Suspect Fakes Death, Arrested in Florida

A former Newhall man who faked his death with suicide notes and death notices after he was charged with molesting an 11-year-old boy has been arrested in Florida, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.

FBI agents arrested Bob Edward Stephens on Wednesday, his 35th birthday, as he loaded groceries into a car in a supermarket parking lot in St. Petersburg, Deputy Dean Scoville said.

An anonymous caller, who viewed a profile of Stephens in September on KABC-TV’s “L.A.’s Most Dangerous” program, on Friday gave the Sheriff’s Department the man’s alias and address, Scoville said.

Stephens was arrested two years after he failed to appear in San Fernando Superior Court on charges of sexual crimes against a child, Scoville said. Stephens, who was free on $7,500 bail, sent suicide notes to relatives and arranged to have two death notices printed in the Newhall Signal in January, 1988, Scoville said.

Sheriff’s investigators believed Stephens was still alive, Scoville said. After the phone tip, he was found “working as a part-time boat washer at area piers, going by the name of Clifford Paul Donovan,” FBI Special Agent Larry Curtin said.

Stephens, a former member of Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles, faces three counts of sexually molesting a boy, now 17, over a three-year period, Scoville said.

Stephens was to be turned over to California authorities for extradition.