Ex-Sheriff’s Deputy Pleads Not Guilty to Murder Charge : Courts: Stephen Moreland Redd is accused of having killed a Yorba Linda grocery manager during a string of armed robberies last summer.

A former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff pleaded not guilty Friday to charges he murdered a supermarket manager during a string of armed robberies in Orange County last year.

Stephen Moreland Redd, 49, a convicted bank robber, was captured by police in San Francisco last month after spending eight months as a fugitive and vowing never to be taken alive.

Redd faces nine felony charges and an allegation of murder during a robbery that could result in the death penalty if he is convicted. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin June 9.

The onetime deputy is accused of killing store manager Timothy Eugene McVeigh, 34, during a holdup at an Alpha Beta store in Yorba Linda on July 18, 1994. McVeigh, a 12-year store employee who lived in Santa Ana, was shot once in the chest by a man in a black wig when he interrupted the robbery, police said.

Two months earlier, Redd allegedly shot and wounded an unarmed security guard in a Vons parking lot in Orange while wearing a long wig. He is believed to have held up a Sav-On store in the same shopping center during a holdup in March, 1994.

Police who tracked Redd described him as an extremely dangerous man with a penchant for disguises and an IQ of 131. When Redd was arrested March 6 by a U.S. Park Police detective in San Francisco, the trunk of his car was found loaded with semiautomatic weapons and ammunition, body armor, grenades and a grenade launcher, wigs, knit hats and gloves.

Redd spent 11 years in state prison after robbing a La Habra bank in 1982 and leading police on a chase through three counties while firing out the window at his pursuers.