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 / Updated By Pete Williams and Ayman Mohyeldin 
 
 Gunman Omar Mateen made his final stand at an Orlando nightclub, but why did he buy plane tickets to the West Coast — on a flight two days after the shooting? 
 
 A federal official confirmed to NBC News Tuesday that Mateen made the purchase for his family to travel to Northern California to visit his ailing mother-in-law. Wife Noor Zahi Salman's mother recently had an operation and was not getting better, and the family was planning on spending an extended period of time with her. 
 
 Related: Friend Who Told FBI About Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen Saw a 'Red Flag' 
 
 The tickets were purchased two days before the June 12 attack to travel to San Francisco on July 14 for two weeks. It's unclear, however, why Mateen would have bought the tickets if he was planning the shooting, only to die in it. 
 
 Mateen, who lived two hours south of the club in Port St. Lucie, was armed with a semiautomatic rifle and 9mm semiautomatic pistol when he slaughtered 49 people and injured 53 others in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, police said. 
 
 Federal law enforcement officials said Mateen, 29, arrived at Pulse around midnight — but he left and then came back to the nightclub about two hours later to gun down his victims. 
 
 Investigators are trying to determine what he was doing for that two-hour period. 
 
 In addition, after combing through his electronic devices and doing interviews, they have not found anything to indicate that he was ever at Pulse in the days, weeks or months before the day of the shooting. 
 
 Related: DOJ Giving $1 Million in Federal Funds to Orlando First Responders 
 
 Right before Mateen had left the night of the attack, Salman became suspicious of her husband and pleaded with him not to do anything, a source told NBC News, although she did not call authorities. 
 
 A source close to the family said Mateen sent his wife a text message during the rampage, asking her, "Do you see what's happening?" After swapping texts, she tried to call him. Later, federal agents arrived at her door. 
 
 Salman, who has not been charged for failing to report her husband to law enforcement, continues to cooperate with investigators, a source said. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Andrew Blankstein, Tracy Connor and Ayman Mohyeldin 
 
 The wife of Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen was arrested by the FBI on Monday in connection with the mass shooting and charged with obstruction and giving support to a terrorist organization, officials said. 
 
 Noor Salman was taken into custody in California, where her family lives, but the case is filed in Florida, where her husband massacred 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in June, swearing allegiance to ISIS. 
 
 Her attorney said she had no advance knowledge of what her husband was planning and should not have been charged. 
 
 "Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands," the lawyer, Linda Moreno, said in a statement. "We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person." 
 
 Noor Mateen and her husband Pulse gunman, Omar Mateen, from a Facebook profile photo. via Facebook 
 
 Authorities said early on that they would file criminal charges against Salman — who was with her husband when he bought ammunition and exchanged texts with him in the middle of the attack — if it was shown that she knew what he was planning and did nothing. 
 
 The 30-year-old was being held at the Santa Rita Jail ahead of an appearance in federal court on Tuesday. Prosecutors will then seek to bring her back to Orlando to face the charges. 
 
 Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on MSNBC that the charges showed federal investigators' commitment to the case. 
 
 "We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter's life — to determine not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved, is there any other accountability that needs to be had here in this case," she said. 
 
 Orlando Police Chief John Mina disclosed the specific charges — obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization — in a tweet. 
 
 "Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones," Mina said. "But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime." 
 
 One of Salman's family members told NBC News that she is a simple person who should be seen as a victim, too. 
 
 In an interview with the New York Times in November, Salman said that she met her husband, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, on an Arab dating site and that six months into their marriage, he began beating her. 
 
 Although she was with him when he bought bullets at Walmart and scouted out the club in Orlando, she told the newspaper, "I was unaware of everything." 
 
 She claimed that she thought her husband was out with a friend the night of the mass murder until his mother called her at around 2 a.m. to ask about his whereabouts. 
 
 Salman said she did not know, and texted her husband: "Where are you?" a source close to the family told NBC News. 
 
 Mateen responded: "Do you see what’s happening?" 
 
 Salman replied "No?" according to the source. 
 
 Mateen then responded "I love you, babe." 
 
 Last month, Salman applied to change the name of her 3-year-old son with Mateen. 
 
 Massacre survivor Demetrice Naulings, whose close friend was killed, was surprised to hear Salman was being charges so many months later. 
 
 "I'm just kind of shocked," Naulings said, adding that it was difficult to know how to feel since the feds had not outlined the allegations against Salman. 
 
