Mom got warning message
‘Killer’ told her goodbye
The man who allegedly gunned down a Cleveland grandfather and then posted the slaying on Facebook told his mother the day before that it would probably be the last time she saw him.
“If you see me again, it’ll be a miracle,’’ Maggie Green said her son, Steve Stephens, told her when he dropped by her house Saturday, according to CNN.
“He said this [was] the last time I was going to see him,’’ Green said of the eldest of her three children.
The former court clerk said that when she learned of her son’s murderous deed a day later, she was “just dumbfounded’’ and called him on his cellphone. Stephens told her he was “shooting people’’ because he was “mad with his girlfriend,’’ she said.
On Monday, the FBI warned that the 37-year-old job-counselor-turned-killer — who randomly shot Robert Godwin Sr., 74, on a Cleveland sidewalk Sunday — could be “anywhere” and said they were in the midst of a nationwide manhunt.
“This is what we would consider a national search for Steve,” Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said. “So we are not going to leave any stone unturned.”
Cleveland police also announced a $50,000 reward for information on Stephens.
The NYPD was put on high alert, sending out texts to all of its officers warning that Stephens is “known to be armed and dangerous.”
Cleveland cops said they tried in vain to persuade Stephens to surrender when they reached him on his cellphone soon after the slaying.
“We’re still asking Steve to turn himself in, but if he doesn’t, we’ll find him,” Williams said. “We’re not going to stop until we find him.”
Authorities got a ping from Stephens’ cellphone about 100 miles east of Cleveland in Erie, Pa., where he is known to have gambled at the Presque Isle Downs & Casino, according to ErieNewsNow.com. But they believe he has since turned off his phone.
Stephens has no prior criminal record and is not suspected in any other murders despite his claims that he killed more than a dozen other people, authorities said.
A spokeswoman for the behavioral-health facility where Stephens worked, Beech Brook, said he underwent an extensive FBI background check before being hired in 2008 and it showed no red flags.
Stephens singled out Godwin on Sunday, capturing the attack on his cellphone camera. In the video he posted on Facebook, he can be heard saying, “Found me somebody I’m gong to kill.”
Stephens approaches Godwin and tells him to say “Joy Lane” — the name of his girlfriend. “She’s the reason why this is about to happen to you,” he says before shooting Godwin in the head.