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Las Vegas shooting suspect's father was once one of FBI's most wanted

Benjamin Hoskins Paddock was a notorious bank robber who escaped federal prison.

ByABC News
October 2, 2017, 3:19 PM

— -- Stephen Paddock, the suspected shooter in the attack on concertgoers in Las Vegas on Sunday that killed at least 58 people and injured at least 515 others, was the son of a famous criminal.

His estranged father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, was a notorious bank robber who spent years as one of the country’s most wanted fugitives.

According to a 1971 article in Arizona’s now defunct Tucson Daily Citizen, the elder Paddock — also known as “Chromedome,” “Old Baldy” and “Big Daddy” — was imprisoned for a 1960 “holdup of a branch of the Valley National Bank in Phoenix” and was also “accused of two other robberies.”

While he was being arrested in Las Vegas, the newspaper reported, Benjamin Paddock “attempted to run down an FBI agent with his car.”

He escaped while serving a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in La Tuna, Texas — which landed him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

A wanted poster circulated in 1969 described Paddock as a “very dangerous” criminal.

“Diagnosed as psychopathic,” the description reads. “Has carried firearms in commission of bank robberies. He reportedly has suicidal tendencies and should be considered armed and very dangerous.”

He was removed from the list in 1977 and was captured the following year in Oregon, where he was running a bingo parlor under the alias Bruce W. Ericksen.

Stephen Paddock’s brother Eric Paddock confirmed his father’s identity and criminal history for ABC News. Eric Paddock said that he and his brother “didn’t know him” and that their father died several years ago.

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