 "I forgave her husband," Naulings said. "I pray for her and the kid." ||||| This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub... (Associated Press) 
 
 FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Like many other young American men, Omar Mateen worked a series of unremarkable jobs during and after high school — a Publix grocery store, Circuit City, Chick-Fil-A and Walgreens. 
 
 He graduated in 2003 and jumped through a series of jobs related to nutrition and health, working at Nutrition World, Gold's Gym and a GNC store. 
 
 He worked for six months at a state prison. And an early marriage faltered. 
 
 But eventually he found some form of stability with a job as a security guard in South Florida, where he was still working when he stormed a gay nightclub early Sunday in Orlando, resulting in the deaths of 49 people and the wounding of 53 more. He died in a gunfight with police. 
 
 It remained unclear exactly why Mateen targeted the club. However, one patron told The Orlando Sentinel he saw Mateen drinking at the bar several times before the shooting. Ty Smith said he saw Mateen inside at least a dozen times. 
 
 "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," Smith said. 
 
 Mateen, 29, spent most of his childhood on Florida's Atlantic coast and lived there as an adult, not far from his parents. Born in the New York City borough of Queens in 1986, he moved with his family to the Long Island town of Westbury two years later and then in 1991 to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, about 125 miles southeast of Orlando. 
 
 Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman of the city's Islamic Center said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a boy and never saw any signs of violence in him. The Orlando attack, he said, "was totally unexpected." 
 
 But one colleague at the security contractor G4S, his most recent employer, remembered the son of Afghan immigrants as an angry, profane co-worker who used slurs and threatened violence. 
 
 Daniel Gilroy said Mateen started badgering him and sending dozens of text messages to him daily, and that he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses. 
 
 "I kind of feel a little guilty that I didn't fight harder," Gilroy said. "If I didn't walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today." 
 
 Gilroy told multiple news outlets that Mateen routinely used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women. 
 
 "He talked about killing people all the time," Gilroy told The New York Times. Of the massacre, Gilroy said, "I saw it coming." 
 
 G4S denied Gilroy's claims, saying in a statement Monday that it had no record of Gilroy ever making such a complaint to his superiors. Furthermore, the company said, Gilroy told officials shortly after leaving in June 2015: "The work and job assignments were respectful and co-workers were good men and women that put in an honest day's work and genuinely like to work as a team and contribute." 
 
 A woman who said she was once a neighbor of Mateen's said the security company assigned him to guard the back entrance of PGA Village, a golf resort in Port St. Lucie. Tricia Adorno said her children would sometimes play ball with Mateen's young son. 
 
 A spokesman for the St. Lucie County clerk of court said Mateen had once been assigned to the clerk's building and was issued a credential. Joseph Abreu said Mateen last used the credential to access the building in May 2013. 
 
 In a statement, G4S said Mateen had been subject to a detailed screening when he was recruited in 2007 and was re-screened in 2013 "with no adverse findings." 
 
 Mateen graduated with a degree in criminal-justice technology from Indian River Community College in 2006, the same year he changed his name from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, according to civil court records in St. Lucie County. The papers listed no reason for the name change. 
 
 His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said her former husband wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. 
 
 Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Alberto Moscoso said Mateen had worked at the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown, Florida, from Oct. 27, 2006, to April 27, 2007. 
 
 In September 2007, he was hired by G4S, a global security firm that has 610,000 employees in about 100 countries. 
 
 Yusufiy told reporters in Boulder, Colorado, that she believed Mateen suffered from mental illness. 
 
 Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after their 2009 marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come literally pull her out of his arms. 
 
 Divorce papers reveal that Mateen made $1,600 a month working for G4S and that she earned $3,000 a month as a real estate agent. 
 
 It's unclear when Mateen married his second wife, Noor Salman, but an Aug. 30, 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. 
 
 On Monday, the FBI said Mateen appeared to be a "homegrown extremist" who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups. During the attack, he called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State group. 
 
 FBI Director James Comey said Mateen was clearly "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. 
 
 The FBI became aware of him in 2013 when co-workers reported that he claimed to have family connections to al-Qaida and to be a member of Hezbollah, too, Comey said. 
 
 The agency launched a 10-month preliminary investigation, following Mateen, reviewing his communications and questioning him, the FBI chief said. Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing him and discriminating against him as a Muslim. The FBI eventually closed the case, Comey said. 
 
 His name surfaced again as part of another investigation into a suicide bomber from the Syrian rebel group Nusra Front. The FBI found Mateen and the man had attended the same mosque and knew each other casually, but the investigation turned up "no ties of any consequence," Comey said. 
 
 Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. 
 
 He attended evening prayer services at Port St. Lucie's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his son, Rahman said. The imam said he last saw Mateen on Friday. 
 
 "When he finished prayer, he would just leave," Rahman told The Associated Press. "He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." 
 
 On Monday, the shooter's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, said what his son did "was the act of a terrorist." 
 
 "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are," he told reporters outside his home. He did not go into details about his son's religious or political views, insisting he did not know. 
 
 Asked whether he missed his son, the father said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Weiss reported from Charlotte, North Carolina. AP writer Brendan Farrington contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 This story has been corrected to show that Gilroy, not Mateen, made the statement to the company about respectful workers. ||||| Omar Mateen was investigated at least twice for suspected terrorist sympathies but no evidence of wrongdoing was found 
 
 A day after the deadliest mass shooting in US history, questions are mounting over why the shooter Omar Mateen was legally able to buy an assault rifle and handgun despite having been investigated twice by the FBI for suspected terrorist sympathies. 
 
 
 
 Mateen, 29, launched his attack on Pulse club, an LGBT venue in downtown Orlando celebrating its popular Latin dance night, at 2.02am on Sunday morning. 
 
 Twenty minutes into the spree he took the bizarre step of making a 911 call in which he reportedly referred both to Islamic State and the Tsarnaevs, the brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013. 
 
 
 
 Sunday’s attack - which left 49 clubgoers dead and 53 injured – was launched by Mateen using a .223-caliber assault rifle and 9mm semi-automatic pistol with multiple rounds of ammunition that had been purchased quite lawfully in the week before the rampage using Mateen’s firearms license. Mateen was shot dead by police. 
 
 He also held a permit to work as a security guard, which he did at a courthouse in Port St Lucie, Florida, even though he was interviewed three times by the FBI in 2013 and 2014 following separate reports of extremist behavior and connections to terrorism that were in the end deemed insubstantial. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest An undated photo from a social media account of Omar Mateen, who police have identified as the suspect in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. 
 
 The revelation that the bloodiest mass shooting in history had been carried out by an American-born individual on the FBI’s radar is likely to reignite the debate over the country’s lax gun laws with regard to people under investigation for terrorism. 
 
 New York City’s police commissioner, Bill Bratton, fiercely criticized the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun lobby in the country, that has campaigned to prevent people named on the US government no-fly list from being barred from purchasing guns. 
 
 ‘Everyone get out and keep running': how the Orlando attack unfolded Read more 
 
 “The idea we have a terror-watch list, a no-fly list, and someone on that list can buy a gun – that’s the highest level of insanity,” Bratton told CNN. He added that the probe into the Orlando shooter would have to take in whether “there was anything from the FBI investigations that might have stopped him being able to acquire a firearm. I don’t hold out much hope for that: obviously the United States is too afraid of the NRA at this time.” 
 
 Within hours of the shooting a fuller picture of Mateen and his life began to emerge. 
 
 His former wife spoke in Colorado on Sunday afternoon revealing the shooter’s history of domestic violence and suspected mental health issues. 
 
 “A few months after we were married I saw his instability, I saw his bipolar, and he would get mad out of nowhere, and that’s when I started worrying about my safety,” Sitora Yusifiy said. 
 
 “Then after a few months he started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, and keeping me hostage from them.” 
 
 Her family “literally rescued” her from the marriage after four months, she said, recalling Mateen’s “emotional instability, sickness … He was mentally unstable and mentally ill [and] obviously disturbed, deeply, and traumatised”. 
 
 Yusifiy said her former husband – whom she “cut off” in 2009 and formally divorced two years later – had aspired to be a police officer and “did follow religion”, but had shown no radical inclinations. 
 
 As night settled over Orlando, bringing a semblance of calm to the rattled city, the extent of the trauma inflicted on it had only begun to emerge. Vigils were held in various locations across the city on Sunday night, but with a single theme: the defiant belief that love would in the end conquer hate. 
 
 
 
 Barbara Poma, who founded the Pulse Club in honour of her brother John who died in 1991 of Aids, said in a statement: “From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community.” 
 
 Orlando-area blood donation centers were so overwhelmed by donations on Sunday that some would-be donors were turned away and asked to return in the next few days. However, there was one group particularly keen to donate who were unable to. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Greg Shafer donates blood at the OneBlood Blood Donation Center in Orlando. Photograph: Cristobal Herrera/EPA 
 
 Congressman Jared Polis, a Democrat from Colorado, condemned the national regulation prohibiting sexually active gay men from donating blood. Polis is one of the only openly gay men in Congress. 
 
