Parole Agent Held After Standoff in Mother’s Shooting

A state parole agent was arrested after a tense, hourlong standoff with police Saturday when he returned to the Stanton townhouse where he allegedly shot his 64-year-old mother Friday night.

Police had spent all night Friday and early Saturday looking for James F. Valante, 42, who had fled with his 3-year-old son, Matthew. Then, at 12:30 p.m. Saturday he and the child walked into their home in the 10600 block of Bell Street, where they lived with Valante’s mother, sending frightened residents fleeing into their homes.

“He’s back!” screamed neighbor Valerie Zahn. She then fled to a nearby home while other residents ran to their own homes.

Emergency Call

At 7:40 p.m. Friday, a man had called the 911 number to report that he had just shot his mother, Sheriff’s Lt. William Francis said. “He repeated the statement and then hung up.”

At the home, police found Virgina Sprehe on the floor. She “said she had been shot by her son,” Francis said.

Sprehe was shot once in the back. She underwent surgery at UCI Medical Center and was in stable condition, Lt. Larry Abbott said.

Minutes after Valante arrived at the Bell Cove complex Saturday, three sheriff’s deputies and an off-duty police officer who lived there had surrounded Valante’s home. They crouched behind bushes and patio walls, sometimes with drawn guns. A Sheriff’s Department helicopter hovered overhead for nearly an hour.

At the same time, Francis was on the phone with Valante, who earlier Saturday had called Francis “and volunteered to surrender,” the lieutenant said.

“I told him to tell us his location or come into headquarters,” Francis said. But Valante returned home instead.

“That was an independent decision,” Francis said. Valante surrendered, unarmed, at about 1:30 p.m. Police had found a .38-caliber revolver in the home Friday night, Abbott said.

Valante was on medical leave from his job as a state parole agent in Los Angeles County, Abbott said.

Neighbors said he spent much of his time at the swimming pool talking to residents about a variety of subjects, including his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Zahn said that in recent weeks Valante had begun to talk about leaving the area with his son, so he would not have to share custody of the boy with his former wife, who deputies said lives in North Hollywood.

“He wanted full custody of his son, and he said he didn’t care what the consequences were,” Zahn said. Several neighbors speculated that Valante and Sprehe may have argued over his plan to take the boy.

Sheriff’s deputies at first feared that Valante had headed for his wife’s home Friday night, but later learned she is out of town on vacation.

Zahn said Valante had recently become obsessed with a movie called “Above the Law,” which he claimed to have watched on videotape at least 12 times. She watched the movie with him once. The film, which critics have said is extremely violent, is about a former police officer who takes the law into his own hands and begins shooting criminals.

“He referred to it all the time,” Zahn said.

Valante had told several residents that before he became a parole agent, he had been a police officer with the Compton Police Department. But a 26-year veteran of the Compton police Saturday said he could not confirm that, and that he had never met Valante.

Another neighbor, Tom Erwine Jr., 26, said Valante “was a police officer. He said he was on permanent disability because he had been shot, or something like that.”

Dan Penrose, 28, called Valante “a very nice guy, but in a bizarre sort of way. He would tell you his life story unsolicited.”

Erwine agreed. “Some people thought he was social. I found it annoying,” he said.

The residents said Valante doted on his son.

“He was a very attentive father,” Penrose said. “He spent a lot of time with his son. He was a full-time father.”

The residents described Sprehe as religious and said they frequently saw her taking Matthew to church last winter. But her health had deteriorated recently and she spent most of her time inside, they said. Most residents had met Sprehe because she had volunteered to accept their packages when they weren’t home.

Real estate records indicate that Sprehe became a part-owner of the townhouse in April. Before that, Valante appears to have been the sole owner.

Matthew Valante was still in the care of county authorities Saturday evening, although his grandmother had come to pick him up.

Valante’s townhouse was described by friends as disheveled, and his porch was filled with a variety of toys, including a Big Wheel, a deflated children’s pool and some kid-sized gardening tools. The porch light was still on.

Residents said Bell Cove is ordinarily a peaceful, 23-unit complex inhabited mostly by married professionals.

“This complex has never had any violence like this,” Erwine said.