Latest / Vegas Revealed / EXTRA: Interview with Author Mark Gray: His New Book "Las Vegas Massacre Connections" is Out Now

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EXTRA: Interview with Author Mark Gray: His New Book "Las Vegas Massacre Connections" is Out Now · Vegas Revealed

• 0:01
  Sean McAllister: Welcome to this Vegas Revealed Extra.
• 0:04
  Sean McAllister: Sean McAllister and Dana Roselli here with you.
• 0:07
  Sean McAllister: And you know, on Vegas Revealed, we mainly focused on entertainment, hospitality, dining.
• 0:12
  Sean McAllister: But this week, we're talking about an event that started as a multi-day music festival and turned into the deadliest mass shooting in U.S.
• 0:22
  Sean McAllister: history.
• 0:22
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah, you may remember Jason Aldean was on stage performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival when gunfire started.
• 0:29
  Dayna Roselli: 58 people were killed, and that was on October 1st, 2017.
• 0:34
  Sean McAllister: Longtime Las Vegas journalist Mark Gray was there that night.
• 0:38
  Sean McAllister: He has a new book out called The Las Vegas Massacre Connections.
• 0:43
  Sean McAllister: In addition to being a colleague, Mark is also a great friend who we can now introduce as author Mark Gray.
• 0:51
  Sean McAllister: Look at that, huh?
• 0:53
  Sean McAllister: Thank you for being here, Mark.
• 0:54
  Sean McAllister: Thank you for having me.
• 0:55
  Dayna Roselli: Well, listen, I know you write about this a lot, and it's probably very therapeutic for you.
• 1:02
  Dayna Roselli: Um, I've read a bunch of your articles, but this, like Sean said, is the first time you've actually compiled a book.
• 1:08
  Dayna Roselli: And it's about that day, but also other things.
• 1:12
  Dayna Roselli: So talk a little bit about the connections part so we can introduce people to the book.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it definitely was a deeper dive than I've ever done, certainly, into this evening.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the book, like I say, it's called Connection, Las Vegas Massacre Connections, and it's not a Route 91 book per se.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: That is where the book starts.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it really follows the story and the path of this one particular woman.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Her name is Mary Jo Vontillo.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Mary Jo was there with her whole family, or most of her family, I should say, that night, and her husband, Kurt, was shot and killed.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: He was perhaps the first one fatally shot.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way of really knowing that, but he was certainly among the first if he wasn't the first.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And they know that because Jason Aldean was still on stage singing.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, hadn't run off the stage yet, no one was reacting yet.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they know he was certainly among the first, if not the first.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so Mary Jo, you know, really didn't know what to do.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: She was she's lived at the time just outside of Sacramento, and here she is going back to you know her hotel room to see her husband's empty suitcase that he'll never see again.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and so she just wasn't quite sure how to go about healing and moving on.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And what she did was she started kind of traveling around and meeting different people who have their own type of trauma.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And she kind of used this tragedy as a transition point in her life.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of these people that she met did the same thing.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: They've all had their own form of trauma, some involving shootings, some involving natural disasters, some involving, you know, health issues.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's a collection of all these people who every chapter is a different, a different person who she's met along the way.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: Got it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And she's the thread who ties all these people together.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because some of these people know each other, there is some overlap, some don't.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: But she's the person who is the kind of kind of common denominator of all these different people.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the connections part is everyone is connected in some weird way.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, she turned her grief into sort of a passion, and it was meeting these different people.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you talk about therapy, it was very therapeutic for her to meet these people who had gone through their own form of you know of trauma.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, they call it trauma bonding.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 3:25
  Dayna Roselli: What's very healing for them, too, I'm sure.
• 3:27
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, you know, even just if you just have loss, even not surrounded by I mean, I can only imagine what it was like for her seeing her husband killed.
• 3:35
  Dayna Roselli: Um, but then to be able to talk to others who've experienced things, I can only imagine it's very healing.
• 3:41
  Sean McAllister: Yeah, and and uh one of the outcomes is that there is a life to live beyond the tragedy.
• 3:49
  Sean McAllister: Correct.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's the whole thing.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: She said she didn't want to, Mary Joe didn't want to sit around and just lay in bed all day long for the rest of her life and be sad.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you couldn't fault her if she did, to be honest with you.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but she's a very, very strong woman, and she said, I'm not gonna let this sort of define the rest of my life.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so she didn't.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: She went out, and you know, and I've met many people who, you know, it it kind of has defined their life, and they live this day in and day out.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of become their personality.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's their prerogative.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's certainly not the way I went about it, and it's definitely not the way Mary Joe went about it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: She wanted to, you know, not move on, but move forward is the best way of saying it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what she's done.