 “I’m … hopeful that we can remove the ban that the FDA has on gay people donating blood, because guess what? Many of the spouses and loved ones of the victims who need blood can’t even donate blood right now,” Polis told Denver news channel 9News. “It’s just a double tragedy that so many are facing the shortage of blood.” 
 
 One of the survivors of the Pulse rampage was invited to speak at a vigil held in memory of the dead at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church, part of the historic network of LGBT places of worship set up in the wake of the 1969 Stonewall riots. 
 
 Only his first name was given – fittingly it was Orlando – as he addressed the congregation from the front pew of the tiny Joy MCC church, his shoulders slumped and medical plasters still visible on both arms from the hospital treatment he had received. 
 
 Orlando could barely speak for shaking. He described having been held hostage in the bathroom of the Pulse for almost three hours, from soon after the shooting began until at 5am a police Swat team let off diversionary controlled bombs and burst through a wall of the club using an armored vehicle. 
 
 In the ensuing firefight, Mateen was killed while 30 club goers, Orlando included, were brought to safety. 
 
 He said that he had gone to the club that night just to have a good time. “We were all there, everyone, to have a good time, to respect each other in joy.” 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jose Alves and Tony Bracamonte at a Vigil for victims of the Orlando shooting LA Pride parade, Los Angeles, 12 June 2016. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock 
 
 When he heard a loud noise he thought it was the thud, thud of the dance music. “Then I realized it was shooting.” 
 
 Other survivors from the carnage owed their lives to having crawled out of the club through an air-conditioning vent, while one woman was reported to have hidden under dead bodies. 
 
 According to Orlando police chief John Mina, officers brought what he described as a “barricaded hostage situation” to an end by smashing a hole in the building using a Bearcat armoured truck. 
 
 
 
 Mateen was holding about 15 people hostage in one club bathroom, while another 15-20 were hiding out in another of the buildings bathrooms, Mina said. Negotiators were in communication with the gunman, Omar Mateen, during the hostage situation but did not hear shots fired during those calls. 
 
 Mina said Mateen was “cool and calm” during discussions with negotiators. However, police decided to break into the building after deciding that “loss of life was imminent”. 
 
 “We were able to rescue dozens and dozens of people who came out of that hole,” Mina said. The suspect also emerged from the hole, armed and shooting, Mina said. He was killed by officers’ return fire. 
 
 As families of victims wake up on Monday morning, several will still be in the dark about the fate of their loved ones. With 53 injured and in hospital, on top of the 50 dead, the job of identifying those deceased and those still clinging to life has been difficult and painfully slow. 
 
 'He's coming. I'm gonna die': Orlando shooting terror revealed in son's text to mother Read more 
 
 Dozens of friends and relatives of those wounded or missing are expected to spend a second day waiting for the news. On Sunday, family members, some wrapped in blankets and many of them in tears, were guided into an emergency reception centre set up at a Hampton Inn one block south of the Orlando Regional Medical Centre. 
 
 Pastor Kelvin Cobaris was one of several religious leaders who offered counseling to families as they waited to news of their relatives. He told the Guardian that he sat for hours as families waited hours patiently in the hope of being brought good news, but then watched in dismay when the news they dreaded was delivered. 
 
 “When they heard that their loved one had gone some people screamed. Others were angry, because they wanted answers.” 
 
 Brian Vieoma spent much of Sunday texting and calling his brother Luis’s mobile phone. For hours he had no news, and a sense of dread descended on him. 
 
 “He came over for Latin Night, Venezuelans love to go dancing,” Vieoma told the Guardian about his brother Luis, 22, a worker at Universal Studio’s Harry Potter theme park who had been visiting the Pulse club from Sanford, a city north of Orlando. 
 
 Late on Sunday, Luis Vieoma was added to the official list of the dead. Police have so far named 33 of Mateen’s 49 victims. They are: Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34; Stanley Almodovar III, 23; Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; Luis S. Vielma, 22; Kimberly Morris, 37; Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30; Darryl Roman Burt II, 29; Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32; Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21; Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25; Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35; Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50; Amanda Alvear, 25; Martin Benitez Torres, 33; Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37; Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26; Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35; Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25; Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31; Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26; Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25; Miguel Angel Honorato, 30; Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40; Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32; Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19; Cory James Connell, 21; Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37; Luis Daniel Conde, 39; Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33; Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25. 
 
