Deputy’s Alleged Killer: A Jekyll-Hyde Portrait

Conflicting portraits emerged Sunday of the unemployed laborer authorities said has confessed to gunning down a deputy sheriff in a Lake Forest convenience store parking lot with an assault rifle.

Pulled over on a routine traffic violation 11 weeks ago, Maurice Gerald Steskal became so irate that he had to be restrained and was booked for resisting arrest.

Neighbors, however, described Steskal as a born-again Christian who looked out for the kids in his apartment complex. Contrary to accounts that Steskal, 39, bore a grudge against law enforcement officers, his wife said Sunday that his younger brother is a sheriff’s deputy in Lee County, Fla.

Red-eyed from crying, Steskal’s Philippine-born wife, Nenita, said her husband had been drinking before the shooting, and she suspects he had psychological problems.

“My condolences go out to the family of the officer,” she said shakily, taking drags from a cigarette. “I believe he wasn’t in his right mind at the time. . . . He was just mad.

“It’s not that he hates cops, not at all,” she said. “All the neighbors here love him. He’s a very nice guy who doesn’t have any hatred for anyone.”

On Sunday, Steskal sat alone in a County Jail cell on a suicide watch, accused of murdering Deputy Sheriff Brad Riches, the first deputy killed on patrol since 1958. Steskal is scheduled for arraignment Tuesday.

The motives for the killing remained unclear, but investigators are looking at Steskal’s arrest nearly three months ago as a possible explanation.

“The arrest there . . . may have been a precursor to this; it may have been the continuation of a long-term hatred” of police, said Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo.

Steskal told his roommate, Cherie Brockway, and another neighbor that he was furious over the traffic stop and that he had been strip-searched on a busy street. Deputies said they do not strip-search suspects in public. He also believed his phone was bugged and authorities were following him, Brockway said.

Outside the 7-Eleven on Sunday, at the spot where Riches was shot, several hundred people left bouquets and handwritten notes honoring the 34-year-old deputy, described as a big man with an even bigger heart.

Deena Isherwood of Trabuco Canyon stood in the parking lot weeping. She’s a friend of Riches, and the deputy had come to her house a few nights ago when her burglar alarm went off.

“Things like this don’t happen around here. I don’t know how to handle it,” Isherwood said.

While people mourned Riches, the suspect’s family and friends struggled to reconcile the generally kind man they knew with the accused cop killer. They recalled Steskal as someone who befriended a homeless man and offered him food and shelter.

Nenita Steskal said she had urged her husband to seek counseling recently.

A petite woman with long, black hair, Steskal said her husband had been drinking beer before he left the house to pick up a pack of cigarettes at the 7-Eleven. She offered to drive him, but he refused.

She said she was in the bedroom when he left. She didn’t know whether he had the assault rifle in the house or had stored it elsewhere. She said she had no idea where her husband obtained the gun and that she had never seen him with one, although he had talked about owning a weapon.

Riches started his shift Friday about 11 p.m. Like all patrol deputies, he was armed with a handgun, and his patrol car was equipped with a shotgun.

The nine-year department veteran returned to the station about 12:15 a.m. with Mexican food. He left 15 minutes later.

“I’m going to go check the streets,” he told Sgt. Ron Acuna, the shift supervisor that night.

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Just before 1 a.m., a store videotape shows, a man with Steskal’s close-cropped hair and piercing eyes walking into the 7-Eleven, an assault weapon in his left hand. Deputies say Steskal told the terrified clerk he intended not to rob the store but to use the weapon against “the pigs.”

Moments later, Riches arrived at the store on routine patrol.

After the gunman left, the clerk locked the front doors, a 7-Eleven spokeswoman said. Before the clerk had time to dial 911 or use the store’s alarm system, gunfire erupted outside.

Riches’ bulletproof vest did little to stop the onslaught. The gunman fired 31 rounds, and the bullets almost severed the deputy’s arm.

“Deputy Riches was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Deputy Andre Spencer said. “He didn’t have a chance at all. He was outgunned.”

While executing a search warrant at the suspect’s home, deputies discovered the high-powered rifle, similar to an AK-47, Jaramillo said Sunday.

The state attorney general’s office said no weapons were registered to Steskal. Sheriff’s deputies are investigating where he got the gun.

Spencer identified Steskal from the previous arrest after recognizing him on the convenience store surveillance tape.

“I recognized him immediately,” Spencer said. “His walk. The look. The face. The mustache. The hairline. . . . You don’t forget anything like that.”

That arrest took place March 26, when Spencer pulled Steskal over for not wearing a seat belt.

Spencer said it was obvious early on that this was not going to be a routine traffic stop.

After Steskal parked, he leaped out of the car and walked toward the deputy, screaming abuse at him. Spencer drew his gun and called for backup. When other deputies arrived, they searched Steskal and found a small bag of marijuana, less than an ounce, and 9-millimeter bullets. During the search, Steskal broke free and deputies had to restrain him with handcuffs.

“It was pretty hairy,” Spencer said. “Luckily, he didn’t have a gun that day.”

But the same man had a quiet, contemplative side. He was protective of the children in his apartment complex, neighbors said.

“He was really good with my kids,” Brockway said.

Steskal liked to carve out fossils, gems and crystals from rocks in the mountains around Southern California, a neighbor said. When his financial woes grew too heavy, he would retreat to the mountains alone. His wife said he spent about 70% of his time on overnight stays in the wilderness.

Unemployed after a series of temporary manual labor jobs, he had hoped to begin selling the stones to make money, said neighbor Mollie DeMato.

DeMato said she had trouble believing the neighbor she knows--a nice, friendly sort--was a violent man who would gun down a cop.

When a bully tossed the bicycles of smaller kids into a dumpster, Steskal retrieved the bikes and warned neighborhood kids to stay away from the bully, DeMato said.

DeMato said Steskal’s moods changed when he drank or when he talked about the police he said were following and harassing him.

She recalled him saying that police frequently stopped him for minor traffic offenses, such as having a broken taillight or not wearing a seat belt.

There was another incident in which the suspect’s temper became apparent, she said: Workers used a sheet of plywood to block off a newly painted hallway of the apartment building. Steskal began cursing, and he kicked and ripped the plywood down.

“That was the only time I saw him real aggressive,” DeMato said.

In recent weeks, Steskal befriended a homeless man he found looking for food. Steskal offered the man food, shelter and a trip to the mountains.

On Sunday, the homeless man, who identified himself as Ralph, returned to the suspect’s home, weeping over the arrest of the friend he called a “mountain man” and offering Nenita Steskal his condolences.

“I wish to God,” said Ralph, looking distraught, “he would have come to me and talked to me.”

Times staff writers Megan Garvey and Phil Willon and Times researcher William Holmes contributed to this report.

There will be a candlelight vigil for Brad Riches at 7:30 tonight at Village Pond Park, behind the strip mall where the deputy was killed. Riches’ funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at Saddleback Valley Church, Lake Forest.