• 4:33
  Sean McAllister: And how did how did you and Mary Joe become connected?
• 4:37
  Sean McAllister: Yeah, uh, I like the use of words there.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Connected connections.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's why he's a pro, ladies and gentlemen.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, actually, it's an interesting story.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Mary Joe and I met at a Los Angeles Angels baseball game in Anaheim, California.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: The night of the shooting, I was working for Rolling Stone magazine.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And my story was supposed to be the 10 best things I saw this weekend at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And nine of those things were written.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was waiting for the 10th person, the 10th uh you know, slot had been earmarked for Jason Aldean because he was a headliner of the final night.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought he should have some sort of mention in there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, the story changed dramatically.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I went home that night when I finally got home, took a long time, certainly, because the roads were closed, and you guys know all that, but I got home that night and I wrote a first-person story of my personal experience and sent it into Rolling Stone.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: I had never done that before in my life.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was very much a traditional reporter who you talk to the person, you write the story, and send it in.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: This was a first-person account.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sent it in and it went really worldwide.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, fast forward four and a half years later, Rolling Stone says, We want you to do the five-year anniversary story for us uh this time around.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a gathering every single year, a bunch of survivors, and these are the real people who've lost loved ones and got shot.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they go to this particular angels game every single year.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's always in May.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, You go there and talk to these people.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, these people don't a lot of them don't like to speak about it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: They don't want to talk about getting shot in the face or the arm or whatever, losing their husband or daughter or sister or things like that.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: But you're one of them.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: You were there.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can actually relate to these people.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: You're the secret weapon.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I went out to Anaheim and I telegated with these people in the California, or I say I still call them California Angels, the Los Angeles Angels um parking lot.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went to the game.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm chatting with a bunch of them now.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was sitting right behind this woman who ended up being Mary Joe Vontillo.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And she had no interest in speaking to me initially, none whatsoever.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thankfully, baseball is a very long game.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so over the course of nine innings, I was able to break her down a little bit.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh ended up speaking to her very, very briefly, uh, and uh, you know, probably no more than three or four minutes.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we used some of her quotes for that Rolling Stones story that ran in uh 2022.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: A year later, she calls me and she said, Hey, I you know, I want to talk to you about this idea for a book I have.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to write it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Would you be interested?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So sure enough, I flew out to she lived in Orange County at the time in California.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: I flew out there and we spent all day together just chatting, getting to know each other.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the start of everything.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we didn't know what was gonna happen, what was gonna come of it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Was this gonna be a friendly meeting and nothing more?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Was this gonna be a book?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Was this, you know, nothing more than a news article?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we had no idea.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned into it just kind of snowballed a little bit more, and we had different ideas of what we could do for this project, and we kind of settled on.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: She was really interested in highlighting and focusing on not only her husband, so he's not forgotten, but also the people who helped her along the way.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was what we decided to do was talk about the not only her, but the people who's helped her along the way, because they've all had their own stuff happen in their life too.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we had, you know, one person, you know, literally had a death sentence.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: This guy had stage four cancer.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to ruin what's going on here, but let's just say that because of what happened at Route 91, this man is still living today.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: So unbelievable.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a lot of, again, it's it's sort of like this connections thing of it's, you know, the people, it's not a it's it's not a rehash of what happened at Route 91, but it's all the things, you know, it's it's not Mary Joe's story of what happened at Route 91, although we do get to get into that, but it's the people she's met because of Route 91 and the things that have happened because of Route 91.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, and all these things have a little bit of a silver lining.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, everything is a little bit of a happy ending, I think.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: I hope at least.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that's what we want really wanted to focus on.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and people have mentioned to me, you know, do you talk about you know the shooter?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: We never mentioned the shooter's name once.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: That is not by accident.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: People ask me all the time, what did you come to a conclusion on why this happened?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't, and I also tell everyone that wasn't my job.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: My job was not to relitigate this whole thing and try to figure out what was in this sick guy's mind.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there have been some books written about Route 91, and to my knowledge, all of them have been written from the standpoint of the shooter or a first responder.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think there's been a single book that talks about the victims.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and this book doesn't talk about all the victims, but it does talk about some.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that was our was our focus was let's talk about the people affected, um, not the sick man who decided to do this.
