WHY DID HE FLIP?
He blew thousands on wild gambling addiction Fears he inherited his father’s ‘psycho’ streak
AS the enormity of Stephen Paddock’s slaughter sank in last night, the FBI were trying to fathom what pushed an unassuming former accountant to become America’s biggest mass murderer.
To an outsider, it seemed he had planned to see out his final years in the home he had bought in the sleepy Nevada desert town of Mesquite, about an hour’s drive from Las Vegas.
But those who knew him said that he got a buzz from high-stakes gambling, blowing tens of thousands as he played $100-a-hand poker.
Neighbours said the 64-year-old would disappear for days at a time to visit casinos with his long-time casino worker girlfriend Marilou Danley, 62.
Paddock, the son of a bank-robbing psychopath who was once on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, made regular trips to enjoy the gambling dens and concerts of Sin City.
CRUISES
Giving an insight into the scale of his gambling, brother Eric said he thought nothing of betting tens of thousands, adding: “My brother is not like you and me.
“He plays high-stakes video poker. He sends a text that says he won $250,000 at the casino.”
But he added: “He’s just a guy who took cruises and ate burritos at Taco Bell.”
Eric has shown the FBI three years of texts from his brother and said he had no idea if gambling debts or financial troubles led to his sickening actions.
“I have absolutely no information he lost a bunch of money. The casino would know that,” he said.
Forensic investigators are probing whether it was debts that led to, as his brother put it, Paddock “snapping” or a deeper rooted hatred that sparked his mass killing. Paddock last communicated with his brother by text, asking Eric about their mother, who had lost power during Hurricane Irma several days ago. He also phoned their mum a week or two ago.
FBI agents were said to be taking Eric to their mother’s house to interview her. He said his mum was bewildered as to why her son would kill so many people. He himself has no idea why his brother did what he did.
Eric said: “He was my brother and it’s like an asteroid fell out of the sky. We have no idea. Our condolences go to the victims and all their families.”
Before moving to Mesquite, Paddock worked as an accountant but also had real estate investments, including houses and apartments around Orlando, Florida. Eric said his childless brother was responsible for no one, which allowed him to indulge his gambling addiction.
Investigators are also probing whether he inherited his criminal father’s mental illness and ruthless passion for violence.
Paddock was the son of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, a serial bank robber who was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list in 1969 after he escaped from prison in Texas while serving a 20-year sentence.
PSYCHOPATHIC
The FBI kept him on the list for the next eight years and he was eventually found a year after he was removed from it in 1978, collared outside an Oregon bingo hall. The agency said Benjamin, who died a few years ago, had been “diagnosed as psychopathic” and had possible “suicidal tendencies”.
Public records point to Paddock having an itinerant existence across the American West – a few years in coastal California, a few years in other parts of Nevada. He had a hunting license in Texas, where he lived for at least a few years. He obtained his pilot license and had at least one singleengine aircraft registered in his name.
Paddock had no criminal record in
the state of Nevada and in early 2015, he bought a $369,000 home in a new development for retirees in Mesquite, a town popular with golfers and gamblers on Nevada’s border with Arizona.
Mesquite police spokesman Quinn Averett said: “It’s a nice, clean home and nothing out of the ordinary.”
Paddock had previously been married but more recently lived with girlfriend Danley. Neighbours said they would often interact with Danley but not with Paddock, who they said was extremely stand-offish. Danley explained their long absences by telling residents that Paddock was a professional gambler.
WEIRD
In nearby Reno, Diane McKay lived next door to Paddock and Danley until July, when she moved.
She said she only ran into Danley occasionally and she was not forthcoming about her life, while Paddock was aggressively unfriendly. She only saw him in the mornings, when he went to the clubhouse to work out.
She added that occasionally, he would open the garage door, revealing a large safe the size of a refrigerator. Other than that, the couple kept their blinds closed.
“He was weird. Kept to himself,” said McKay, 79, who described Paddock as small but in pretty good shape. “It was like living next to nothing. You can at least be grumpy, something. He was just nothing, quiet. He never went out in the back and enjoyed the backyard, nature. The blinds were always closed.”
Paddock had worked as an internal auditor at Lockheed Martin in the late 1980s. In a statement, the defence giant said: “Stephen Paddock worked for a predecessor company of Lockheed Martin from 1985 until 1988. We’re cooperating with authorities to answer questions they may have.”