Reported Tragedy Was Just a Hoax, Officials Say

The report of the supposed tragedy came seven weeks ago from Scott Steele’s distraught Swedish girlfriend, Susanne Pettersson.

Vacationing on Santa Catalina Island, Steele, a Dana Point businessman, had gone out on the water early the morning of March 11 with his 3-year-old son, Schyler, in an inflatable boat, Pettersson told the U.S. Coast Guard. The two did not return.

Fearful of a drowning, several dozen Coast Guard searchers combed frantically through the night by air and sea, finding no one.

A Waste of Time

Law enforcement officials now say the Coast Guard was wasting its time. The disappearance was a hoax.

Steele, authorities say, was already on his way with his son to Sweden, where he was to later meet up with Pettersson, who had once been Schyler’s nanny.

Steele left behind an estranged wife in Tustin who had legal custody of the boy. He also left behind a string of criminal fraud charges in Orange and Riverside counties, authorities said.

It was not until Friday that the international adventure came to an end, as Swedish authorities captured Steele at Pettersson’s Uppsala home and placed his son in the temporary custody of the state.

“This is just such an incredible relief,” said Schyler’s mother, 27-year-old Marci Helsley Steele, after Steele’s capture. “Ever since this whole thing happened, my whole life has been on hold.”

The mother said she has had legal custody of the child since the couple’s separation in the fall of 1987. The father, who lived most recently in Riverside County, was limited to twice-monthly visitations, she said.

Extradition Attempt

Marci Steele planned to go to Sweden immediately to bring her son back to Tustin. U.S. law enforcement officials who will accompany her said they also expect to pursue Scott Steele’s extradition to the United States.

If Steele is extradited, he faces charges of child abduction in addition to several sets of criminal charges that officials said are already pending against him under various assumed names.

The most serious among those is a 32-count warrant on charges of grand theft, perjury and forgery that was filed against Steele late last year. State Department of Motor Vehicle investigators alleged that Steele, running a Dana Point “gray-market” auto firm that imported and registered European cars, forged tax forms to pocket more than $44,000 that should have gone to the state.

According to Marci Steele, Pettersson was a live-in nanny to Schyler while Marci and Scott Steele were still living together in both Temecula and Dana Point.

Gunnar Edlund, an officer with the Uppsala Police Department in Sweden, said Steele told him he came to Sweden with his son “to get a fair chance to defend himself” against the pending charges in the United States. “He says he can’t get a fair trial in the United States, that his ex-wife is trying to make him look bad.”

Marci Steele said that her estranged husband “is obsessed with Schyler. He would say that if he couldn’t have him, no one could.”

Fear of Prison

But she added that she believes that it was the threat of criminal prosecution that prompted Steele to flee the country.

“He just hated the idea of going to jail,” she said.

Law enforcement officials said they believe that Steele, along with Pettersson, planned his elaborate escape well in advance, going so far as to secure the passports of another Orange County man and his child.

On March 10, Steele picked up his son from Marci Steele and took him and Pettersson for a scheduled weekend vacation trip to Catalina.

Bruce Rouse, a senior investigator with the Riverside County district attorney’s office, said that once the three arrived on Catalina, Steele took his son on a commercial ferry to San Pedro, then took a flight from Los Angeles International Airport under assumed names to Germany and then on to Sweden.

There, they met up later with Pettersson, who left the country March 16 before police could detain her, Rouse said. Pettersson is now wanted for aiding and abetting in a child abduction, Rouse said.

Steele and Pettersson left behind a $550,000 house in Riverside County along with virtually all their personal property, which they later instructed neighbors to try and sell, Rouse said.

“They just up and left with nothing but a few clothes,” he said.

An Early Suspicion

Rouse said that after the hoax was discovered, he stayed in close touch with U.S. State and Justice department officials as well as Swedish authorities to try to track down Steele, but with little success until Friday.

Marci Steele said she soon began to suspect that the supposed accident might have been prearranged.

“I just knew sooner or later he was going to disappear with Schyler,” she said. “Scott’s been in and out of trouble his whole life--why should it be any different now?”