Deliveryman Held in School Worker Beating

A Santa Paula delivery driver was arrested Tuesday afternoon and jailed on suspicion of carjacking, kidnapping and beating a 51-year-old Balboa Middle School cafeteria worker in Ventura last week, police said.

Terry Lee Stephenson, 35, was taken into custody about 3:15 p.m. at a family member’s home in Bakersfield, authorities said. He was expected to be booked at the Ventura County Jail late Tuesday in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Authorities believe Stephenson, a driver for a soft drink company who made deliveries at the school, confronted the victim shortly after 6 a.m. as she walked from her pickup truck in the school parking lot toward the school.

A second employee was pulling into the school and saw the victim, whose name was not released, screaming for help inside her truck as the carjacker drove away with her, authorities said.

That witness called police, who searched the city for about an hour before receiving a call of a beaten woman found in a truck outside Missionary Church of Ventura near the school.

The victim was treated at Ventura County Medical Center for cuts, bruises and a broken nose. Police believe she was repeatedly kicked in the face.

After interviewing the victim, officers Tuesday served search warrants at three homes in Santa Paula where they believed Stephenson might be staying. They also staked out locations in Bakersfield, where his family lives, authorities said.

A motive for the crimes has not been established, and police do not believe the victim knew the attacker other than from his work as a deliveryman.