Molestations Draw 10-Year Term

A Sun Valley man was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for molesting a 7-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother, crimes that were uncovered by an autopsy after the death of the boy, who suffocated in a clothes dryer.

The man, John F. Stephens, 56, was accused of sexually abusing the son and daughter of Kimberly Miranda, who lived in his Sun Valley home.

In return for Stephens’ guilty plea in December on two child molestation charges, the prosecution dismissed two child endangering and four child molestation charges.

Unattended for Hours

The case began after the death of Joshua Miranda on May 14, 1984. The boy and his sister had been left unattended for several hours, climbed into a clothes dryer with two kittens and were trapped when the door latched from the outside, Deputy Dist. Atty. Nicholas H. Koumjian said. Stephens discovered the children when he returned from work, Koumjian said.

Joshua died shortly afterward, but the sister and the two kittens survived, Koumjian said.

During the autopsy, the coroner found injuries on Joshua indicating that he had been sexually abused during the last two days of his life, Koumjian said. The girl then told police that Stephens molested her, the prosecutor said.

Girl Wrote to Judge

The girl, now 9, scrawled a letter to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan for the sentencing.

“Dear Judge Tynan,” the letter said, “I feel that John should go to jail for 10 years because he hert me and Joshua, and he is a very nasty man. Please don’t let him do this to anyone else.”

In sentencing Stephens, Tynan referred to the offenses as “brutal . . . crimes against humanity.”

Kimberly Miranda, 27, who pleaded guilty in 1984 to misdemeanor child endangering, is now living out of the state with her daughter and the child’s grandmother, Koumjian said.