Woman fears for safety as sex offender is released

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This article was published 17/08/2010 (5499 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG – A Transcona woman fears a convicted sexual offender scheduled to be released from prison on Wednesday will resume stalking her.

Amanda Westervelt, 26, is a single mother who lives with her four-year-old son and her mother.

Westervelt has become the obsession of Kevin Steppan,  a 25-year-old violent sexual offender who believes he is the father of Westervelt’s son as well as an imaginary daughter. He is being released from Headingley Correctional Centre on Wednesday.

“I don’t know what to do,” Westervelt said. “I’m afraid for myself, my son, and my mother. I don’t know how to keep my family safe.”

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 Brandon because he was feared for the safety of his staff.  The Crown Attorney’s office wanted Steppan designated a dangerous offender.

Westervelt first met Steppan in 2004. She says he became obsessed with her almost immediately, watching and following her for several months, although she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

The harassment stopped that summer and she didn’t hear from him again until this July, when he sent letters to her home addressed to her, her son he and a daughter who doesn’t exist. In the letters, Steppan asks for their forgiveness for ignoring them and says he wants to be part of their lives.

Westervelt is concerned that Steppan has manufactured a fantasy life that involves her and her son, and fears they are in danger now that he will be released.  

However, she’s had little help from the justice system in seeking protection from him; she has been unable to obtain a peace bond or further assistance from police or the courts.

"(Police) said they can’t do anything unless he shows up at my door and then I should call them," she said.

Read the complete story in Wednesday’s Free Press.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca