Father’s History Could Offer Insight Into Mind of Las Vegas Gunman
- 7 years ago
Father’s History Could Offer Insight Into Mind of Las Vegas Gunman
In 1946 he was caught stealing a car in Chicago and reselling it in “a fraudulent fashion.” He spent five years in prison,
70 percent of it, he said, “in the hole,” or solitary confinement, because he was “unable or unwilling to abide by rules.”
When he got out, he made good money selling used cars in Chicago, but quit because, he explained, “the thrill had gone out of it.”
During that time he got married and fathered Stephen, who was born in 1953.
“I’m a third time loser,” Mr. Paddock, the father of the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock,
told the doctor with a smile, according to a summary of the doctor’s evaluation.
Facing prison for a string of bank robberies, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock beamed cheerfully at a psychiatrist evaluating his fitness to stand trial,
and mused at length — at times with “becoming modesty” — about his life stealing cars, running cons, enduring solitary confinement and getting fired from a job as a bus driver after playing tag with the buses.
He quit high school almost as soon as he started, then joined the Navy at age 15,
but was discharged a few months later, he said, when the Navy figured out, “I wasn’t going to do what they wanted me to.”
He drove buses in Los Angeles, but got fired for a game of bus tag with other drivers.
“We are establishing the timeline of the suspect’s life, his motivation
and everybody else associated with him throughout time,” Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.
“I got away with an awful lot,” he told his evaluator.
In 1946 he was caught stealing a car in Chicago and reselling it in “a fraudulent fashion.” He spent five years in prison,
70 percent of it, he said, “in the hole,” or solitary confinement, because he was “unable or unwilling to abide by rules.”
When he got out, he made good money selling used cars in Chicago, but quit because, he explained, “the thrill had gone out of it.”
During that time he got married and fathered Stephen, who was born in 1953.
“I’m a third time loser,” Mr. Paddock, the father of the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock,
told the doctor with a smile, according to a summary of the doctor’s evaluation.
Facing prison for a string of bank robberies, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock beamed cheerfully at a psychiatrist evaluating his fitness to stand trial,
and mused at length — at times with “becoming modesty” — about his life stealing cars, running cons, enduring solitary confinement and getting fired from a job as a bus driver after playing tag with the buses.
He quit high school almost as soon as he started, then joined the Navy at age 15,
but was discharged a few months later, he said, when the Navy figured out, “I wasn’t going to do what they wanted me to.”
He drove buses in Los Angeles, but got fired for a game of bus tag with other drivers.
“We are establishing the timeline of the suspect’s life, his motivation
and everybody else associated with him throughout time,” Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.
“I got away with an awful lot,” he told his evaluator.