Newly released search warrants reveal new clues investigators were looking for in the hours and days after one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
According to documents obtained by Contact 13, just five hours after the shooting, the wheels of justice began turning.
A series of Las Vegas judges approved 39 pages of search warrants. Police detectives were after a flurry of items in Stephen Paddock's, hotel room at Mandalay Bay, as well as his vehicle in the Mandalay Bay parking garage, and Paddock's Mesquite, NV home.
The court documents reveal detectives wanted phone records, emails, microscopic physical evidence and even Paddock's body as evidence.
Detectives were given 10 days, according to the Judge's orders, to gather, document and provide an inventory of the items they found.
The warrants show the police investigation was slowed by the flow of information from Google.
Detectives found a variety of mobile devices that belonged to Paddock, and investigators sought emails or other electronic information from those devices.
The documents reveal Google did not immediately respond to the search warrant requests, then later informed police some of data could not be found.
Police and the FBI were interested in Verizon cell phone records including all message, data, and telephone records for two phone numbers belonging to Paddock.
The return list for the search warrant inventory has not been made public.
Those documents are involved in a legal fight between multiple media organizations, including 13 Action News KTNV-TV, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Authorities request the documents remain sealed.
A judge will decide whether the public should see the sealed documents in a hearing scheduled for January 16, 2018.
