Man Rejects Counsel, Pleads Guilty

A Highland man facing life in prison without parole has pleaded guilty to murdering a 16-year-old girl and dumping her body down a well in San Bernardino.

Jonathan Lee Stephens, 20, entered the plea Monday without any reduction of charges and against the advice of his attorney, who urged him to exhaust his legal right to a jury trial.

“His case was very nearly hopeless,” said James Gass, Stephens’ attorney.

“He had talked so much about what had happened, to police and reporters, there was really nowhere to go. I think he knew that, although he has also said he wanted to spare himself, his family and the victim’s family from the specter of all the gory details.

“That, more than anything, was his motivation in choosing to do this.”

Law enforcement authorities said Stephens and two other San Bernardino County teenagers lured 16-year-old Christy McKendall from her gated Highland apartment to remote Little Sand Canyon.

There, Stephens bashed McKendall’s head in with a log, authorities said.

He and Joshua Curnutte allegedly had sex with McKendall’s body and then dropped it down a well, where it was found five days later, on April 7, 2002.

Prosecutors added a special circumstance of lying in wait to Stephens’ first-degree murder charge, but declined to seek a death penalty.

The third teenager pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder for helping hide McKendall’s body and was sentenced to the California Youth Authority for three years.

Curnutte’s trial on a first- degree murder charge is scheduled to begin June 1, one hour after Stephens is due to be sentenced by San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug.

Krug asked Stephens if he comprehended the stiff sentence he was accepting.

Stephens, who in December changed his plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity, told Krug he did.

Two psychologists assigned by Krug to assess Stephens’ mental health reported that he did “not suffer from any psychological problems that should stop him from entering a plea.”

“To make such a plea is unusual,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis Cope said. “I’m certain he was aware of the character of the evidence against him, and how it would reflect upon him in a trial.

“This will have a positive impact on the victim’s family. They won’t have to endure hearing what Mr. Stephens did.... He has eased that portion of their suffering. To that extent, he has done the right thing by no longer attempting to conceal the fact that he murdered her and by agreeing to spend the rest of his life in prison.”