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Home / World

Orlando nightclub shooting: Omar Mateen's wife knew he was planning massacre

Daily Mail
14 Jun, 2016 06:57 PM7 mins to read

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Angel Colon describes the first moments when a gunman entered Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday and proceeded to open fire.

Orlando gunman Omar Mateen's wife knew he was planning a mass shooting, went on location scouting trips, accompanied her husband to buy ammunition and never warned authorities, new reports claim.

The only thing Noor Zahi Salman did to prevent the worst gun massacre in US history was try to talk her husband out of it, FBI sources told NBC and ABC.

Salman, 30, admitted she was with Mateen, 29, when he bought his ammunition and holster.

And she drove him to Pulse nightclub and other target scenes - including Walt Disney World - "because he wanted to scope them out".

In fact, they visited Disney World more than once to survey the area before Mateen opted for Pulse, law enforcement sources told CBS.

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However, Salman never made any attempts to contact authorities about the impending terror attack.

According to the NBC report, authorities are "considering" charges against Salman for not reporting her husband's massacre plan. The FBI said she is cooperating fully with the investigation.

Salman was seen for the first time after the massacre on Monday evening as she arrived at her apartment in Fort Pierce with police.

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Officers escorted her from a car to the front door. WSVN footage showed her pulling the hood of a grey sweater over her eyes to hide her face.

After collecting belongings from the home she shared with Mateen and their three-year-old son she got back in the officers' car.

On Tuesday, her mother's home in Rodeo, California, was shuttered with the curtains drawn when Daily Mail Online visited.

Her mother Zahi, 50, did come to the door to say that the family are 'OK'.

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She did not comment on Salman's interviews with the FBI but added: "We are OK but we don't want to say anything. I am waiting for my daughter and to hear of her son. We will be OK."

Omar Mateen was said to be a regular at Pulse nightclub and used a gay dating app.
Omar Mateen was said to be a regular at Pulse nightclub and used a gay dating app.

Daily Mail Online also visited Salman's father-in-law, Seddique Mateen, at his home in Port St Lucie.

He said he knew nothing about his daughter-in-law's alleged involvement in his son's terrorist plot.

"I don't know anything. I will wait till (law enforcement officials) tells me," he told reporters at the front door of his four-bedroom custom-built home on busy Bayshore Boulevard in Port St, Lucie, Florida.

"I don't think she was involved."

He also denied reports that his son, who died in the shoot-out with police at Pulse was gay - but then backed off when pressed further.

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"I don't believe he was a - whatever you call it," he said in response to a question as to whether the 29-year-old was a homosexual. I have to wait and to find out myself.

"There was nothing to suggest that he was gay," added Mateen, who looked haggard and said he was feeling ill. When asked whether he ever spoke about homosexuality with his son, Mateen responded: "We never had any discussions.

"But he was a 29-year-old adult and he wasn't living with me. Everybody has his own responsibilities."

Mateen said he is still waiting for answers as to why his son carried out the massacre that left 49 people dead. "I want to know. I wish he was still alive."

Salman had been married to Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, 29, for at least three years and shared an apartment in Fort Pierce, Florida, with the killer and their three-year-old son.

She was listed as Mateen's partner on a St. Lucie County mortgage document from September 2013.

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A second-generation American, Salman was born into a well-to-do Palestinian family who emigrated to California from Ramallah, in the West Bank, in the 1970s.

Salman, the eldest of four daughters, grew up in the small town of Rodeo, 40 minutes north of San Francisco, and attended a business college in nearby Concord.

Her mother Zahi remains inside the family home, which was left to her by her husband Ekbal, 56, following his death last year.

Neighbors described a peaceful family who are quietly religious and have never caused trouble on the tranquil street on which they live.

Glauber Franchi, 38, who runs a cleaning company and lives with his wife Jessie, 33, said: "They have four daughters and they're all married but one.

"They're quiet - you don't see much any movement but they are nice.

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He added: "I worked for her once, cleaning her backyard. When I went there, she showed me the house and they have a lot of religious things in there.

"There are wall hangings that say 'I love Allah' but she has always been nice and there's never been any problems or anything."

Many of Salman's extended family members still live in Rodeo, with a woman thought to be her cousin Sana, 24, insisting that she never knew Mateen when approached by the Daily Mail Online.

"No, I didn't know him [Mateen]," she said. "I have no further comment."

Salman, whose thoughts on the Gaza conflict are unknown, has deleted her own social media pages.

According to an FBI source who spoke to People magazine, the 30-year-old, who has not been charged with any crime, accompanied her husband on a visit to the Disney World Resort's Disney Springs - apparently looking for alternative targets.

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Salman was living with Mateen in Apartment 107 at the Woodland Condominium in Fort Pierce, where Mateen moved after he divorced wife Sitora Yusufiy in 2011.

He also had connections with two homes in south-west Bayshore Boulevard, in nearby Port St Lucie. One was registered in his father's business name and was a four-bedroom home. Seddique Mateen runs not-for-profit firm The Durand Jirga.

The other was said to be bought by Mateen when he was in a "distressed" state for $95,000 in September 2013.

Daily Mail Online obtained photographs inside the killer's apartment in Fort Pierce, where investigators did a sweep on Sunday.

The walls of the apartment are adorned with photos of Mateen's three-year-old son. Loads of toys including a Spiderman bicycle, toy trucks and Mickey Mouse posters can be seen throughout the two-bedroom home.

What looks like a ceremonial sword sits proudly by the TV set in the living room and workout equipment sits in a corner. Mateen was known to be obsessed with his physique and had taken steroids.

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The master bedroom has red sheets on the bed and a bureau is adorned with balloons, photos and bottles of a woman's perfume.

Apartments in the building rent for between $600 and $1,000 at the property. Daily Mail Online learned exclusively that Mateen was earning $1,600 a month from his job at G4S Secure Solutions in Jupiter.

Law enforcement officers surrounded the complex on Sunday, and even brought in bomb detonation equipment as they searched Mateen's apartment.

Mateen earned an associate's degree in criminal justice from Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, and expressed interest in joining the police force.

Instead, he worked as a security officer, a fact that comforted other members of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce where he worshipped, Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the head of he mosque, said.

After spending most of the day searching Omar Mateen's Port St. Lucie home, cops and the FBI moved on to the custom-built four-bedroom home a couple of blocks of north on Bayshore Boulevard where his parents live.

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Neighbor, Tony Schneider, a retired deputy sheriff told Daily Mail Online that Seddique and Shahla Mateen are "the nicest people in the world."

"They are very Americanized, he said. "Just very good neighbors. I have known them for six years and have never had any problems with them.

"My heart goes out to them - of course if they were involved they can rot in hell, but I otherwise I feel so sorry for them."

Schneider said that Seddique - who he knows as Sid - can often be seen in his yard and walking up and down the street. He said he did not know his wife nearly as well.

"I believe he is in insurance, he has done well for himself and they have three daughters, all went to college, who I believe are in the medical field.

"But I didn't know the son. I saw his picture on television this morning and I recognized him, but he only came here rarely."

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