Investigators Say Wife Of Orlando Gunman May Have Tried To Stop Him
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ORLANDO (CBSMiami) - Sources are saying the wife of the gunman who opened fire at an Orlando nightclub may have tried to stop him from carrying out the attack that killed at least 49 people.
"Mr. Mateen, the entire world wants to know what your daughter-in-law has said to you," CBS4's Silva Harapetian asked Seddique Mir Mateen, the shooter's father.
"She is just as surprised," he replied.
Investigators told a CBS producer that Noor Salman, Omar Mateen's wife, tried to stop her husband from attacking the pulse nightclub.
She was interviewed by the FBI and was administered a polygraph.
Her father-in-law wouldn't say her whereabouts, adding he has been receiving threats.
Salman also told authorities she went with Omar Mateen to Pulse once before.
It's unclear when Mateen married his second wife, Salman, but an August 30th, 2013, property deed in Saint Lucie County identified them as a married couple. Family members said the pair had a young son about 3 years old.
The information comes as investigators are trying to find out Omar Mateen's motives for the attack. Among those theories is that he may have been conflicted about his sexuality.
Kevin West, a regular at Pulse nightclub, said when he saw Mateen's photo on TV he immediately recognized him from a gay dating app. He said Mateen sent him text messages on and off for about a year – adding the conversations were pretty innocent.
West told the Los Angeles Times that he was dropping a friend off at the club when he noticed Mateen and said "hi" an hour before the shooting.
Jim Van Horn, 71, a frequent patron at Pulse, said Mateen was a "regular" at the gay bar.
The Orlando Sentinel and other news organizations quoted regular customers at the gay bar as saying they had seen Mateen there a number of times.
"He was trying to pick up people - Men," said Van Horn. "He would walk up to them and then he would maybe put his arm around them or something and maybe try to get them to dance a little bit or something. And then go over and buy a drink or something. That's what people do at gay bars, you know? That's what we do."
Van Horn said he met Mateen once. He said the younger man was telling him about his ex-wife.
"My friends came out from the back and said, 'Let's go take pictures on the patio,'" Van Horn said. "So I left. And then they told me they didn't want me talking to him, because they thought he was a strange person."
"Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," said Ty Smith who added that he'd seen Mateen in Pulse at least a dozen times.
Despite Mateen's pledge of support to the Islamic State, investigators are looking into whether he was conflicted about his sexuality.
Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters she believed he suffered from mental illness. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after their 2009 marriage, Yusiufiy said she was with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and family members had to come literally pull her out of his arms.
Asked during a CNN interview whether she thinks her ex-husband was gay, Yusufiy said: "I don't know. He never personally or physically made any indications while we were together of that. But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality."
She said it's possible he hid feelings about being gay.
"When we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past, that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife, and there was a lot of pictures of him. I feel like it's a side of him or a part of him that he lived, but probably didn't want everybody to know about."
Mateen's father suggested he may have acted out of anti-gay hatred. He said his son got angry recently about seeing two men kiss.
Mateen's shooting rampage at the club early Sunday, in which 49 people were killed, is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
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