• 9:32
  unknown: Right.
• 9:33
  Dayna Roselli: And in that night you were unharmed.
• 9:35
  Dayna Roselli: I was.
• 9:36
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, not e I was emotionally harmed like all of us, yes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: But certainly.
• 9:40
  Dayna Roselli: But you weren't hit and you were able to were you able to clearly grasp what was going on that night?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, after after a few seconds, certainly.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I thought it was fireworks like everyone else.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I hear all these people, I knew immediately.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think anyone actually knew, honestly.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe there was a handful.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And also, the coming from Mandalay Bay, no one thought that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, again, those people who now, all these years later, I knew the whole time.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't know anything.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: But um, so the first the first three shots happened and they were really quick in succession, bang, bang, bang.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this woman who was only about 20, 25 feet from me to my left, now I didn't know her, she got hit.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at least I think she did, because this woman started screaming and shrieking really loudly.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought, like, you know, maybe she got hit with a bottle rocket.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And also, what kind of jerk brings a bottle rocket into a or fireworks into a concert?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was, let's say, the three pops and a pause, three more pops and then a pause.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I still didn't think anything of it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when the barrage started happening, just this constant boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, that's when I realized what was going on.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was there with a friend's.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was there with a uh my friends was was a sponsor of the festival.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So he had they call it a suite.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Now, let's use that term loosely.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was a refurbished trucking container made of aluminum.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was an outdoor festival.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was basically rental drap, pretty much, you know.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was I ran into this area that we had, and I got on the ground and I was stuck there for a while.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, all my friends that were there with us, they piled in there as well.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: It had a door, we closed the door, people were trying to break in the door.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: There were windows also because they wanted people to be able to watch the concert from the suite if they wanted to.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: People were breaking out the windows, the windows were getting shot out and the glasses falling on your back, and things like that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: So finally there was a brief, brief pause in the main shooting, and we said, now we gotta go now.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And also we said it's getting closer because it sounded like it was getting closer.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: So everyone leaves, and I say everyone except me, because at the time, remember, I was working, yeah, and I had my laptop there, and it was very important to me to get my laptop.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I army crawled to the corner of the suite and got my laptop put in my backpack, which was also you know in there, and then I got out.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: So when I got out, all my friends were all gone.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and when I left, that was when I saw a lot of the carnage.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you're walking out, I and I left through the east side, ran kind of towards the airport.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't go as far as the airport, but I got near there.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um also didn't know he was shooting at those tanks, which was right by where I was too.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's right by where I was.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yes, that that was my escape.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And say when you when you leave there, that was you kind of understood a little bit of the scope, but not as much still.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until I really got home and I was seeing the press conferences with um, you know, Joe Lombarda, who was the sheriff at the time, um, and he was saying, you know, we have three dead, now we have five dead, now we have eight dead, and just the number kept going up and up and up and up.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, I was writing that Rolling Stone story.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was uh it was a weird night.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I still I'll have people, you know, I'll have family members and friends who'll still say certain things to me to this day and say, Oh, we chatted that night, and I have no recollection of it.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you kind of black out.
• 13:00
  Dayna Roselli: You do, you do.
• 13:00
  Dayna Roselli: I can only imagine.
• 13:02
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, even with things that aren't even like close to being that traumatic, that that just happens.
• 13:08
  Dayna Roselli: And I I'm I'm sure it even took a long time after it even grasped, just being there and actually witnessing it with your own eyes.
• 13:14
  Dayna Roselli: I mean I was covering it as a news story and it was a lot.
• 13:17
  Dayna Roselli: We were on the air for 24 hours, people in my lobby were showing me videos.
• 13:20
  Dayna Roselli: I didn't because you know, things happen in Vegas, but and then when I actually saw the video, I was like, wait, oh this like just happened and people were in shock in my lobby.
• 13:31
  Dayna Roselli: I lived near the strip.
• 13:32
  Dayna Roselli: Um, so you know, you obviously take all that in.
• 13:35
  Dayna Roselli: I I can only imagine.
• 13:37
  Sean McAllister: Yeah, and uh how unique, I mean, especially when you look at the your book compared to some of the other books that are written, to have that first person experience and to be able to incorporate that.
