Suspect Held for 2 Years in Officer’s Killing May Be Freed

Citing a lack of evidence, prosecutors have told police they intend to drop charges against a convicted burglar accused of slaying a Garden Grove patrolman during a late-night traffic stop six years ago, officials confirmed Thursday.

John J.C. Stephens of Buena Park has spent two years in Orange County Jail awaiting trial while investigators tried to bolster their case--one based largely on circumstantial evidence--in the fatal shooting of Officer Howard E. Dallies.

Stephens, 28, could be released within days if prosecutors follow through with plans to drop charges during a court hearing scheduled for Monday, said Garden Grove Police Sgt. Mike Handfield.

Top Garden Grove police officials plan to meet with prosecutors in a last-ditch effort to keep the case alive.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment before Monday’s hearing. But one source familiar with the case said prosecutors are reluctant to go to trial without witnesses or forensic evidence connecting Stephens to the killing.

Dallies’ murder during a routine overnight patrol stunned the county, in part because the killer left so few clues.

Police had little with which to unravel the mystery, other than a witness who saw a motorcycle race away from the scene and Dallies’ dying words that described his killer: “White, male, young.”

Investigators considered Stephens a suspect soon after the shooting, but didn’t think they had enough evidence to arrest him until his alibi witness recanted.

The prospect of dropped charges against Stephens was welcomed Thursday by the suspect’s mother and attorney, who have long maintained Stephens’ innocence. But it came as a disappointment to those who knew Dallies, particularly investigators.

“We’re devastated,” said Handfield, who supervised the task force that tapped Stephens as the prime suspect. “I’ve been on a roller coaster.”

Handfield said investigators have no immediate plans to look for other suspects.

“We would have hoped that we would have been consulted before the bombshell was dropped,” Handfield said, adding: “We would like to sit down with the D.A. on the case.”

Investigators remain convinced that it was Stephens who left the 9-year police veteran to die after shooting him in the stomach, just below his bulletproof vest, on March 9, 1993. The officer didn’t have time to unholster his pistol, police said.

In the years that followed, a team of more than 40 investigators chased down thousands of leads, eventually compiling case files with more than 80,000 pages, Handfield said. Left with few strong clues, investigators resorted to unusual tactics.

In one instance, an undercover cop befriended one suspect, a well-known motorcycle thief who had been heard to brag about the killing. The officer arranged to meet that suspect at a Riverside motel, where police had rigged a hidden VCR in the motel room to appear that an episode on the unsolved killing was being rerun on “America’s Most Wanted.”

Police hoped the thief would boast of being the killer, but the plan collapsed when he noticed a police helicopter nearby and fled. The suspect was arrested days later on an unrelated charge and later cleared of Dallies’ killing, police said.

Stephens’ name was among the few that popped up repeatedly. Stephens, however, had an alibi for the night of Dallies’ murder.

Stephens was serving a seven-year prison sentence on a burglary conviction after the shooting, and police decided to place a bug in his cell. The plan failed when an inmate discovered the electronic device.

The breakthrough eventually came, according to police, when investigators persuaded Stephens’ alibi witness--who had placed him somewhere else at the time of the Dallies murder--to recant. In July 1997, prosecutors charged Stephens with the murder of Dallies.

Dropping the murder charges could be only a temporary move, said Michael Brennan, a clinical professor of law at USC.

“The D.A. may be saying, ‘Let’s dismiss. Let’s try to get a better case and put it together. We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot right now. Let’s go out and work the case more,’ ” Brennan said.

Although they remained steadfast that they had the right man, investigators always acknowledged that their case was far from a slam-dunk. Many of the witnesses police were relying upon had questionable backgrounds, Handfield said.

Police never found the murder weapon, never had forensic evidence implicating Stephens and never found a witness who could identify him as the gunman, police said.

Stephens’ attorney insists the police have the wrong man.

“It’s pretty obvious that he’s innocent,” said Deputy Associate Public Defender Roger Alexander, who had not heard of the talks between police and prosecutors. “It’s all a circumstantial case against him built over years, trying to fit square blocks in round holes.”

Stephens’ mother, Penny Hamilton, was guarded about news of her son’s possible release as she spoke by telephone from her home in Mount Vernon, Mo.

“I talk to my son on a regular basis, and I’ve always believed he was innocent,” she said, “with all my heart.”