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Investigators are scrutinizing the wife of Omar Mateen to determine how much she may have known about his plans for Sunday's shooting massacre in Orlando, Fla., officials said.

One official briefed on the probe said Noor Salman had accompanied her husband on at least one occasion as he scouted the Pulse nightclub, the site of the attack. She also joined him on one or more of his visits to the Florida gun store where he bought weapons and ammunition, the official said.

Officials have been talking to Ms. Salman. If they determine she knew he planned an act of violence and didn't tell authorities, she could be charged with a crime, officials said, though they cautioned they haven't reached any conclusions.

Ms. Salman couldn't be reached for comment, and it wasn't clear whether she has a lawyer.

Mateen opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in downtown Orlando, Sunday starting around 2 a.m. Authorities say he made a 911 call declaring his allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State before he was shot and killed hours later. ( See this interactive graphic on how the shootings unfolded.) Forty-nine people were killed and another 53 injured in the attack.

Mateen had cased Walt Disney World, some 15 miles from the nightclub, while he was searching for targets, two officials briefed on the investigation said. At least some of that scouting took place just days before Sunday's attack, the officials said. It wasn't clear which Disney World property Mateen observed.

James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Monday that Mateen was likely radicalized online, at least in part, although officials haven't uncovered any links between Mateen and foreign terror groups, a person familiar with the probe said.

Ms. Salman, 30 years old, was born in California and grew up in the small Bay Area suburb of Rodeo in a house where her mother still lives, neighbors said.

"Noor was nice. Nobody had anything against her," said Rajinder Chahal, a 59-year-old mortgage broker who lives across the street.

The eldest of four daughters, Noor was sheltered growing up, according to Mr. Chahal's wife. Her mother wouldn't allow boys over at the house, and she drove her daughters to and from school, she said. The family is "very religious," she said.

Ms. Salman's first marriage ended in 2009. She later met Mateen online, and the pair were married on Sept. 29, 2011, in a Muslim ceremony in Hercules, Calif., by an imam from Berkeley, according to the marriage certificate. The wedding was witnessed by the bride's parents, whose place of birth is listed as Palestine on the certificate.

The Chahals said they were invited to the wedding. They didn't attend the ceremony but went to a celebration afterward at the family home, where they saw Mateen but didn't speak with him.

The marriage occurred three months after Mateen's divorce to his first wife, Sitora Yusufiy, was final, according to the marriage license.

After Ms. Salman got married, she was rarely seen in the Bay Area neighborhood, as Mateen wouldn't let her visit her family, Mr. Chahal said her mother told him. She returned only for her father's funeral, a trip that was paid for by an uncle, Mr. Chahal said.

St. Lucie County, Fla., court papers show her listed with Mateen on an August 2013 mortgage for the Fort Pierce, Fla., condo where the couple lived.

The Salmans occasionally attended prayers at the Islamic Society of West Contra Costa County, according to the imam, Hamza Mehter.

Other congregants told Mr. Mehter they remember seeing the parents from time to time, but that the family wasn't deeply involved in the community, he said. He didn't recognize their daughter.

When they learned of Mateen's involvement in the Orlando shooting, the Chahals went to visit Ms. Salman's mother. She was crying and said she hadn't been able to speak with her daughter, they said.

Tuesday morning, a woman declined to comment from behind the door of Ms. Salman's family home.

Investigators are also trying to determine if the gunman did, as some witnesses have claimed, use a gay dating app or had prior relationships with gay men that might have been part of his motivation for carrying out the massacre at the nightclub. Agents are continuing to examine witnesses' phones and talk to the app companies to see if Mateen used one or more of them, officials said.

On Tuesday, DeAngelo Scott, an Orlando man who regularly attends Pulse nightclub and manages a cellphone store near the club, said he was on the gay social-media app Grindr about a week before the shooting and scrolled past a picture of the man he now believes was Mateen. A Grindr spokesman declined to say whether Mateen had a profile on its app. "We will continue to cooperate with the authorities and do not comment on ongoing investigations," the spokesman said.

Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, has rejected speculation that his son was gay. Regarding reports that the shooter had attended the Pulse nightclub before the event, his father said that might have been to case it.

Josh Mitchell and Tripp Mickle contributed to this article.

Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com and Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 15, 2016 07:45 ET (11:45 GMT)

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