• 13:56
  Sean McAllister: Obviously, your first person experience is not the the sole focus of the book, but to have that experience to pull from in uh infusing that into your writing, uh how important and how unique do you think that is?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, they tell you when you're a writer, especially you know, book writers, and I I'm a brand new one, so I'm no expert, but they tell you to write what you know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I know this, I was there, I experienced this.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you're right, I don't my situation, I my I mean I talk about my situation in the foreword of the book and in the acknowledgments, but everything else has nothing to do with me in there.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: I you know, I'm just a vessel for Mary Joe Vontillo and some of these other people.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And but yeah, it was it was very important for me to to have that kind of I don't want to say expertise, but if for lack of a better word, I'll just go with that for now.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Is that I kind of have an idea of what this uh what she went through certainly, and then some of the other people featured.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't have their idea.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean this one one guy featured his sister got killed by a serial killer, the same one that killed Adam Walsh, the son of John Walsh from America's Most Wanted.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, I don't I didn't know, I don't have that experience, but I do have an experience of knowing what it's like to see this mass carnage and you know and this shower of steel falling down on you and fearing for your life.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have that experience, and that's something that I live with every single day.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, similar to Mary Joe, I think that I've been able to, you know, not move on, move past, but certainly move forward.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the whole idea.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's kind of what we really wanted to push in this situation, is you can really move on.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right, I mean, having that sort of first hand experience was vital to this book.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I would never have written this book had I not been attending Route 91 that night.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:52
  Sean McAllister: Yeah.
• 15:52
  Sean McAllister: And I I as Dana mentioned, she was, you know, on the air covering from the news side um all of the events that were unfolding in the in the aftermath.
• 16:04
  Sean McAllister: Similarly, I was out reporting live that next morning as well.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um which is also traumatic for you guys, too.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's very traumatic for you guys because I did not go back down to that site for a while.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: It took me a long time to go back to that area.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I did go to Mandalay Base shortly after because I felt like I needed that moment to not be scared of this hotel.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not scared of the hotel.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't blame the hotel.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Some people do, I'm not one of those people, but I went down there within the week.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: But to go to the site, kind of stand out by it, I didn't do that for a very, very long time because it was too traumatic.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys dealt with that too.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you guys had to go there, you know, in the immediate aftermath, which is not easy either.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember asking several media companies asked me to go that next day.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Can you go down there and help us out?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: I remember telling one of them specifically, I'm not going anywhere near there.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I just couldn't do it.
• 16:57
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 16:58
  Dayna Roselli: I think, you know, and then like you were saying, as things were coming in, it just felt more and more unreal.
• 17:03
  Dayna Roselli: But like you're like, this is real, like the number count, you know, the count and all that, like all that developing information.
• 17:10
  Dayna Roselli: It just it kept getting worse.
• 17:12
  Dayna Roselli: But then, you know, I I I always say the little part that made me feel good is I felt like my job was to get information out.
• 17:21
  Dayna Roselli: And it was um more about, you know, they were collecting water and like doing good things for the community at the time.
• 17:29
  Dayna Roselli: And it felt like the local news was important on that, well, for that week, um, of just getting information out.
• 17:37
  Dayna Roselli: And I felt like finally, not finally, because I felt like I always had an important job, but it just felt like I was actually doing a service to the community, I guess.
• 17:46
  Dayna Roselli: You know?
• 17:47
  Sean McAllister: Well, and that's I was out at the um the blood bank the next morning, and uh I it still it makes me tear up thinking about it.
• 17:56
  Sean McAllister: The line of people that went down three blocks and around the corner in the piles of supplies that cars would just pull up and drop off.
• 18:09
  Sean McAllister: And I mean, I think that's really what it made me realize that that the Las Vegas community is a really special place.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was the city at its best.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: No question about it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: It really was.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: I remember seeing a meme, it was a day or two after, and it said, you know, your idea of Vegas, and it showed a photo of the strip all glitzy and glamorous, and it said, as a local, my idea of the strip, and it was a photo of the line for people going to the blood bank and you know, and with people holding just cases of water.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: It really was a time when, you know, it it was the city at its at its best moment, you know, which came in the shadow of its worst moment.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:46
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 18:47
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:47
  Dayna Roselli: People always ask me, why did you leave you know full-time TV in 2019, Monday through Friday?
• 18:51
  Dayna Roselli: My contract that I didn't, I don't know.
