FACE OF A KILLER: How Stephen Paddock went from school sports star to Las Vegas madman

These chilling pictures show a young Paddock – then likely aged 18 or 19 – posing emotionless alongside classmates in 1971.

The 64-year-old was a pupil at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles, California, which also schooled actor Danny Trejo, a Nobel Prize winner and Bruce Jeffrey Pardo who killed nine people before turning the gun on himself in a brutal attack on Christmas Eve 2008. 

Paddock massacred at least 59 people and injured more than 520 when he fired indiscriminately in to a crowd of revellers at a country music concert yesterday. His motives for the attack are still unknown. 

Details of Paddock’s life before the cowardly shooting spree are slowly emerging, with one photo revealing the mass murderer was part of the secondary school’s varsity tennis team, which would have represented John H. Francis Polytechnic in competitions and events against other schools. 

A second picture shows Paddock posing for a yearbook photo in 1971. 

Police tracked down Paddock to the Mandalay Bay hotel, across the famous Las Vegas Strip from a stage of the Route 91 Harvest festival. 

SWAT teams blasted their way in to his room on the 32nd floor and found he had already taken his own life.

Officers found an arsenal of 23 guns in the room, including rifles fitted with long-range scopes.

Paddock also had two “bump stocks” – which are legal in the United States – which effectively turn semi-automatic rifles in to fully automatic machine guns. 

Las Vegas police said Paddock had no history of mental illness or any obvious “social disaffection, political discontent or radical views”.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters: “We have no idea what his belief system was. 

“I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.”

The killer was a multi-millionaire real estate investor and former accountant, according to his brother.

Eric Paddock said that his family was “dumbfounded” by the atrocity.

He said: “He was just a guy.

“Something happened, he snapped or something.”

Eric also revealed their father was a “psychopathic” career bank robber who was once on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list.

He described his brother as “not an avid gun guy at all” who had “no religious affiliation, no political affiliation” or history of mental illness.

He added: ”The fact that he had those kinds of weapons is just … where the hell did he get automatic weapons? He has no military background or anything like that.

“He’s a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite and drove down and gambled in Las Vegas.”