Charles Stevens (serial killer)

Stevens attempted to appeal his sentence in 2004 because his original defense team did not try to challenge the evidence presented at trial. For example, they never hired an expert to challenge the ballistics evidence and never pressed any questions against Clark, who was testifying against Stevens. The plea was not accepted, though. Clark was released in 2006, but Stevens remains in prison awaiting execution. Capital punishment in California remains in a state of limbo following multiple ballot initiatives and a governor-imposed moratorium, and executions have not been fulfilled in California since 2006, so what will happen to Stevens is uncertain. On February 14, 2022, The United States Court of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit affirmed the US District Court for the Northern District of California’s denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. His petition for en banc rehearing was subsequently denied April 22, 2022. On September 9, 2022, Stevens filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States. This is his final appeal after which all appeals will be exhausted.

During the trial, Clark testified against Stevens for the Noyer slaying. Clark claimed he only shot Noyer because Stevens had a gun pointed at his head and was threatening him. After just an hour of deliberating, in January 1993, Stevens was found guilty on all counts by jury verdict. Days later, he was sentenced to death and transported to San Quentin State Prison to await execution. Clark pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter, and he was sentenced to 13 years in prison in May 1993.

On April 3, 1989, Stevens and Clark approached a parked vehicle containing 29-year-old Leslie Noyer. Stevens opened the passenger-side unlocked door, leaving a mark of his palm print, and Clark shot Noyer in the head. Police collected the shell-casings that Stevens had left, as well as the palm print. Three months later, Stevens, this time on his own, failed to ambush a woman named Karen Anderson while she was making a turn down a poorly lit grassy trail. He fired at least six shots, missing all of them but shattering Anderson's window. The next day, on June 8, Stevens killed 16-year-old Laquann Sloan while she was making a turn through an exit on Interstate-580.

Charles Arnett Stevens (born March 19, 1969) is an American serial killer, responsible for shooting eight people over four months in Northern California in 1989, killing four of them. He garnered the nickname The I-580 Killer as he committed all of his crimes on an 82-mile-long highway known as "California Interstate-580". Ballistic evidence exposed his involvement, and he was sentenced to death. He currently resides in San Quentin State Prison.

Stevens was born on March 19, 1969, in Oakland, California, the younger of two siblings. Throughout his childhood, his mother was repeatedly arrested for crimes involving alcohol, such as drunk driving and child abuse. The alcohol abuse eventually led to her death. At age 12, Stevens tied a noose in his room and attempted suicide but failed. He attended high school at Oakland Technical High School, where he was known to be shy and timid, but many of his peers found him attractive, which led to a girl named Mia Chatman forming a relationship with him. They dated for about seven months before she broke up with him. In his senior year, he met Richard James Clark, younger than him. The two hit it off and quickly dived into a friendship.