ORLANDO (KRON) — Investigators said the wife of the man who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub heard from the gunman about his interest in carrying out a jihadist attack, a source told CNN on Tuesday.
But the FBI does not think she was a co-conspirator in the attack. Noor Salman told FBI agents she tried to dissuade the shooter, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, from carrying out anything violent, and she denied knowing about his plans to attack the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the source said.
Another source told CNN that the wife did have some prior knowledge of Salman’s intention to launch an attack.
A law enforcement official told the Associated Press that investigators who have spoken with the Orlando gunman’s wife are looking into whether the two of them were recently at or outside the nightclub he attacked.
The official is familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official says investigators had been told that Mateen and his wife had been at the Pulse nightclub on a prior occasion and were trying to confirm the accuracy of that statement.
The official says the FBI has Mateen’s phone and will try to use data from it to see if he had visited the club before.
The official says investigators have not ruled out charging anyone who may have had advance knowledge of the attack.CNN contributed to this report