The gunman in Sunday night's mass shooting in Las Vegas, Stephen Paddock, has several ties to Central Florida.

Almost 60 people were killed and more than 500 injured in the shooting, which happened during an outdoor country music concert on the Las Vegas Strip. Authorities said Paddock randomly gunned down concertgoers with an automatic weapon from a 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay casino, across the Strip from the concert.

Paddock's brother, Eric, who lives near the Waterford Lakes community near the University of Central Florida, said he's in shock over what happened and simply can't believe his brother would do something like this.

"Steve had nothing to do with any political organization, religious organization, no white supremacist (group), nothing as far as I know, and I've only known him for 57 years," Eric Paddock said.

In a break from talking with federal investigators at his Orlando-area home, he said Stephen Paddock lived in Melbourne until he helped him move to Nevada, where he loved to play high-stakes video poker.

“He played at a lot higher level than you people do, but he had a lot more money than you people had,” Eric said. He described his brother as a multi-millionaire real estate investor.  

There's “absolutely no way I can even conceive that my brother would shoot a bunch of people he doesn’t even know,” Eric Paddock said.

"Yes, he had a couple of guns. I mean, it's legal to own a couple of guns in the United States," he said of his brother, who he said had a girlfriend and no children.

Eric Paddock said he last talked to Steve when his power came back on after Hurricane Irma.

“When did we get power back, five days after the storm, he texted me and said, 'How is mom?' and I texted him back.”

Eric said their 90-year-old mother was the last one to talk to Steve just a couple of weeks ago. He said federal investigators were reaching out to her as they try to figure out what may have led to what happened in Las Vegas.

"Something just incredibly wrong happened to my brother," Eric said.

Shooter owned home in Viera

In Viera in Brevard County, residents in one 55-and-older community said he used to live there.

Records indicate Stephen Paddock lived at a home in the Heritage Isle neighborhood for two years, between 2013 and 2015.

FBI agents interviewed residents in the neighborhood Monday morning.

A resident in community in Viera said that he didn’t have face-to-face contact with Paddock, nor talked to him on the phone.

Neighbors said Paddock and his girlfriend lived in Las Vegas, and their profession was gambling.

Don Judy said Paddock asked him to look after the house while he was away and didn't see anything suspicious inside.

“I’m aghast. I just can’t believe it, but obviously it happened," Judy said. "I have no idea what the cause was. He never said anything about guns or anything. He never owned guns that we know about. He never said anything about them. I mean, he did travel the world.”


Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock owned this home for a few years in Viera in Brevard County. (Spectrum News 13)

Sharon Judy said Paddock and the woman visited his Viera home about five times in two years.

"He was real friendly," Sharon Judy said. "He only came now and then on the weekends. He was a big gambler, he and Marilou both."

Marilou Danley was considered a person of interest early in the investigation, but police no longer consider her one.

The current owner of the house, Mick Anderson, said he had little to no interactions with Paddock.

“The house was pretty much empty when we looked at it," Anderson said. "I dealt with him over the phone, mainly through the Realtors, and that was it.”

The neighbors said Paddock purchased the home to be closer to family in Orlando.