After Las Vegas, Searching for Meaning in a Killer's Brain

On October 1, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded 546 more, firing multiple rifles from a hotel room in Las Vegas overlooking an outdoor concert. No one knows why he did it. As part of the attempt to figure that out, The New York Times and others report, the Clark County Coroner's office is sending Paddock's brain to the Stanford University lab of Hannes Vogel, a neuropathologist. Vogel (who, at the request of Stanford's communications office, is not speaking to the press) will perform both visual and microscopic examinations of Paddock's brain, looking for abnormalities, tumors, degenerative illnesses, or anything else that might suggest why an otherwise unassuming video poker player would turn his extensive gun collection on innocent people. Nobody thinks it's going to work.