• 18:53
  Dayna Roselli: It just was like after October 1st, I don't know.
• 18:56
  Dayna Roselli: I almost felt part of me for that moment, and maybe it was all a post-trauma, I don't trauma traumatic thing, but I just felt like my job was done for a little bit, you know.
• 19:06
  Dayna Roselli: It was just like, I don't know.
• 19:07
  Dayna Roselli: It was a very, you know, um, I don't know.
• 19:10
  Dayna Roselli: It was an important year, poignant year.
• 19:13
  Dayna Roselli: I do want to talk about, and maybe controversy is the wrong way to put this, but a few things that people talk about that can be, you know, people have different opinions about.
• 19:23
  Dayna Roselli: Um, one, the number of people that were killed.
• 19:26
  Dayna Roselli: Uh, two, the term one October.
• 19:29
  Dayna Roselli: Um, and then there was another one that I forgot, but let's talk about the number of people, 58 people killed.
• 19:34
  Dayna Roselli: We were at Jason L.
• 19:35
  Dayna Roselli: Dean's bar and restaurant opening.
• 19:37
  Dayna Roselli: We talked to some survivors, and that was kind of a hot topic for them, saying, you know, the number has varied.
• 19:42
  Dayna Roselli: We go with 58, we go with so what is what's the deal with that?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so depending on depending on who you speak to, the number is 58 or 60.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's one or the other.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And people in the 58 camp, and I'm one of them, are very adamant that it's 58.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: The 60 camp, I understand why they think that too.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I get it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the reason why is because 58 people were killed that night.
• 20:05
  unknown: Right.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Two more were killed because of that night.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: They were, you know, they were able to live another, you know, year or two longer type of thing.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: And this is why it's so important for the 58ers, is that, which is kind of what they call themselves, is they said, you know, we never got a chance to say goodbye to our loved one, to our father, to our our wife, our daughter, so on and so forth.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: These other two, God bless them, you know, they I mean, they almost wish they had that moment, but they had a year, year and a half to actually say goodbye and be with them and spend time with them.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why they say, you know, it's a fifty it's 58, not 60.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I get it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I get it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you're those two others, I understand why you would want to be you know a part of that too.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: I get it, because that you did lose your life because of that festival, but you didn't lose it that day.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, your your death date wasn't October 1st, 2017, and it was also not one October.
• 20:59
  Dayna Roselli: Right.
• 21:00
  Sean McAllister: And and what is the you for lack of a better word, the the controversy or the uh distaste for that one October phrase.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everyone, and I've said I've I've lived this for you know eight years now, a little over eight years.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: All the survivors hate that term, they see it as a marketing term.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, do you ever I mean when you when you're looking at the calendar, you know, you say, oh, like when is Christmas?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't say 25 December.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: You say December 25th, right?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, and that's the way they see it is like, why did we change this?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's October 1st, you know, 2017, and that's it.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: None of them have ever that I've ever spoken to call it, you know, 1 October.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I lost my sister on 1 October.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's always October 1st.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's always Route 91.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, very few people also call it the full name, Route 91 Harvest Festival.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, and I I think that's just because they don't want to say many more words, but uh yeah, the Harvest Festival is not controversial.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: But they just say, you know, Route 91.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people just call it Route.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, nobody calls it one October.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: They saw that as a as a marketing thing from the city of Las Vegas that was didn't do any justice to their loved one.
• 22:14
  Dayna Roselli: Right.
• 22:14
  Dayna Roselli: Like almost giving it an event name.
• 22:16
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Dayna Roselli: And that's instead of a date, you know, this happened to us on October 1st, 2017.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's exactly.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And many have said something to that nature.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it made it, it made it seem like it was, you know, an event or something we should be celebrating.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, listen, we observe the anniversary every single year.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I meet with a lot of survivors every single year on October 1st, but we don't celebrate it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: We celebrate being together, you know, but we don't actually celebrate that day and say, what a great day we're, you know, that we're all here.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now we do think it's a great day we're all there.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and one thing that they always say to you when you meet a router or a router, depending on if you're from, Rochester.
• 22:55
  Dayna Roselli: And I was like, uh We had this whole conversation off podcast terms.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: When you when you meet them, they all say, I'm happy you're here.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's one thing they always say to you, I'm happy you're here.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was the first I remember the first time I heard that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was an odd thing to say, an odd thing to hear, but I totally get it now.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what they all tell you, I'm happy you're here.
