Adventure Turns to Tragedy for Boy, Uncle

It started as a squabble over a campsite parking space. Suddenly, the dispute at Morro Strand State Beach Campground exploded into deadly gunfire Sunday night, sending terrified tourists running for their lives.

Jerry Rios Jr., 11, of Gardena, collapsed and died of a bullet wound to the head near his uncle Stephen D. Wells, 36, of San Pedro, who was also fatally shot by the man with whom he had argued, authorities said.

Minutes later, the alleged gunman, Stephen A. Deflaun, 42, of Blythe, was shot and wounded by a state park ranger after Deflaun reportedly raised his handgun at the ranger.

The bloody shooting at the peak of the summer camping season horrified friends and relatives of the victims, a young champion athlete and an amiable handyman who were on their way to look at property in Montana that they hoped would serve as a safe and peaceful vacation spot or second home.

“At first, I didn’t want to believe it happened,” the boy’s grieving sister, Rio-Cassandra Rios, 18, said from her Gardena home Monday. “Now, I think it was just a weird thing that happened to us: A man shot a man and a kid over a parking spot.”

Deflaun, who was listed in stable condition and under armed guard at a San Luis Obispo hospital Monday, was arrested on charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, according to Lt. Steve Bolts of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department.

Deflaun will be held in jail when he recovers from his wounds, Bolts said.

Deflaun reportedly arrived at the campground at about noon on Sunday. The violence erupted shortly after Wells drove up with five relatives in a rented recreational vehicle at 6:30 p.m.

“We really don’t know the nature of the conversation between the two, although witnesses have said they exchanged words,” Bolts said.

However, the victims’ relatives said that Wells, a self-employed maintenance man, had urged his stepson and his nephew to ask Deflaun if he would mind giving up one of the two parking spaces he had taken up at the campground.

The relatives said detectives told them that Deflaun cursed at the children, which prompted Wells to seek assistance from a park aide in a kiosk at the campground entrance.

Deflaun allegedly followed them and fired.

Campers initially mistook the gunfire for fireworks, park authorities said. After hearing the popping sounds, some campers moved toward the campground entrance, where they said they encountered Deflaun, his face red with anger, pacing beside the bodies. They fled into the surrounding residential neighborhood or to the beach.

“We gathered up our kids and just took off,” said Stephanie Rubio of Bakersfield.

“A pretty scared and screaming herd of people came through here,” said Jack Peery, the chief of the volunteer fire department in Laton, near Fresno, who was among the campers. Several people, he said, were racing for cover with “children under their arms.”

Authorities said there have been only five incidents statewide since 1928 in which park rangers have had to fire their guns.

In 2000, state park rangers arrested 850 people on various charges and issued 6,000 citations, very few of them involving firearms, authorities said.

The trip to the campground began happily enough for Wells, who had suggested that his nephew join him on a trip to Oregon and Montana. Wells had picked up the boy’s family at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday, relatives said. The Rios family was returning from a visit with other relatives in Mississippi and Louisiana.

“My father didn’t want him to go; he had a bad feeling about it,” recalled Rio-Cassandra Rios. “He said it just didn’t feel right.”

But she said Wells assured them that it would be a “nice little adventure” for the boy.

“My brother ended up going with them,” she said. “They were going to rest in Morro Bay on their way north.”

The boy’s 7-year-old brother, Gregory, said did not want him to go, either. “He [Jerry] was packing his bags,” Gregory recalled in the bedroom they shared. “I told him, ‘I love you. I hope you have a great time.’ Then I gave him a hug.”

Jerry Rios, who would have been 12 on Aug. 12, attended Peary Middle School in Gardena. A chest of drawers in his bedroom is covered with trophies he won bowling and playing baseball, soccer and football.

Sunday night, Gardena police detectives showed up on the Rios’ doorstep on West 147th Street and asked to speak with the boy’s parents, Jerry Rios Sr., 43, and Rosalyn Rios, 41, both UPS clerks.

Moments later, “my father called the family together in the front yard saying there was a family emergency,” the dead boy’s sister said. “He told us, ‘Your uncle and little brother were shot, and then they died.’ After that, we all cried together.”

News of the shooting stunned people who lived near the modest San Pedro apartment on South Palos Verdes Street that Wells shared with his wife, Betsie, her two children from a previous marriage, and the couple’s daughter, Tara, 5.

They remembered Wells as a man with a sunny disposition who got along well with children.

“This is terrible, just terrible,” said Eric Fields, 35, shaking his head. “Things were looking up for Stephen and Betsie. They’d just bought a Blazer, and they were going to buy some land out of state, where they could find peace.”

Trying not to cry, Irene Castilleja, 25, recalled that “Betsie just got a degree in nursing, and they were going to move away, out of state, to get away from the city and raise their kids in a better place.”

“That man was always happy,” she added. “His kids, and all the kids around here, really loved him.”

Donte Johnson, 11, agreed, adding, “He was a really nice man. He helped us build a clubhouse and lemonade stand.”

In Morro Bay on Monday, campers were sipping coffee and reading books as a team of workers with metal detectors combed the parking lot and nearby sand dunes for evidence of gunshots.

Supervising State Park Ranger John P. Tranmer said he has received numerous complaints from campers and park workers about cramped conditions. Park officials responded this year by eliminating 30 parking spaces to make more room for campsites.

A park ranger for nearly 30 years, Tranmer said he has seen the nature of the job change dramatically. “The same societal problems that happen out there happen in here. It’s just a much more dangerous job than when I started back in 1973.”

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Times staff writer Ofelia Casillas contributed to this story.