Hollister, US:
The Pentagon shooter had been behaving erratically, and his family feared in January that he had bought a gun, a law enforcement official said on Friday. (
Gunman opens fire near Pentagon in pics)
San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill told the AP the parents of John Patrick Bedell filed a missing persons report and were worried about his mental stability. After reading an e-mail from their son to an acquaintance, the parents told deputies they were worried that he had purchased a gun. (
Read: Gunman opens fire near Pentagon)
Hill said that Bedell has been on the department's radar since 2003, when deputies found him walking along the side of the road. They wrote him up as a "5150" _ police code for crazy _ and took him to his parents house.
Hill said that Bedell, 36, has been at in-patient mental health institutions at least four times.
The parents reported Bedell missing on Jan. 4, one day after a Texas Highway Patrol officer stopped him for speeding in Amarillo, according to the missing person's report. Bedell told the highway patrolman he was heading for the East Coast, and the officer used Bedell's phones to call his mother, Kaye Bedell, because he seemed disheveled and out of sorts.
Kaye Bedell told the highway patrol officer in Texas that her son was fine, and the patrolman let him go with a warning.
The next day, Kaye told sheriff's deputies in California that her son did not have any reason to travel to the East Coast because he had no friends or family there and they were worried about his mental state.