The brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock used ‘evil smart’ tactics to avoid authorities before being arrested for child pornography.
Bruce Paddock, 58, was on the run for more than two years before his arrest on Wednesday, reported TMZ. He allegedly would change his appearance and would move often to avoid police.
Reportedly, Bruce would rig his various homes with booby traps – which included tying propane tanks to the doors and would use cameras to create a homemade surveillance system.
The account is similar to how his brother, Stephen, had cameras set up in his Mandalay Bay hotel room to check if someone was coming as he fired on the music festival crowd from his window.
Police found more than 600 child pornography images on Bruce’s computer, which was left behind in a Sun Valley auto repair shop where he squatted in 2014. But after he was evicted he disappeared and police had been searching for him ever since.
Bruce Paddock, 58 (pictured), the brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, allegedly was on the run from police for more than two years before his arrest on Wednesday. He reportedly would change his appearance and would move often to avoid police
Allegedly, Bruce would rig his various homes with booby traps – which included tying propane tanks to the doors and would use cameras to create a homemade surveillance system. He entered a plea of not guilty to felony charges on Friday (pictured)
After the shooting, police said they received got a tip about Bruce’s whereabouts and tracked him down to an assisted living center, where he was awaiting surgery for spinal stenosis.
Bruce entered a plea of not guilty to felony charges of possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child on Friday.
His public defender asked that he be released under ankle monitor surveillance back to the assisted living facility, citing his disabilities as the reason why.
The judge denied the request and instead set up a bail review hearing on November 3.
After the shooting, police said they received got a tip about Bruce’s whereabouts and tracked him down to an assisted living center, where he was awaiting surgery for spinal stenosis (pictured)
Police found more than 600 child pornography images on Bruce’s computer, which was left behind in a Sun Valley auto repair shop where he squatted in 2014
According to the 20-page criminal complaint, Bruce faces one count of possession of more than 600 images of child pornography and 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
Police say the crimes happened between January 1, 2014 and August 30, 2014.
The LAPD released Bruce’s mugshot ‘in case there may be victims of unreported incidents’.
Bruce’s older brother Stephen (pictured) committed suicide on October 1 after killing 58 people and injuring more than 400 from his sniper’s nest in the Mandalay Bay hotel
They say his arrest has nothing to do with the Las Vegas shooting.
Bruce is being held on $60,000 bail.
TMZ previously reported that Bruce lives a ‘nomadic life’ and has a long criminal history including convictions for petty theft and vandalism.
Bruce also threatened to murder a property owner in 2014, while he was squatting at a home in the San Fernando Valley.
The home owner, Hector Cruz, told KTLA that Bruce was a longtime friend and he was going through a hard time that year when he asked to come over to his auto shop to fix his car.
Instead, he ended up squatting in the attic of the business and soon became a nuisance to workers.
Cruz said that when he found out Bruce was tampering with machinery and equipmen, the man snapped.
He said Bruce got into a fighting stance with clenched fists and told him ‘If you keep f****** with me I am going to kill you and drop you in the desert.’
On another occasion, he brought a gas canister up into the attic and threatened to set the auto shop on fire.
‘He told me he was going to kill me,’ Cruz said.
Cruz described Bruce as a drug user, who sold meth and weed.
Cruz was eventually able to get a retraining order and Bruce fled the shop, leaving his computer with the damning images behind.
Investigators are still trying to determine a motive for the October 1 shooting
Crime seems to run in the Paddock family. Bruce and Stephen’s father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, was a notorious bank robber who was on the FBI’s most Wanted List for nearly a decade.
Benjamin was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a series of bank robberies in the late 50s and early 60s. But in 1968, he broke out of jail and went on the run.
He was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List form 1969 until 1977 – when he was caught at a bingo parlor he started in Oregon. He died in 1998 at a correctional facility in Texas at the age of 71.
During his lifetime, he was diagnosed as being psychopathic.
Stephen was the oldest of his four sons with Dolores Irene Hudson. The 64-year-old killed 58 people and injured more than 400 after opening fire from his sniper’s nest in the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino on October 1. Stephen committed suicide as police stormed his room.
Stephen and Bruce’s father Benjamin was a notorious bank robber who was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for nearly a decade
Stephen and Bruce have two other brothers. Youngest Eric, 57, lives in Florida near their 89-year-old grandmother and Patrick, 60, is an engineer in Tucson.
Police continue to search for a motive in the Las Vegas shooting.
Stephen’s family have said that he didn’t show any sign of mental illness and seemed to have his life together – after making millions from investing.
‘My brother was the most boring one in the family,’ Patrick Paddock told the New York Times. ‘He was the least violent one in the family, over a 30-year history, so it’s like, who?’
But investigators have since discovered that Stephen started to show signs of angst in his final years, when he began to build up a massive stockpile of weapons.
Several people noted that he started to smell of alcohol often.
He was also reportedly prescribed the anti-anxiety drug Valium, which he was taking in its highest dose by June 2017.
The side effects of the drug – which include suicidal thoughts and unusual risk-taking behavior – can be magnified when mixed with alcohol.