The man who shot people in Las Vegas came from a family of robbers and swindlers. The father of the Las Vegas shooter was on the FBI's list of the most dangerous criminals. The father of the Las Vegas shooter.

The United States is closely studying the identity and circle of acquaintances of Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old native of Iowa who committed the largest mass shooting of random people in the history of the United States. He is so far the only suspect in the murder of 59 people on the Las Vegas Strip in the American metropolis of the same name. Another 515 people were injured. At the time Paddock carried out the shooting, a concert of a popular country singer was taking place there. The shooter himself, who fired at people from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, committed suicide before police riot police broke down the door to the room where he was staying.

Investigators later determined that Paddock was well prepared for the crime. He carried 23 weapons into the hotel room, including an army weapon light machine gun M249 SAW, Colt AR-15 autoloading rifles, and carbines based on Soviet machine gun AK-47. The shooter had at least 1,600 rounds of various calibers at his disposal, and he had previously stocked magazines for high-capacity rifles. He also purchased devices for firing bursts from self-loading rifles. In addition, Paddock placed several video cameras in the corridor in front of the entrance to his room, so he saw the movement of special forces soldiers towards his door.

Despite such careful planning, the motive for the crime remains unclear.

Soon after the news of mass murder banned in Russia and a number of countries around the world, has claimed responsibility for this crime, but so far the FBI has not found any evidence.

As it became known later, Paddock spent his childhood in Tucson, Arizona, and in California's Sun Valley. The father almost did not raise his son, and the boy was raised by his mother, Dolores Irene Hudson. He graduated from the Polytechnic College and later State University in California with a degree in business management. The man was married twice (from 1977 to 1979 and from 1985 to 1990), but, as far as is currently known, there were no children in either marriage.

IN different time Paddock lived in California and Texas and worked as an internal auditor for various organizations, including the large aircraft manufacturing corporation Lockheed Martin Corporation. Since 2013 future killer retired, having earned a considerable fortune, and lived in various retirement villages. Since 2016, he has lived in Mesquite, Nevada, with his Filipina girlfriend named .

At the time of the crime, all of Paddock’s relatives - brothers Eric and Bruce, mother Hudson, and girlfriend Danley - were far from the scene of the bloody events. His girlfriend was in the Philippines and his relatives were in Florida. When Paddock's friend found out about what had happened, she interrupted her trip and urgently flew to the United States, after which the woman was immediately interrogated by the FBI. However, she could not tell them anything valuable. Paddock was a kind and non-aggressive person, Danley said. She also explained that he found cheap flights for her to the Philippines so she could go and visit her family. “Moreover, he gave me $100 thousand to buy a new house for me. It was very noble of him, but after such a gift I began to worry that this was just a way to get rid of me. But, in any case, I could not even think that he was planning to commit violence against anyone,” said the attacker’s lover.

Later, her sister’s boyfriend, who also knew Paddock, explained to reporters that he knew the attacker as an educated, intelligent and generous man who knew how to make money and showed an interest in weapons.

Paddock was also well versed in legislation related to the purchase of firearms and ammunition.

The director of the Guns&Guitars weapons store, Christopher Sullivan, where the man sometimes bought weapons, also told American journalists about Paddock’s love for shooting. In particular, two days before the shooting of people, he bought a bolt-action rifle there, which Paddock did not use in his crime. “We also cleaned his barrels for money after he shot them. He shot a lot, he had a large arsenal, many AR-15 type rifles. I have personally cleaned many of his weapons. Unfortunately, he used some of it on October 1,” Sullivan explained. He added that he still cannot get over the shock of what happened. “I went over all the circumstances of our acquaintance and communication in my head many times to try to understand what I did not see in Paddock’s character,” Sullivan said.

The store director added that after the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, he received anonymous threats from relatives of the victims of the tragedy, who were confident that Sullivan was indirectly involved in the crime. “They believe I should have alerted the police to the fact that Paddock had a large arsenal. But by law I must only do this if I know about the large arsenal of pistols. But if a person has a lot of long-barreled weapons, and I became aware of this, I should not tell the police anything,” the gunsmith justifies himself.

The only people who described Paddock with negative side, are employees in Mexit, where he often visited with his girlfriend. They explained to investigators that Paddock was rude and stingy, and constantly humiliated his lover in the presence of other people.

Paddock's family has a rich criminal tradition. The fact is that his father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, was repeatedly convicted of a number of crimes. So, in 1946, a man was found guilty of ten car thefts. The court also found him involved in five counts of fraud through abuse of trust. Paddock Sr. spent five years in the Illinois State Penitentiary. After this, he was sentenced to three years for petty fraud.

Between 1959 and 1961, Benjamin robbed three banks in Arizona, the total amount of damage was more than $25 thousand. The man was detained while trying to rob a fourth bank, and during the operation to capture him, the criminal tried to hit an FBI officer with a car. As a result, the court sentenced the robber to 20 years in prison.

In 1968, the criminal escaped from a Texas prison, and the FBI placed him on the list of the ten most wanted criminals in the United States. According to established practice, people from this list can be caught within six months, but Paddock Sr. was in hiding for almost ten years.

