Accused Fort Hood Shooter Was a Regular at Shooting Range, Strip Club
Hasan also spent time with a Muslim convert who considered himself "extremist."
Nov. 16, 2009 — -- In the weeks before the massacre at Fort Hood, accused shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan was a regular not only at his office and his mosque, but a strip club, a shooting range and a Killeen, Texas restaurant where he spent much time with an 18-year-old convert to Islam who seemed to share his contempt for the U.S. Army.
The girls at the strip club Starz remembered Major Hasan well. He visited Starz, which features fully nude dancers, at least three times. According to Jennifer Jenner, one of the dancers at the club, he bought two $50 lap dances from her and one from another dancer. The devout Muslim brought his own beer and did not hesitate to pay the $50 cost for each lap dance.
Right next door to the strip club is the gun store, Guns Galore, where authorities say Hasan bought his semi-automatic pistol and bullets and in the weeks before the shooting, 13 extra ammunition clips that could hold up to 30 bullets each.
Investigators also tell ABC News that as the shooting date neared, Hasan became a regular at a nearby shooting range, Stan's Outdoor Shooting Range in Florence, Texas. He was last at the range two days before the shooting and fired off more than 200 rounds, according to the investigators.
The FBI is also investigating Hasan's regular dinner meetings at the Golden Corral restaurant in Killeen with two men, who seemed close to him.
One was an older bearded man who always wore traditional Muslim garb, according to a restaurant employee.
Vera Brooks, the night manager at the Golden Corral, said while Hasan was quite friendly, the older man, who usually wore a white robe, hat and shoulderbag, was abrupt. "He refused to answer when I asked him where he was from," Brooks said.
The other man is an 18-year-old convert to Islam named Duane Reasoner Jr., whose parents have reportedly worked at Fort Hood.
On Reasoner's own Facebook and web pages he takes the name of a famed Islamic warrior, and describes himself as an extremist, fundamentalist Mujahadeen Muslim. There are videos of Anwar al Awlaki, the same radical Yemen-based cleric with whom Major Hasan was in contact, and a drawing of Osama bin Laden presiding over a White House in flames.
A close friend of Reasoner's says he was very close to Hasan.
On the day after the shooting, Reasoner defended Hasan's actions when he was interviewed by a BBC radio reporter.
"I'm not going to condemn him for what he did," Reasoner told the BBC. "I don't know why he did it. I will not, absolutely not, condemn him for what he had done though. If he had done it for selfish reasons I still will not condemn him. He's my brother in the end. I will never condemn him."
The BBC reporter suggested to Reasoner that many might find his statement shocking.
"Well, that's the way it is," Reasoner answered. "I don't speak for the community here, but me, personally, I will not condemn him.
The BBC reporter asked Reasoner for his thoughts about the victims of the Fort Hood shooting.
Said Reasoner, "In the end, they were troops who were going to Afghanistan and Iraq to kill Muslims. I honestly have no pity for them."
"It's just like the majority of the people that will hear this," he continued. "After five or six minutes they'll be shocked, after that they'll forget about them and go on their day."
The mystery teenager has remained secluded in his parents' home, where his mother ordered ABC News off the property this weekend.
ABC's Asa Eslocker, Anna Schecter and Avni Patel contributed to this report.
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