Courtesy photo/VCSO mug shot. James Stevens, 27, of Deltona, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the beating death of his stepfather, Francis Ahern, 56.
DELTONA -- From the onset, there was much about Wednesday’s report of an unknown intruder beating a 56-year-old Deltona man to death that didn’t make sense, Volusia County Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.
First, the doors to 671 Stallings Ave. were all locked and there were no signs of forced entry into the home. Then, despite claiming that he was in an adjoining bathroom during the attack, the victim’s stepson, 27-year-old James Stevens, insisted that he saw and heard nothing.
"And then there was the fact that Stevens was covered in blood, from head to toe," Davidson said. "While not admitting to the murder, Stevens would eventually acknowledge that there was no home invasion, no one else entered or left the bedroom where his stepfather was killed and that the blood on him 'looks bad.'”
For investigators with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s Major Case Unit, that all added up to first-degree murder. On Friday, investigators obtained a warrant charging Stevens with the murder of his stepfather, Francis Ahern.
Deputies were dispatched to the scene at 1:44 a.m. Wednesday morning after Stevens called 911 to report a home invasion. Stevens was initially very calm on the phone, but then became more animated.
“Someone broke in the back door. They beat my stepfather up pretty good,” he told the Sheriff’s Office dispatcher.
As the dispatcher asked questions and tried to get additional information, Stevens hung up the phone about a minute into the call. The dispatcher called back and kept Stevens on the phone until deputies arrived.
When deputies got there, Stevens was covered in blood, including his face, hands, legs and feet as well as his clothing.
Ahern’s body was face down in the bedroom, where he and Stevens reportedly had been injecting cocaine. Paramedics pronounced Ahern dead at 2:09 a.m. Once the Sheriff’s Office obtained a search warrant and crime scene technicians entered the house to look around, they found broken pieces of a hand-held, electric massager scattered around the body in the master bedroom. The broken pieces along with the power cord had blood on it, and several pieces of the massager were wrapped in tissue and dumped in the commode, as if someone had been trying to flush them down the toilet.
Stevens told investigators that he injected cocaine into Ahern at his request and then went into the bathroom in the master bedroom to shoot up. He said that he must have blacked out because he didn’t see or hear anything and had no idea who killed Ahern or how he had gotten blood all over himself.
Crime scene technicians noted that the blood was splattered on both the front and back of Stevens’ shirt, which would be consistent with close contact by the person who committed the murder.
During its examination of the victim’s body, the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded that Ahern died of strangulation, both by hands and the bloody power cord. They also concluded that the victim sustained no fewer than 13 blows to the head, although they weren’t fatal.
On the day that the body was found, Stevens consented to a voluntary interview with Sheriff’s investigators. However, they didn’t have enough to hold him at that time. On Thursday, Stevens called investigators and asked them for a ride to a drug rehabilitation center. Investigators agreed, and along the way, Stevens said he wanted to talk again about the killing.
That’s when he admitted that there was no home invasion and that the bedroom door remained closed while he was in the bathroom and no else came in or out, Davidson said.
While he acknowledged things looked bad, investigators said Stevens seemed uncertain if he had killed Ahern. But one thing investigators did notice: fresh bruises on Stevens’ arms and hands.
Once the interview ended, investigators dropped off Stevens at a drug rehabilitation center in Daytona Beach. However, he was never admitted, and investigators launched a search for him early Friday afternoon after consulting with prosecutors at the State Attorney’s Office and then obtaining the first-degree murder warrant from Circuit Court Judge Joseph Will.
Shortly after 3 p.m., Sheriff’s investigators tracked down Stevens at the Salvation Army in Daytona Beach and took him into custody.
After processing, Stevens will be brought to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach and held without bond.