard drive before fatally shooting himself, and the missing device has not yet been recovered, sources told ABC News.

Investigators digging into Paddock’s background also learned he purchased software designed to erase files from a hard drive, but without the hard drive to examine it is impossible to know if he ever used the software, one source said.

The absence of substantial digital clues has left investigators struggling to piece together what triggered Paddock to kill 58 innocent concertgoers and injure more than 500 others on Oct. 1.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-shooters-laptop-missing-hard-drive/story?id=50709285

[edpc]

OK, this is just getting weirder every day...

As the article mentions, other mass shooters have done similar things with their electronic devices, but not at the actual site of the incident.

[austingirl]

This is going to be very hard to explain about this "lone wolf."

[skeeter]

He took the hard drive out before starting his shooting rampage and did what - swallow it?

[INVAR]

I am become more convinced each day as something 'new' is revealed or leaked about this event - that this was some kind of shadow-gov black op, done for more than nefarious purposes.

Maybe seeing if they can off a targeted group of people in a mass casualty event - and then see if get away with it, so they can plan greater and grander 'events'?

After all, the mob runs Vegas and there are cameras everywhere - and yet this "guy" is a virtual ghost and nothing is known about the "perp" except what is fed to us.

In this case assuming the worst might be to our best advantage, since the government local and fed can no longer be trusted with telling us anything but false narratives/ aka lies to push whatever political ends they seek.

[INVAR]

He took the hard drive out before starting his shooting rampage and did what - swallow it?

And here we thought the Warren Commission's 'magic u-turn bullet" was fantastic.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Las Vegas shooter's laptop missing its hard drive
ABC News, Oct 25, 2017, Jack Date, Mike Levine and Pierre Thomas

A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.

Paddock is believed to have removed the hard drive before fatally shooting himself, and the missing device has not yet been recovered, sources told ABC News.


More: http://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-shooters-laptop-missing-hard-drive/story?id=50709285

[edpc]

I can understand taking it out and trying to destroy it, but it would still be there. It would still beg the question as to what he was trying to hide.

[Free Vulcan]

I am become more convinced each day as something 'new' is revealed or leaked about this event - that this was some kind of shadow-gov black op, done for more than nefarious purposes.

Maybe seeing if they can off a targeted group of people in a mass casualty event - and then see if get away with it, so they can plan greater and grander 'events'?

After all, the mob runs Vegas and there are cameras everywhere - and yet this "guy" is a virtual ghost and nothing is known about the "perp" except what is fed to us.

In this case assuming the worst might be to our best advantage, since the government local and fed can no longer be trusted with telling us anything but false narratives/ aka lies to push whatever political ends they seek.

This is the kind of stuff that points to others pulling the strings. Second rule of cleaner ops is to get rid of things like hard drives and incriminating evidence of material support after the bodies that you don't want found.

Whatever the story is, it's not what the official story says it is.

[edpc]

Investigators digging into Paddock’s background also learned he purchased software designed to erase files from a hard drive.....

Bleach Bit thrived on the attention from Hillary’s email story, but no company wants to be associated with this.

[GrouchoTex]

I wonder if we will ever know what happened here.
Wasn't these a story a few weeks ago, where someone broke into the shooter's house, even though it was under FBI and/or LVPD surveillance?

[edpc]

We know there was a break in after police had been there.  What we don’t know is if it was under surveillance.  The break in was through the front door.  You’d have to ask two questions in this instance:

If the place was under surveillance, how the hell did they miss someone going through the front door?

If the home wasn’t under surveillance, why the hell not?

[Sanguine]

Weird.

So he had a hard-drive-less laptop with him?  I guess he could have had the presence of mind to take the HD out before he started shooting and disposed of it somewhere else in the hotel.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Weird.

So he had a hard-drive-less laptop with him?  I guess he could have had the presence of mind to take the HD out before he started shooting and disposed of it somewhere else in the hotel.

Or he never took it with him in the first place, and booted off of CD/DVD/USB.