 As the human tragedy continues to unfold in Orlando, its political fallout will also deepen in Washington and across the nation. In his carefully-calibrated address to the nation on Sunday, President Obama placed the Pulse massacre politically at the intersection between the battle against terrorism and the fight for civil rights: he called it an “act of terror and an act of hate”. 
 
 
 
 Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, used the tragedy to prop up his controversial call for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, in a tweet in which he said: “What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough.” 
 
 Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, emphasised Pulse as a hate attack on the LGBT community, but also applied the label terrorism and said “we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad.” 
 
 How the already febrile debate develops in coming days, intertwining with the equally feverish presidential debate, may have much to do with what information emerges about the shooter. He remains for now a classic so-called “lone wolf” – a self-radicalised, angry individual of the sort that is very difficult to pinpoint and pre-empt. 
 
 But the FBI will now be looking to see whether the links that they investigated in 2013 and 2014, only to dismiss, were more concrete than they originally thought. ||||| (CNN) The Orlando shooter and his wife exchanged text messages during the Pulse nightclub rampage, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. 
 
 Around 4 a.m. on June 12, about two hours after he started the attack and while holed up in a bathroom, Omar Mateen texted his wife, Noor Salman, asking if she'd seen the news, the official said. 
 
 At one point, she responded with a text saying that she loved him. Salman also tried calling her husband several times during the standoff, a second law enforcement official said. 
 
 The timing of her calls came after reports of the attack had emerged, and apparently after she realized her husband might be responsible. He didn't answer, the official said. 
 
 It's not clear if Salman made any attempt to report her husband during that time. 
 
 Salman is coming under increasing scrutiny as police investigate the killing of 49 people and wounding of at least 50 at the gay nightclub in Orlando. Authorities say Mateen carried out the killing with a Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic assault-style rifle and a pistol. 
 
 Salman apparently gave conflicting accounts about what she knew of Mateen's intentions in the hours before the attack. authorities said. She also told investigators that in the weeks before the attack, Mateen spent thousands of dollars, including for the guns used in the attack. 
 
 Mateen and Salman married in 2011. They have a 3-year-old son and lived in Fort Pierce, about two hours from the massacre. 
 
 A U.S. attorney plans to bring evidence before a federal grand jury to determine whether charges will be filed, two law enforcement officials said. 
 
 Facebook postings 
 
 Mateen also vented on Facebook before and during the massacre. 
 
 "America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state," the gunman wrote, according to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. 
 
 "You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes ... now taste the Islamic state vengeance." 
 
 Then, in his final post, an ominous warning: ''In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa." 
 
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 The messages were described in a letter from committee Chairman Ron Johnson to Mark Zuckerberg, asking the Facebook CEO to provide "all Facebook data on Mr. Mateen's activities on his account and any affiliated Facebook accounts." 
 
 It's not the only time Mateen invoked ISIS during his rampage early Sunday. In the middle of killing 49 people, Mateen also called 911 to pledge allegiance to the terror group and CNN affiliate News 13 to say, "I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State." 
 
 And an analysis of Mateen's electronic devices showed searches for jihadist propaganda, including videos of ISIS beheadings, an official said. 
 
 Reported gun store visit 
 
 The owner of a Florida gun store said Thursday that employees contacted the FBI four or five weeks ago because they became suspicious when Mateen tried to purchase body armor and a large amount of ammunition. 
 
 Robert Abell of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach said a man asked for soft and then hardened body armor but was told the store didn't carry that merchandise. 
 
 During his visit, the man spoke on the phone to somebody in a foreign language and asked to buy 1,000 rounds of ammunition -- a request the store turned down, Abell said. 
 
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 The store called the FBI with the suspicions, Abell said, but didn't know the man's name. 
 
 The FBI investigated another incident reported by the gun store owner that coincided with Mateen's possible visit, three law enforcement officials told CNN. 
 
 Agents originally looked into a call from the store about a group of suspicious foreign men appearing to be of Middle Eastern descent, who were buying police gear. 
 
 The FBI tracked down the men, who were visiting government security officers from a Middle Eastern country. The purchase was not deemed suspicious, the sources said. 
 
 When the FBI closed the matter with the store, an employee mentioned another unidentified suspicious man who days before had tried to buy Level 3 body armor. 
 
 There was no name or any purchase record to review. The FBI asked the person at the store if there was surveillance footage or a car description or license plate. There wasn't. 
 
