Authorities have released a number of handwritten letters sent to the mass shooter who killed dozens of people and injured hundreds other in Las Vegas in 2017 during an outdoor concert. The letters were written by a friend of the gunman, Jim Nixon, and sent to him over the course of a few years.
They were found in an abandoned office building and sent to authorities, who received them a few months after the deadly attack.
One of the letters, dated in the months before the attack, pleaded with the future gunman not to kill innocent people.
“… Use your head don’t do anything stupid and please don’t go around shooting people. I figure out what you are going to do and I strongly advice you not to do it, You been stockpiling guns since2013 and you even claim you were going to become a gun collector. What is wrong buddy? This is my Last Day out in the Friggin world and I hope and pray you don’t do anything Silly until I get back. I beg you not to go throgh with what ever it is you plan to do. You said you trust me and you consider me as your Friend so why not tell me what you are doing.
Steve you said that I was the one who kept you from doing something bad for the past 4 years so why noyt wait until I get back and you and I will sit down and discuss it. PLEASE don’t hurt innocent PEOPLE, I beg you.
If you go with a weapon the police will kill you. I am here to tell you. Please rethink whatever it is you are doing or going to do…”
SOURCE: Las Vegas-Review Journal
Nixon also spoke of a phone conversation the two of them apparently had, where Nixon mentioned that “I believe you are lying to me and you are going to hurt someone or kill someone. You sound like a real mad man on the phone tonight.”
Nixon wrote about dreams that the gunman told him about, that were making him think the way he was thinking. It was an apparent concern of Nixon’s that the suspect’s mental health was suffering for at least a few years leading up to the attack.
“Remember you have to answer to God Almighty for your earthly crimes,” Nixon wrote in one letter.
While a motive was never determined in the rampage, Nixon says he believes the suspect became ‘bitter at the system’ over the years and started talking a lot about death.