He managed to obtain fake documents in the name of Bruce Warner Erickson. According to them, he worked for some time as a truck driver and also as an employee of a drug rehabilitation center. In 1977, the criminal received a license to organize a lottery office and opened it a year later. However, soon he was finally caught. In 1987, having already been released from prison, he was again involved in criminal liability for fraud, but got off with a fine. Benjamin died in 1998. He was diagnosed with psychopathy, which did not exclude his sanity.

He himself practically did not see his father, since he was constantly either in prison or on the run. But, as a forensic psychologist explained to Gazeta.Ru, this disease could well be inherited. “Let's start with the fact that the term “psychopathy” has now been withdrawn from circulation, since there are quite a lot of types of diseases that were previously united under it: excitable, depressive, manic individuals. These are a number of diseases that were previously included in the concept of “psychopathy,” that is, weakness of a person’s mental activity. Nowadays, the concept of “accented personality” is used instead. A number of diseases are inherited, symptoms can appear as early as mature age", said the specialist.

According to Vinogradov, for a long time Stephen Paddock may have had psychopathic symptoms, but he had high degree control over your disorders. “These symptoms often appear before the age of 45 (in women) and 55 years (in men) simply as a bad character, and from this age they already acquire the character of a mental pathology.

But the most important thing is that hereditary mental illness can manifest itself in old age,” the expert concluded.

His words may be confirmed by the fact that Patrick Paddock, brother Stephen, was also convicted several times. He was involved in the crimes of their common father. Another brother of the killer, Bruce, is suspected of financial fraud. Immediately after the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, he was detained because without good reason did not appear at the court hearing in his criminal case.

According to Business Insider, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, whom doctors officially recognized as a psychopath with suicidal tendencies, robbed banks and stole cars.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after several armed attacks on banks in Arizona, but escaped in 1969 and was wanted for several years.

Paddock Sr. passed away several years ago.

Let us add that law enforcement agencies are studying the biography of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, because they still do not understand why his son opened fire on visitors to a country festival. Despite the fact that ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation) called Paddock Jr. a “soldier of the Caliphate,” the FBI denies his involvement with terrorists.

Investigators are still looking into the reasons for the attack. In turn, forensic psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov suggested that the reasons lie in the easy availability of firearms in the United States.

“There are states in America where firearms are prohibited. In our country it is allowed only to hunters, according to hunting license, after a special check that the police are now conducting. Unfortunately, there are a lot of real weapons. People buy a small-caliber rifle to hunt animals, and use it on the streets, or buy a gun on the black market, saw off the barrel, and get a sawed-off shotgun that can be used to kill. Therefore, both in America and here we are now actively working to ensure that weapons do not fall into the hands of the mentally ill, criminals, and are registered,” the expert noted in an interview with

The father of “Las Vegas shooter” Stephen Paddock, who carried out the shooting of music festival visitors from a hotel window, was on the FBI’s list of the most dangerous American criminals.

This was reported by CNN with reference to information from local law enforcement agencies and the words of the brother of the criminal.

Benjamin Hoskins Paddock was on the list of the most dangerous criminal elements from June 10, 1969 to May 5, 1977. The intelligence service described him as a “psychopath”, with “suicidal tendencies” and “participated in robberies with firearms to the banks."

Benjamin Paddock was placed on the FBI's list after he escaped from a federal prison in Texas in 1960. He was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison for bank robbery. The father of the “Las Vegas shooter” was listed in crime reports under different names, including Bruce Eriksen.

On October 2, the shooter's brother Eric Paddock told reporters on the threshold of his home in Orlando (Florida) that he was born while his father was hiding from law enforcement.

“I didn’t know him. We didn't know him. He was never with our mother,” he emphasized.

According to him, he called his brother five days ago. At the same time, Eric Paddock insists that his brother is not affiliated with any religious or political organizations.

Law enforcement officials in the United States have already denied information about the involvement of the “Las Vegas shooter” with terrorist groups.

Earlier, the media wrote that Islamic State militants took responsibility for what happened in Nevada. In particular, the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the activity of terrorists on social networks, reported that IS claimed responsibility for the bloody shooting in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, in Washington, US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump observed a minute of silence in memory of those killed in the Las Vegas shooting. The funeral ceremony took place on the south lawn of the White House.

Before official residence The heads of the American state also gathered several dozen members of the White House staff and a guard of honor was presented. None of the participants in the ceremony, which lasted several minutes, made speeches; the first couple of the state only bowed their heads after the bell struck three times.

Late in the evening of October 1 (in the morning of October 2, Moscow time) during the performance of the famous American country music singer Jason Aldean on stage under open air next to one of entertainment complexes the attacker started shooting indiscriminately. The tragedy occurred during the Route 91 Harvest festival.

According to preliminary data, the criminal personally brought the weapon onto the hotel premises. It was reported that shortly before he started shooting, one of the hotel employees came into his room, but did not notice anything suspicious.

The shooter is 64-year-old Stephen Paddock. His body was found in a hotel room, from the balcony of which, according to preliminary data, he fired from an automatic weapon.

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