 After the shooting, store employees realized the man was Mateen, Abell said. 
 
 The FBI had no official comment on the matter when reached Thursday night. 
 
 Spokesmen for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Martin County Sheriff's Office said the agencies don't have any records of receiving calls from Lotus Gunworks. 
 
 ISIS, or personal conflict? 
 
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 Despite mounting pledges of allegiance to ISIS, some say they believe Mateen was actually fueled by struggles with his sexuality -- and may have latched on to ISIS as a vehicle for his anger. 
 
 Several regulars at the gay nightclub said the gunman visited frequently over the past few years. Cord Cedeno said Mateen saw him at Pulse and messaged him on Grindr, a gay dating app. 
 
 Cedeno said he wasn't interested in Mateen, but his friend was. 
 
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 "One of my friends ... has been speaking with him since 2007, on and off," on another gay dating app, Cedeno said. 
 
 "(Mateen) sent him a picture of his private part, and my friend actually was attracted to him. He almost went and hooked up with him." 
 
 FBI agents are interviewing people who claim they met the gunman on gay dating apps, a law enforcement official said. Those claims "certainly change the perspective," the source said. 
 
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 CNN military analyst Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said the gunman's complex background makes the investigation challenging. 
 
 "I'm not a psychiatrist, but the struggle with his humanity, his sexuality, combined with the potential for putting the onus on an organization that's asking people to do this -- asking extremists to do these kinds of things -- is an interesting dynamic," he said. 
 
 "And that's the thing that makes this case so extremely difficult." 
 
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 The gunman's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said she was not sure about his sexuality. 
 
 "It doesn't surprise me that he might be gay," she said. "And it doesn't surprise me that he was leading two totally different lives and was in such deep conflict within himself." 
 
 But the gunman's father, Seddique Mateen, has said he didn't think his son was gay. He emphasized that Mateen had a wife and child. 
 
 Victim's video 
 
 Throughout Orlando, survivors mourned the dead and recalled their experience. 
 
 Miguel Leiva shot cell phone video while huddled inside a bathroom with about 16 other people, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. 
 
 The video showed people passing a cup of water around. One man was choking on his own blood, Leiva said. They whispered because they feared the gunman, who twice came back and fired his weapon, would return. 
 
 "I just remember you can smell the blood, there was so much blood," Leiva said. "All my clothes was full of blood. We were sitting down and there was a huge puddle of blood." 
 
 Only five or six people made it out alive, he said. Leiva was shot in the foot and leg. 
 
 "So many innocent people just there to have a good time."
– A missed chance? Even without his name on a watch list, Orlando gunman Omar Mateen raised suspicions in at least one gun store in the weeks before he slaughtered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. Robert Abell, co-owner of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach, Fla., tells ABC that a man he now knows was Mateen tried to buy high-end body armor of a kind typically used by law enforcement and 1,000 rounds of ammo five or six weeks ago. He says Mateen asked strange questions and made staff uncomfortable, so they turned him away and informed the local FBI office about the would-be customer. Abell says there was a follow-up conversation with the FBI, but agents never visited the store—and without a sale, the store didn't have a name to give to investigators. In other coverage: Massacre survivor Miguel Leiva has shared video from the bathroom stall where he huddled for hours with around a dozen other people, some of whom had already been shot. It provides a glimpse of the terror inside the club in the hours before a SWAT team moved in. "It was really hot in there, the smell of blood and just dead bodies everywhere," Leiva tells CBS. The New York Times has interviews with several survivors, including people who suffered multiple bullet wounds. Angel Colon has a chilling account of trying to play dead as the gunman shot wounded people on the floor. Law enforcement sources tell CNN that Mateen texted his wife hours after the attack began, asking her if she had seen the news. She told him she loved him and tried to call several times, the sources say. The Miami Herald reports on a mysterious incident from Mateen's past: His firing from a job in a state prison midway through his training, apparently over an incident involving serious misconduct. The Orlando Sentinel reports on President Obama's visit to Orlando Thursday, where he met with victims' relatives in private. "Today, once again, as has been true so many times before, I held and hugged grieving family members and parents," Obama told reporters afterward. "And they asked, 'Why does this keep happening?'" The Palm Beach Post looks at the possible charges against Mateen's wife, Noor Salman, and at why an indictment could take a long time. (There were moving scenes when JetBlue fliers realized a fellow Orlando-bound passenger was mourning a grandson killed in the attack.)