P.S.  I'm posting this from a laptop with no HDD/SDD.  No point to this, just an interesting coincidence.

[Sanguine]

Or he never took it with him in the first place, and booted off of CD/DVD/USB.

P.S.  I'm posting this from a laptop with no HDD/SDD.  No point to this, just an interesting coincidence.

So, the CD/DVD/USB whatever would be in the room. 

And, that is an interesting coincidence.  What do you do with it booting that way?  Spreadsheets?  Word docs?

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

So, the CD/DVD/USB whatever would be in the room. 

And, that is an interesting coincidence.  What do you do with it booting that way?  Spreadsheets?  Word docs?

He could have removed them and tossed them out ahead of time (same with the HDD).  It's possible to run a computer after removing the boot media, but a little tricky, however the article doesn't say the laptop was running so there's no reason, IMO, to assume that anything should be in the room.

I pretty much just use the laptop to attach a keyboard and monitor and then connect remotely to another machine in the house, but I could do anything with it I could do with a HDD (except maybe move around the house when booted off the network, but I'm not interested in that anyway).  The HDD died some time ago and I just didn't see any reason to buy a new one.

[TomSea]

In one way, it blows the case open... but then, it's still, "wait and see". Bizarre at any rate.

[Sanguine]

He could have removed them and tossed them out ahead of time (same with the HDD).  It's possible to run a computer after removing the boot media, but a little tricky, however the article doesn't say the laptop was running so there's no reason, IMO, to assume that anything should be in the room.

I pretty much just use the laptop to attach a keyboard and monitor and then connect remotely to another machine in the house, but I could do anything with it I could do with a HDD (except maybe move around the house when booted off the network, but I'm not interested in that anyway).  The HDD died some time ago and I just didn't see any reason to buy a new one.

He wasn't going fishing so he didn't need a weight, so why would he have had a non-usable laptop with him?  The one thing we do know is that the laptop sans HD was there in the room with him.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Weird.

So he had a hard-drive-less laptop with him?  I guess he could have had the presence of mind to take the HD out before he started shooting and disposed of it somewhere else in the hotel.

It would be found.

This smells like someone took it out of the computer after he was dead.  If it stinks like a coverup, it very likely might be.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

He wasn't going fishing so he didn't need a weight, so why would he have had a non-usable laptop with him?  The one thing we do know is that the laptop sans HD was there in the room with him.

Wasn't he in the room for several days?

[Sanguine]

Wasn't he in the room for several days?

Yes, and.....?

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Yes, and.....?

Maybe he used the laptop for the first several days, then removed and disposed of the HDD outside the room (most likely after making a bootable CD/USB and then wiping the HDD).  Easier to be discreet throwing out a small laptop HDD(/CD/USB) than a laptop.

BTW, I don't any opinion on what this nutjob did or didn't do, I'm just pointing out that there are simple situations where he could have a laptop w/o a HDD and the HDD would not need to be found in the room.

[TomSea]

Somehow I heard on the news, they found out that the shooter (paddock) did a search on SWAT team tactics. I heard little else besides that.

[Sanguine]

Maybe he used the laptop for the first several days, then removed and disposed of the HDD outside the room (most likely after making a bootable CD/USB and then wiping the HDD).  Easier to be discreet throwing out a small laptop HDD(/CD/USB) than a laptop.

BTW, I don't any opinion on what this nutjob did or didn't do, I'm just pointing out that there are simple situations where he could have a laptop w/o a HDD and the HDD would not need to be found in the room.

Yes, I thought something similar.  He could have tossed it in the trash in the ice machine room and no one would ever know.

[Neverdul]

I think Ellen DeGeneres now has the hard drive. It was given to her by John McCain after Raphael Cruz snuck into Paddock’s room and stole it as Paddock took a knee while Frederica Wilson wearing nothing but a sequenced pink cowboy hat distracted him by singing the National Anthem then shooting him with Lee Harvey Oswald’s gun because the hard drive evidently had a picture of George Bush Senior grabbing Harvey Weinstein’s ass.