Vegas Terrorist’s Father Was on FBI’s Most Wanted List

The father of Stephen Paddock, the domestic terrorist who shot at Las Vegas concertgoers Sunday, was a bank robber who escaped from prison, landing him on the FBI’s most wanted list.

“My father was on the top 10 [most wanted] list for a while… I didn’t know him, we didn’t know him,” Paddock’s brother Eric Paddock told reporters on Monday, Newsweek reports. “He was in jail and broken out of jail.”

Their father was Patrick Benjamin Paddock, who went by an alias Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, among others, according to newspaper archives. Around 1960, Patrick, who was then 34 years old, was accused of robbing at least three banks in Phoenix, Arizona.

He allegedly stole more than $20,000, which would be the equivalent of around $165,000 today.

FBI agents arrested Patrick in Las Vegas after one bank employee gave police information about his getaway car after a robbery. He reportedly appeared in a lineup where bank employees identified him, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

He reportedly escaped from prison on Christmas Eve in 1968 and robbed another bank in San Francisco six months later, an archive of the Eugene Register-Guard shows. He then appeared on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.

His description on the “wanted” print described him as having a scar above his right eyebrow and as being “diagnosed as psychopathic.” It also noted that he may be suicidal and “should be considered armed and dangerous.” The notice was signed by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

He remained at large and on the FBI’s most wanted list until 1977, and police arrested him the following year. When he was caught, he was reportedly living under the name Bruce Werner Ericksen and was managing a bingo parlor in Eugene, Oregon.

He died in 1998.

Nearly 30 years after his death, his son Stephen opened fire on attendees of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, killing at least 58 people and injuring more than 500. He died a of self-inflicted gunshot wound in his hotel room after carrying out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.