Stephen Craig Paddock (April 9, 1953 – October 1, 2017) was an American mass murderer who perpetrated the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the deadliest mass shooting and one of the worst mass murders in American history.
Paddock grew up in a poor household and began his career as an auditor before becoming wealthy from investing in and managing apartment buildings. At the time of the shooting, Paddock was a hobby pilot and an avid video poker gambler who lived reclusively in Mesquite, Nevada. On October 1, 2017, Paddock opened fire into a crowd of about 22,000 concertgoers attending a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 60 people and injuring approximately 867 (at least 413 of whom were wounded by gunfire). Paddock killed himself in his suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel following the shooting. Paddock's motive remains officially unknown, and the possible factors are the subject of speculation.
Paddock was born on April 9, 1953, in Clinton, Iowa, where his family lived at the time. He was the oldest of four sons of Benjamin Paddock and Dolores Hudson. Shortly after his birth, his family relocated to Tucson, Arizona. Benjamin was a bank robber who was arrested in Arizona in 1960 when Stephen was seven years old. Benjamin was later convicted and escaped prison in 1969, subsequently appearing on the FBI's most-wanted list.
According to Stephen's brother Eric, "[Benjamin] was never with my mom" and "we didn't grow up under his influence." After Benjamin was arrested, their mother told the children that their father had died in a car accident and kept his status as a bank robber a secret from the family. Dolores proceeded to move her sons to the Sun Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Stephen spent his remaining childhood and adolescence in a low-income household. Dolores worked as a secretary to support the family. According to one of Paddock's ex-wives in a police interview, he had spoken about how growing up with a single mother and the family's financial instability caused him to prioritize being self-reliant and self-sustaining.
Another one of Stephen's brothers, Patrick Paddock II, said that he and his brothers all grew up with anger, but he said he thought Stephen seemed the least affected. "My brother was the most boring one in the family," Patrick said of Stephen. "He was the least violent one."
Former high school classmates describe the younger Paddock as a "math genius" and "quiet and withdrawn."
Paddock attended Richard E. Byrd Middle School, Sun Valley High School, and John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, where he graduated in 1971. He went on to graduate from California State University, Northridge, in 1977, with a degree in business administration.
Paddock worked as a postal worker from 1975 to 1978. After that, he worked for the Internal Revenue Service until 1984. In 1985, he worked as an auditor for the Defense Contract Audit Agency. From 1985 to 1988, Paddock worked as an internal auditor for a company that later merged into Lockheed Martin. He was known to have run a real-estate business with his brother Eric.
Paddock lived in the Greater Los Angeles Area and owned real estate in Panorama City, Cerritos, and North Hollywood from the 1970s to early 2000s. He also owned two apartment buildings in Hawthorne, California. In addition, he owned an apartment complex in Mesquite, Texas, which he sold in 2012.
Relatives said Paddock was worth at least US$2 million when he sold off the real-estate business. Among his most profitable investments was an apartment complex purchased in 2004 which gave him more than $500,000 in annual income by 2011. IRS records show he made $6 million in profits from its sale in 2015.
Paddock was an avid gambler, and although the extent to which he profited from it is not clear, his reported gambling winnings might have been substantial. He was sometimes seen in high-limit rooms, but he was not well known among high-stakes gamblers in Las Vegas and was not considered a "whale" (high roller) by the casinos. His game of choice was video poker, which he had played for over 25 years. He usually gambled after dark and slept during the day; he disliked being out in the sun.
Paddock was married and divorced twice and had no children. He was first married from 1977 to 1979 and for the second time from 1985 to 1990, both marriages in Los Angeles County, California. Family members say he stayed on good terms with his ex-wives.
Paddock lived in Texas and California, and then in a retirement community in Melbourne, Florida, from 2013 to 2015. In 2016, he moved from Florida to another retirement home in Mesquite, Nevada. According to property records he bought a new house in Mesquite in January 2015 and sold his two-bedroom home in Melbourne.
Paddock lived in Mesquite with his girlfriend whom he had met several years before in Reno, Nevada. According to neighbors, they also lived together in Reno. Many Mesquite residents recalled only seeing him around town; those familiar with Paddock described him as someone who did not speak much and kept a low profile. The local gun owner community never saw him at any of the gun clubs or shooting ranges, including makeshift ones in the nearby desert.
An Australian acquaintance said he met Paddock in the United States and in the Philippines. He described Paddock as intelligent and methodical. In his account, Paddock said he had won money by applying algorithms to gambling on machines. Paddock was conversant in gun laws and in defending his view of the Second Amendment. The acquaintance considered Paddock a generous man whenever he and his girlfriend visited him.
In 2010, Paddock applied for and received a United States passport. He went on 20 cruise ship voyages, visiting several foreign ports including ones in Spain, Italy, Greece, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. He was accompanied by his girlfriend on nine of them. They went to the Philippines together in 2013 and 2014. During the last year of his life, they traveled on a cruise to the Middle East. Paddock had his pilot's license since at least 2004 and owned two small planes, one being a Cirrus SR20 (registration N5343M).
Paddock's only recorded interaction with law enforcement was a minor traffic citation years before the shooting, which he settled in court. According to court records, Paddock also sued the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in September 2012, saying he "slipped and fell on an obstruction on the floor" and was injured as a result; the lawsuit settled, and was dismissed with prejudice in October 2014.
Paddock's gun purchases spiked significantly between October 2016 and September 28, 2017. He purchased over 55 firearms, the majority of them rifles, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He also purchased a number of firearm-related accessories. Prior to that, he purchased approximately 29 firearms between 1982 and September 2016, mainly handguns and shotguns. His girlfriend noticed the increase of firearm-related purchases but believed his interest in guns was just a hobby.