The Shooter's Wife: Noor Salman, Wife of the Pulse Nightclub Gunman, Is Ready to Speak
On the rare occasion Noor Salman ventures outside, she does so in disguise. She says it's all about looking different from the photos of her on the news.
Grey contacts, dark lipstick, and pitch-black hair extensions are her armor of choice, which she fortifies with constant movement, refusing to stay in any public place for more than five minutes at a time. “It’s insurance that even if somebody were to recognize me, they would have doubt,” she said. “I would be gone by the time they figure it out.”
Salman has reason to hide: Her husband, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured 53 in the Pulse nightclub shooting in June 2016 before police killed him. Seven months later, Salman was charged with helping her husband prepare for the massacre at the Orlando dance club, now considered one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Over the years, Salman has tried to erase every sign of her connection to Mateen. She’s changed her family’s last name, and instructed her young son to tell his classmates he doesn’t know the identity of his father. She has finally started venturing out in public, but that took years. If asked, she tells strangers that she became a mom as a result of a one-night stand with a stranger. “It’s easier than to say this is what happened,” she told me. “That he killed people and became a single mom.”
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In a series of exclusive interviews with VICE News, Salman has finally told her side of the story, one that provides a glimpse into how the private violence of domestic abuse can evolve into the public terror of a mass shooting.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqxpy/noor-salman-wife-of-pulse-nightclub-gunman-speaks
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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