• 23:17
  Sean McAllister: Well, and that seems like a very silver lining outlook to have after after living that situation, and to have you know the silver lining uh uh story be kind of the theme of the book seems very appropriate.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was that was what we went for is you know, we could have really taken this book in a very dark place, and that is not what we wanted.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what we intended to do, and I don't think we did.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: We really want it to be a situation of silver linings and this moment of hope and healing.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it says it right on the cover.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think the you know, the tagline, of course, it's Las Vegas Master Connections.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: The tagline is uh finding strength and healing in the deadliest mass shooting in American history, and that's really what it is, you know.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's this book has been positioned a lot as a true crime book, which I totally understand.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: I get that idea because it is, you know, that there's a lot of true crime in this book, but very rarely can you intertwine true crime and healing and gratitude at the same time.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we've like I hope at least that we've kind of made that perfect marriage.
• 24:24
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 24:25
  Dayna Roselli: Well, and and along those lines, I th I thought of the third thing, and it kind of is along with that when you talk about when you guys are together and there is a connection and it's helped me.
• 24:34
  Dayna Roselli: What about uh what what are your thoughts on there's been so much talk about the actual site?
• 24:40
  Dayna Roselli: Um I hear a lot of people say this is a tourist town.
• 24:44
  Dayna Roselli: We don't want reminders on the Las Vegas Strip.
• 24:46
  Dayna Roselli: This is, you know, other people say, how could you just you ignore it?
• 24:50
  Dayna Roselli: Or and now they're they are actually building something on a corner, a memorial, right?
• 24:56
  Dayna Roselli: Um, what are your thoughts on that as far as the actual site for you for you and for for the people you have talked to in this group?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I see both sides of the coin.
• 25:05
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: I see it from the Vegas side of you're right, where this is a tourist town and people don't really want to be reminded.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: But also, listen, like one of the biggest, some of the biggest landmarks and tourist sites in the world are happen from these tragedies, 9-11.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that 9-11 museum's um incredible if you haven't been there.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's unbelievable.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there's so many of these different sites.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I understand why they say that, but at the same time, you know, this was something that happened to the city, and this wasn't just a local story, this was a worldwide story.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: I know because I was getting hit up by a million different international publications.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I get that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what I will say is it is very important for the families of the 58 that there's some sort of permanent structure here.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because right now they only have the healing garden.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they all love the healing garden, they're very appreciative of that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was a very grassroot situation.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think it took what four or five days to actually build the whole thing, and that's in downtown Las Vegas.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's in downtown Las Vegas, which and that's the thing, is like there's no real connection, certainly, to the shooting site.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's just, you know, it's downtown.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: But they want something there, and it's very important to them.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: I know they've gone to Carson City and lobbied the governor.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Governor seems to be on board, they're raising money for it right now.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in I've talked to Mary Joe at length about this, and she's kind of talked about how, you know, I don't feel like there's anything that really remembers this moment in Vegas outside of she mentioned the Golden Knights.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the Golden Knights every single year do something.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: They obviously they had the number 58 retired, you know, in the uh in the arena.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: But she says that's really in her mind, that's the only uh thing that's a constant reminder, and she thinks that she wants a constant reminder.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of these people, all these victims want a constant reminder of their loved one, and they can go visit the place where they last were with them.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she's uh she uh has no problem with Vegas.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Her kids do.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Her kids don't like the city.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: The way they see it is Vegas took their father.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: The way Mary Jo sees it is I love Vegas.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is the last place I was able to spend time with my husband.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: So she likes because she comes here several times a year.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: She was here for October 1.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the way she sees it, and she wants a place where she can go be with her husband, and that's why it's important for a lot of these people to go be with their loved one at a certain spot.
• 27:24
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 27:25
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah, and the the excerpts that we read of the book, um, I know that her daughter was there as well, right?
• 27:31
  Dayna Roselli: I do have a final question, but anything else, Sean?
• 27:33
  Dayna Roselli: I feel like you were thinking over there and I was gonna say that's always it's always problematic what Sean's thinking.
• 27:39
  Dayna Roselli: I know.
• 27:40
  Sean McAllister: I'm like, I felt like you had a question, and then and you can tell because it's all over my face when the wheels start turning.
• 27:45
  Dayna Roselli: That's right.
• 27:46
  Sean McAllister: The face is a big tell.
