Scared mom waits for stalker

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Letters from a convicted sex offender have convinced Amanda Westervelt her family is in danger. The two met in 2004 when they were both living in a hostel.

A young woman is at home today, waiting in fear for a convicted sexual offender to appear at her door.

Amanda Westervelt, 26, is a single mom who lives with her four-year-old son and her mother. She fears for their safety because she's become the obsession of Kevin Steppan, a man she met while living on the streets six years ago, who believes he is the father of her son and an imaginary daughter.

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Steppan is a 25-year-old violent sexual offender whom the Crown attorney's office sought to have designated as a dangerous offender.

Steppan is being released today from Headingley Correctional Centre.

"I don't know what to do," Westervelt said during an interview in her living room. "Kevin Steppan is being released. I'm afraid for myself, my son and my mother. I don't know how to keep my family safe."

Steppan pleaded guilty to sexual assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm for attacks on two young sex-trade workers in 2005. Manitoba Justice believed he was such a threat to society that in April 2009 it asked the courts to designate Steppan as a dangerous offender, who would then be locked up in a federal prison for an indeterminate term. The judge thought Steppan deserved a second chance and denied the application.

Steppan had a long history of sex crimes before his arrest in 2005, when he attacked, choked with a rope and sexually assaulted two sex-trade workers by the banks of the Assiniboine River. The manager of the sex-offender program at Headingley told the court Steppan had sexual deviant fantasies about the staff, and had him transferred to the Brandon jail because he feared for their safety.

Westervelt said she met Steppan in 2004, when they were both living at the Salvation Army hostel on Henry Avenue.

"He kind of creeped me out from the first day," Westervelt said. "He became obsessed with me, watching me everywhere I went, stalking me."

Westervelt said she didn't want to have anything to do with Steppan and repeatedly told him so, but he wouldn't leave her alone.

"He would leave me notes, telling me he loved me, that he wanted to be with me."

Westervelt said Steppan dogged her from January to August 2004, following her when she worked as a karaoke hostess at the Manwin Hotel on Main Street and then tracking her down when she moved in with her brother that summer.

"I don't know how he found me but he knew my phone number, my email address."

Westervelt said the harassment stopped that summer and she never heard about him until a year later when he was arrested for attacking the two sex-trade workers.

She said she went on with her life and hadn't given him any thought until last summer when an official at Headingley called her and asked if Steppan would be allowed to contact her by telephone.

"I said no, that I didn't want anything to do with him and hung up," she said.

Then in July of this year, a fat envelope arrived at her home. It contained three letters from Steppan, addressed to her, her son and a daughter, Kanada, who doesn't exist.

"My reaction was, 'oh boy, not this again.' I was frightened that he knew where I lived. It was... frightening."

The letters to her son and the imaginary daughter were signed 'love daddy'. In them, Steppan asks for their forgiveness for ignoring them and says he wants to be part of their lives.

Steppan's letter to Westervelt is full of regrets for what he said was the life he could have had. "Here I am at 25 years old and sitting in jail when I could have done so much more with my life including having a relationship with the children," Steppan wrote in the letter dated July 5. "I would love to have the chance to be the father to (Westervelt's son) and Kanada. Do they ask about me? Are they polite? Are they smart?"

Westervelt said she went out of her mind with the realization Steppan had manufactured a fantasy life that involved her and her son --and the danger they now faced.

She said she went to Winnipeg police but was told there's nothing they can do as long as he remains behind bars.

Then last week, her fear escalated when the RCMP contacted her and said Steppan would be released today.

"The officer said she was contacting everyone who had been victimized by Steppan and that I should do whatever I could to protect myself and my family."

Westervelt said she went to Winnipeg police the next day and they told her to get a peace bond against Steppan.

She went to the Law Courts Friday afternoon and appeared before a justice of the peace, telling the court about Steppan's obsession with her five years earlier, the letters that arrived in July and the warning from the RCMP earlier in the week.

"The justice denied the application because she said there wasn't enough evidence to issue a peace bond," Westervelt said.

So Westervelt went back to Winnipeg police. "They said they can't do anything unless he shows up at my door and then I should call them."

Westervelt said she's informed her neighbours about the danger and believes they're prepared to help her.

"I'm going to stay home (today) and not do anything," she said.

"But I won't become a prisoner in my own home."

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 18, 2010 A3