VEN (LAS VEGAS) — As the ongoing  investigation into the Las Vegas shooting becomes more and more incredible and  bizarre,  anonymous sources tell VEN that alleged Las Vegas mass murderer Stephen Paddock may have been a patsy after all!

According to VEN Senior Las Vegas Correspondent Lester Diamond, Mr Paddock was lured to a Hollywood producer’s room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel early Sunday evening,  with the false expectation that he would be vetted for a seat at an exclusive, private, high-stakes poker game with the grandson of Jerome Lester “Curly” Horwitz, of Three Stooges fame, as well as several other descendants of the wacky low-brow high-jinx comedy team.

A longtime fan of Mr Horowitz’s work (and for years a sometimes Larry Fine impersonator himself), Mr Paddock became enraged when —  instead of the much-anticipated Stooge-family poker players and rare artifacts from the Stoogeum that he would be allowed to bid on —   he was met by a fat, salacious Hollywood producer in an open silk kimono who began pressuring him to engage in various three-way homo-erotic acts with himself and Security Guard Jesus Campos in return for a small part in the soon-to-be-under-development Weekend At Bernie’s III.

When a furious Mr Paddock tried to leave, threatening to go to the police,  the producer — Mr X —  panicked and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

Mr X had Mr Campos use his contacts to switch his room with Mr Paddock’s in the hotel registry (accounting for the Wednesday/Friday checkin disparity),  and then hatched an elaborate plot to cover his tracks that just went horribly, inexplicably, terribly wrong, culminating in the tragic shooting on Sunday night.

“It was supposed to be Day of The Jackal meets The Wild Bunch meets Back To The Future.  But the prop room f***ed up, and sent over real guns and live ammunition by mistake.

“Meanwhile, Mr X — the producer —  calls some people and finds out that he stepped into the middle of an FBI sting.  The guy he offed was a gun-runner/money launderer for the Mexican cartels.  The Feds turned him, and were using him to bust a major ISIS sleeper cell in the Southwest  at 6:00 that very night!

“It was 5:50!

“Now Mr X and Campos have to figure out how to get through the buy that’s about to go down in less than 10 minutes.  So Mr X has Campos clean up Paddock, they put some sun glasses on him and a hat to cover the bullet wound, then they prop him up in a chair with a drink in front of him and wait for the bad guys to show up.

“Suddenly they realize that all the guns are in Paddock’s room!  So they go running across the hall, use Campos pass key, grab all the guns throw them in a laundry cart and head back to Mr X’s room, just as the ISIS guys are getting off the elevator!

“They make it back to the room just seconds before the ISIS guys knock on the door.  Mr Campos lets them in,  while Mr X  explains that Paddock had too much to drink and passed out, but not before asking them — his partners —  to do the deal for him.

“But they’re both out of breath, which makes the ISIS guys skeptical.  They start to get nervous.  One of them nudges the very dead Mr Paddock on the arm and tells him to wake up.

“At which point Mr X looks at Paddock, screams “What the fu–??!! No one calls ME a Jew, you kike motherf***er,” and shoots him once more in the head.

“Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. The ISIS guys jump up and out come their Uzis!  Campos starts waving his arms and yelling at them to stop, and then BAM! one of them shoots him and he falls down screaming and clutching his leg. Mr X’s cell phone starts to ring, and while the ISIS guys are yelling at each other in Arabic, someone starts banging on the door!

“At which point, everything got REALLY crazy!”

(End of Part One)