• 27:48
  Sean McAllister: Um no, I just think that it's uh uh as you were talking about the plans for the memorial.
• 27:54
  Sean McAllister: I was just thinking that that your book is also uh a great way for to honor the lives that were lived, even though you can't tell every single victim story in the book, it is honoring the lives.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I appreciate that that's the hope.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's the hope is that we really hope it honors uh you know a lot of the people who've gone through this turmoil and this uh in these terrible situations.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it it really is a we want it to be a roadmap of people who have gone through something so traumatic and so terrible to know like it can get okay, it can get better, you can move forward a little bit.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: And here's a couple of stories that can prove it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really what we hope is just that roadmap.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's the kind of thing that I think a lot of us needed on October 2nd of 2017 was we needed something or someone to say to tell us it's going to be okay.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think we ever got that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm hoping that this can be certainly one of those things for, you know, unfortunately, these mass casualty events are don't appear to be stopping.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and that's unfortunate, but that's just the reality of the world we live in right now.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm hoping this can be that that roadmap or that, you know, um that tool that helps people, you know, move on with and and you know, make sure their life can be okay.
• 29:11
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 29:12
  Dayna Roselli: I do like the wall at Jason Aldean's that he he dedicated.
• 29:15
  Dayna Roselli: Do you are yeah?
• 29:16
  Dayna Roselli: Do you like that?
• 29:17
  Dayna Roselli: I do.
• 29:17
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah, I thought it was really well done.
• 29:19
  Dayna Roselli: We've talked about that before.
• 29:20
  Dayna Roselli: There's a wall that's dedicated in his bar and restaurant on the Las Vegas strip to Route 91, and it's really beautiful.
• 29:27
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, it wasn't and it's not small, it's like it's just enough, you know.
• 29:30
  Dayna Roselli: I feel like it really spreads out and and I don't know.
• 29:34
  Dayna Roselli: He's uh he's been a big connector, obviously.
• 29:38
  Dayna Roselli: And come back.
• 29:39
  Dayna Roselli: I remember when, like I said, when we were at the opening, there were all sorts of people there that were at the festival there supporting Jason, saying he's really been something that's kept us together, and now he's opening this place, and it's a place where we can gather um and you know, tell share stories, be together.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's just Jason either.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think the country music world has really come together uh and really holds Vegas on a little bit of a pedestal because of October 1.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember going and seeing, you know, Chris Stapleton about a year or so later, maybe less than a year later, and he did he said, you know, I remember what happened here, uh, you know, it's my heart's with everybody, and he dedicated a song to it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a year later.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you have all these other artists who, you know, you forget there, I mean Jake Owen was still there.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: He was on the side watching the stage.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the uh some of the opening acts were still all there watching this thing.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't just a Jason Aldean moment.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there were other people who were affected by this, other country artists who still have this connection to Vegas.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, in fact, I'm doing a it's not Jason Aldeen's bar, but I'm doing a book signing on October 23rd at Blake Shelton's bar.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I wanted to still keep that country connection to this book because you know, it's not again, it's not a Route 91 book, but it does have that, that's where the story starts.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously there's a very tight connection to the country music world because of it.
• 31:03
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Dayna Roselli: Well, and and good point about Jason.
• 31:05
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, it was a country music festival.
• 31:07
  Dayna Roselli: So there were everyone was a country music fan.
• 31:10
  Dayna Roselli: Correct.
• 31:10
  Dayna Roselli: Um, unless you had a partner that dragged you there and you weren't a country music fan, but uh tell us about the book, where we can get it, uh, how we can read it, listen to it, whatever.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, yeah.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: It comes out uh uh it gets out now on October 14th.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: It came out.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh you get on Amazon is the best place, it's the easiest place.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: We live in an Amazon world.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and it's available there on uh paperback, hardcover hardcover, ebook, audiobook, you know, a partridge in a pear tree.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's all on there uh on Amazon.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, like I say, and I'll be um I'll I will have books at the uh book signing as well.
• 31:47
  Dayna Roselli: Okay, and that's October 23rd at Blake Shelton.
• 31:51
  Dayna Roselli: What time?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh five to seven.
• 31:52
  Dayna Roselli: Five to seven.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: P.m.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: not a m.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Those those those early morning days of not for me.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Those days are in the past.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Those days are over.
• 32:00
  Dayna Roselli: Are you are and you've been doing a a lot of interviews and stuff like that.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And but this one's the best.
