Crime & Safety
Las Vegas Shooting: Anchorage Fisherman With Big, Hearty Laugh Slain, Sister Says
Shannon Gothard said her brother was a former competitive hockey player and was coming off an extremely successful fishing season.
ANCHORAGE, AK — A commercial fisherman from Anchorage, Alaska, was among at least 58 people killed at a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas late Sunday, a relative said. Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nevada, was armed with more than a half-dozen firearms – some of them high-powered automatic weapons – when he started shooting from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino at a crowd gathered for a music festival.
In the span of about two minutes, Paddock massacred at least 58 people and injured more than 500 others in the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. Then, as police closed in on him, the gunman killed himself, officials said.
Shannon Gothard said Monday she learned from friends of her brother that Adrian Murfitt, 35, was killed. Murfitt's friends were with him when he died, she said, though they haven't received official confirmation. (For more information on the Las Vegas concert shooting and other Anchorage stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)
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RAW: Video Of First Moment Of Las Vegas Shooting
Asked if the family was holding out hope that he survived, she replied, "No. No."
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Gothard described Murfitt as a former competitive hockey player who still dabbled in the game and had a big hearty laugh.
"His whole life was always around hockey," she said.
After graduating from high school, he became a fisherman and picked up odd jobs in the offseason. Murfitt just came off an extremely successful fishing season when he made the trip to Las Vegas with some good friends, Gothard said.
He "was happy to pay some things off and had made some really good money and decided to go out and celebrate and go to the concert and treat himself to something nice and fun," she said.
A North Pole, Alaska, father-of-three was also shot at the concert, according to friend and real estate broker of that victim. Fellow real estate agent Rob McIntosh, 52, was shot three times but is expected to survive.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Avonna Murfit via AP