The father of the man who police think opened fire on Las Vegas concertgoers Sunday night was once on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, according to press reports.
The shooter, Stephen Paddock, has a younger brother Eric, who confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that their father was a bank robber who made the FBI’s list in the 1960s. Eric Paddock said their father was Patrick Benjamin Paddock, who also went by the name Benjamin Hoskins Paddock and several other aliases.
The elder Paddock was born in 1926 and had been convicted of bank robbery, automobile larceny, and confidence game, according to an FBI wanted notice published in 1969. He was also diagnosed as “psychopathic” and had “carried firearms in commission of bank robberies.”
“He reportedly has suicidal tendencies and should be considered armed and very dangerous,” the notice read.
The FBI wanted notice was once for sale on eBay. The listing said the notice was sold early Monday morning.
Source: Ebay listing
A news clipping from the Tucson Daily Citizen, published in 1960, offered some insight into the “big impact” the elder Paddock made in the Arizona city. According to the newspaper, Paddock had “demure wife” and “four bouncing children” — the eldest was Stephen, the Las Vegas shooter, followed by Patrick, Bruce, and Eric.
Another news clipping from the Tucson Daily Citizen, published in 1971, said Paddock made the FBI’s list of 10 most-wanted fugitives after escaping from the Federal Correctional Institution at La Tuna, Tex., on Dec. 31, 1968. He was serving a 20-year sentence there for the robbery of a Phoenix bank in 1960.
The FBI flyer showed he had an array of aliases, including Perry Archer, Benjamin J. Butler, Leo Genstein, Pat Paddock, and Patrick Benjamin Paddock. When asked for confirmation, the FBI sent the Washington Examiner a link to the page of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, who was removed from the FBI’s most wanted list in 1977.
“The FBI can confirm that an individual named Benjamin Hoskins Paddock was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List on June 10, 1969, as the 302nd person on the List. He was wanted for being an Escaped Federal Prisoner after he escaped from a federal corrections institution in La Tuna, Texas, on December 31, 1968. At that time, he was serving time for robbery. Paddock spent 7 years, 10 months, and 26 days on the List and was then removed from the List on May 5, 1977, when it was determined that he no longer fit the criteria required to be on the List,” the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs told the Washington Examiner in an email.
Court documents from the Supreme Court of Oregon show Paddock was arrested in 1978 in Oregon — after staying under the radar for years as a fugitive. He was arrested, booked and charged under the alias of Bruce W. Ericksen for being the manager of an illegal bingo operation, which may have been a name he borrowed from two of his sons.
“Sometime between September 14, 1978, and September 18, 1978, the federal authorities transported Ericksen-Paddock to the county jail in El Paso, Texas,” the documents read.
On Oct. 28, 1980, he elder Paddock told a court trial board that he had been convicted of bank robbery, auto theft, forgery, and confidence crimes in the past.
One of the questions was: “At the time of your arrest, you had been an escapee from the West District of Texas for approximately nine years?”
Paddock answered: “Yes. I’ve been No. 1. Also had three killings that don’t appear on that, for seven and a half years.”
Public records indicate that he died in 1998.
Stephen Craig Paddock, opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel at 10:08 p.m. local time upon concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival Sunday night. The shooting left 58 dead and at least 515 wounded.
The gunman was found dead in his hotel room by law enforcement after the shooting.