• 32:05
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 32:06
  Dayna Roselli: Well, we know.
• 32:08
  Dayna Roselli: We could go on and on and on and on too.
• 32:10
  Dayna Roselli: And will you do more book signings if people approach you?
• 32:12
  Dayna Roselli: Sure.
• 32:13
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd be I'd I'd be happy to.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this book was very much it became a part of my life for a very for, you know, it was a two-year process from start to finish.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: That includes pitching the book to publishers and and all that kind of thing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the writing itself, I was working full-time when this is going on too.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: So the writing itself took about a year, just a little over a year.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Pitching the book took almost another year.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's been a big part of my life.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a labor of love.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was a situation where I didn't tell a lot of people I was even doing it because I wanted it to be, I didn't want people asking the progress and the status of it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: I just wanted it to be done.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I also like the idea, the element of surprise and saying, Oh, by the way, I wrote this book.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: Here it is, it's 244 pages.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know.
• 33:00
  Dayna Roselli: And sometimes you don't want people's input either, let's be honest.
• 33:02
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, you don't want third, you should do, you should do it.
• 33:04
  Dayna Roselli: You should talk to this person.
• 33:06
  Dayna Roselli: You should, blah, blah, blah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the people who did know, because again, I was speaking with a lot of survivors and things like that of different uh casual mass tragedies.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and you should talk to this person too.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, this is not, it's an it's it could be a runaway train if you're doing all that.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I had one woman who said, you know, I can get you all the numbers of almost every root 91 person who was shot, fatally or not, um, you know, families and people who were shot in the arm and whatever else.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, This is not that book.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that book could exist, yeah, uh, you know, down the road, whether it's me or someone else, certainly.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: But that's not this book.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right, that was the reason I wanted to keep it really quiet for a very long time.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I you know, Sean is, you know, spoiler alert, one of my best friends.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and like I don't think you knew until uh at least a year into it.
• 33:53
  Sean McAllister: It was well into the into the process.
• 33:56
  Sean McAllister: I think I might have been done writing by the time I told you.
• 33:58
  Sean McAllister: I think you were.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Dayna Roselli: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 34:01
  Dayna Roselli: Well, is it healing for you before we go?
• 34:03
  Dayna Roselli: I mean, is it healing or more does it bring up I mean, like, how is because you've written, like you said, articles and now this book.
• 34:10
  Dayna Roselli: Like, what has this experience been like for you?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's different for me because it it was it's healing, yes, absolutely.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's also work at the same time.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that was kind of how a lot of you know, I've I've covered this story for so much for Rolling Stone on People Magazine, especially.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've always looked at it from a different lens than everyone else.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it all helps.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's no question about it.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what I you know, after the shooting, I found what held me the most was speaking to other people who were there, whether they suffered, you know, physical harm or just emotional harm or psychological harm, you know, and everyone, we all lost some sort of innocence that day.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's no question about that.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And talking to people who also lost their innocence, that helped me.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, down the road now, where eight years passed, it's still heartwarming to hear these stories.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: When I talk to these survivors, they're every bit as much as interested in my story as I am theirs.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it really is a family, it's a total community, which is really wonderful.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that is more of kind of what I gained by this, more so than you know, um, than healing is I I I really gained a family or at least a part of a family.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they look at me as someone who's you know with them and really go to the battlefield with them.
• 35:23
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:24
  Sean McAllister: Well, we uh highly encourage you to uh get the book, read it.
• 35:30
  Sean McAllister: Uh you can get digital copies, it uh find it on Amazon, the Las Vegas Massacre Connections.
• 35:38
  Sean McAllister: Also remember the book signing with author Mark Gray.
• 35:42
  Sean McAllister: Hey now at Old Red on the Las Vegas Strip October 23rd at 5 p.m.
• 35:48
  Sean McAllister: Get your book there, get it signed, meet Mark.
• 35:52
  Sean McAllister: Uh Author Mark Gray, thank you for spending time with us.
• 35:55
  Sean McAllister: Thanks for having me.
• 35:56
  Sean McAllister: This was great.
• 35:57
  Dayna Roselli: We'll see you or talk to you next time.
• 35:59
  Dayna Roselli: I think you're gonna have to become more of a regular guest.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's your funeral, not mine.
• 36:05
  Sean McAllister: Mark, thank you.
• 36:06
  Sean McAllister: Thanks, guys.