by Madeline Abel
Steve Stephenson, a 37 year old man from Cleveland, has become the center of news in the last couple of days. According to BBC, it all started on Easter Sunday, April 16, when Stephenson posted a video of himself on Facebook killing an innocent man walking home from his holiday dinner.
The man, 74-year-old Robert Godwin, was a self taught mechanic and father of nine. Police believe that Stephenson chose to kill Godwin randomly, and that they had no prior relationship.
Stephenson approached Godwin on the side of a street and proceeded by asking Godwin to repeat the name of his girlfriend, Joy Lane. After Godwin repeated the name, Stephenson said, “Yeah, she’s the reason why all this about to happen to you”. Immediately after saying this, Stephenson shot Godwin in the head.
All of this was recorded on video and posted on Stephenson’s Facebook account, where it was up for a couple of hours, until complaints started piling up and Facebook was forced to take it down.
For two days Stephenson had been on the loose. Police were advising all people living in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania to be alert at all times because he had still not been found and was deemed armed and dangerous. In another Facebook post, Stephenson said that he had killed thirteen other people, however there have not yet been any more verified deaths.
On April 18, police in Erie, Pennsylvania spotted Stephenson at a McDonald’s drive through. Stephenson fled the scene, but as the police cars were chasing him, Stephenson pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head.