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Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock's father Benjamin Hoskins Paddock was a bank robber

Posted at 3:21 PM, Oct 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-02 16:30:32-04

LAS VEGAS (AP) --  Las Vegas shooterStephen Craig Paddock's father was a notorious bank robber who tried to run down an FBI agent with his car in Las Vegas in 1960 and was on the agency's most wanted list after escaping from a federal prison in Texas in 1968.

Paddock was a teen when an FBI poster issued after the escape said his father Benjamin Hoskins Paddock had been "diagnosed as psychopathic."

The FBI warning about the elder Paddock said he should be considered "armed and very dangerous." He had been serving a 20-year sentence for a string of Phoenix bank robberies.

Benjamin Hoskins Paddock died in 1998.

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Stephen Paddock's brother, Eric, confirmed their father's identity in an interview Monday with The Orlando Sentinel.

Benjamin Hoskins Paddock was described decades ago by the FBI as a "glib, smooth-talking" con man who enjoyed gambling, umpiring prison sports games and playing bridge.

Paddock was 7 and the oldest of four children when his father was arrested for a string of Phoenix bank robberies.

Neighbor Eva Price took the boy 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."

Paddock's father went by the nicknames "Big Daddy," "Chromedome" and "Old Baldy."

Before the robberies, he served prison time in Illinois for stealing a car, engaging in a confidence game and conspiring to pass bad checks. He was in prison for the first three years of his oldest son's life.