Long Road Leads to Suspect

By GEOFF BOUCHER and BONNIE HAYES

July 31, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

GARDEN GROVE — As solemn officers stood by stone markers honoring those killed in the line of duty, Police Chief Stan Knee announced Wednesday that the suspected killer of Officer Howard E. Dallies Jr. had been returned to the city to answer for his alleged crime.

More than four years after a dying Dallies was found on Aldgate Avenue with his gun still holstered, Knee named John J.C. Stephens, 26, of Buena Park, as the man investigators believe pulled the trigger during a traffic stop.

“It is a good day for all of us,” Knee said, adding that the Wednesday arrival of a shackled Stephens to the city’s police station “ends a journey that began four years ago.”

The suspect could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering the police officer.

Stephens has been in prison since a December 1993 conviction for assaulting a Westminster man during a residential robbery. He was first questioned by the detectives seeking Dallies’ killer in 1993, but a lack of evidence forced police to move on to thousands of other leads in what became a long, frustrating investigation.

Stephens also was charged this week with the January 1993 attempted murder of a Santa Ana security guard--a shooting tests showed was committed with the same gun that killed Dallies, a connection that provided one of the key breaks in the case, according to Sgt. Mike Handfield.

Booking Stephens at the station where Dallies labored for nine years was a symbolic gesture, to bring things “full circle,” Lt. Kevin Raney said.

At the time of Dallies’ shooting, Stephens was wanted on a weapons charge and for driving with a suspended license. He was also allegedly riding a stolen motorcycle when Dallies stopped him.

The motive for the shooting was to escape arrest, Handfield said.

Stephens was silent as he was paraded past reporters before being whisked off to the Orange County Men’s Jail, where he will remain until his arraignment Friday for the murder of Dallies and the attempted murder of security guard Rene Carpio.

The guard for an apartment complex was shot while questioning a man while he was loitering in the garage. The shooting left the Salvadoran immigrant, 28, with damaged vocal cords and forced the amputation of his left leg.

Carpio said he had “nothing to say” about Stephens’ arrest.

Prosecutors and Stephens’ attorney, Orange County Deputy Public Defender Alan J. Crivaro, also declined comment. Stephens’ grandfather, Floyd Joe Luster, said his grandson is just a scapegoat being targeted by investigators eager to solve the high-profile slaying.

“They’ve been trying to implicate him, pin this thing on him, for years,” Luster said from his home in the Midwest. “A big frame-up is all it is.”

Luster said Garden Grove police raided his home after the murder in search of a gun--a visit that did not go unnoticed in the small town where he lives.

“It was embarrassing,” Luster said. “They took one of my guns and ran all kinds of tests on it and found out it had no connection to anything. But by then what do you tell your neighbors?”

Stephens’ mother, Penny Hamilton, who also resides in the Midwest, said Wednesday that while her son is a troublemaker, drug dealer and ex-convict, he is no killer.

“I don’t know how they could have arrested him,” Hamilton said. “They don’t have a gun, they don’t have an eyewitness, they don’t have anything. Except that he’s a bad boy.”

Stephens is a well-known figure to local police, and has spent the past 3 1/2 years serving a prison sentence for assault with a deadly weapon stemming from a residential robbery in Westminster.

Buena Park police said they have investigated the former Buena Park High School student in three separate assaults, but in each case the alleged victims chose not to press charges.

One of those reported attacks came three days after Dallies, 36, was shot March 9, 1993. Stephens was accused of firing a weapon at a man, Buena Park Police Lt. Mike Schwartz said.

For the family and fellow officers of Dallies, the Wednesday news conference was a mixture of relief and a mournful reopening of old wounds.

The officer’s widow, Mary Dallies-Carpenter, tearfully thanked the detectives who worked the case, and investigators recounted what they were doing the night their fellow officer was mortally wounded.

A few miles away, at the scene of the shooting, residents were also struggling to express competing emotions.

Neighbors on Aldgate Avenue still remember that chilly night when they were awakened just before 3 a.m. by gunshots and the sound of a motorcycle speeding off into the night.

Within seconds, residents spilled out onto the street. Some called 911. One used the officer’s own patrol car radio and hollered, “Officer down! Officer down!” to the dispatcher on the other end.

One man comforted Dallies, who was bleeding from his face and stomach, and tried frantically to find a pulse.

“We knew him so briefly, but he changed our lives,” said Christine North, who still scolds herself for not bringing a blanket out to Dallies while they waited for police to arrive. “Officers are supposed to be symbols of safety and comfort, and the shooting took that all away from us too.”

Added neighbor Tricia Pryor: “I hope they put whoever did it away for a long, long time--for life.”

Residents said they will never forget the way officers, some awakened by calls at their homes, raced to the scene and took turns clutching Dallies’ hand.

“They kept telling him to hang on and that they loved him,” North said. “It was very moving.”

Knee delivered news of Stephens’ arrest to patrol officers at the 6 a.m. briefing Wednesday. It was important, he said, that every officer on the street knew Dallies’ suspected killer was in custody.

“It’s been four long years,” Knee said. “This is part of the healing process for us, a big part for our department. For the community it means we’ve arrested a violent criminal who, if things go as we hope, will never walk free again.”

Times librarian Sheila Kern also contributed to this report.

The Full Story

* WIDOW’S RELIEF: Mary Dallies-Carpenter expressed satisfaction but said, “It won’t ever bring Howard back.” A20

* THE INVESTIGATOR: Boyd Underwood, with his softer touch, is the kind you might confess your sins to. B1