Las Vegas Shooter's Father Was On FBI Most Wanted List
CBS Local -- In an odd twist, the father of the accused Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, was a convicted bank robber who was once on the FBI's Most Wanted list after escaping prison in the 1960's.
The revelation came in an interview with Paddock's brother, Eric, earlier Monday. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, who also went by Patrick Benjamin Paddock, robbed the the Valley National Bank in Phoenix in 1960. He was arrested in Las Vegas that year and tried to run an FBI agent over with his car before he was captured.
After escaping from a federal prison in La Tuna, Texas, he was placed on the most-wanted list. He had severed eight years of his 20-year sentence. The elder Paddock was removed from the most-wanted list in 1977 and captured in Springfield, Oregon, in 1978. He had opened a bingo parlor for a nonprofit organization in Eugene, Oregon, during his time on the lam. He died in 1998.
Officials said Benjamin Paddock is the father of Stephen Paddock, the gunman who authorities said opened fire from the window of a 32nd-floor hotel room, where 22,000 people had gathered for a country music festival.
The oldest of four children, Paddock was seven when his father was arrested for the robberies, according to the Associated Press. A neighbor, Eva Price, took him swimming while FBI agents searched the family home.
She told the Tucson Citizen at the time: "We're trying to keep Steve from knowing his father is held as a bank robber. I hardly know the family, but Steve is a nice boy. It's a terrible thing."
