Sonoma Co. Man Sentenced For Spousal Abuse Now Faces Murder Trial

A Santa Rosa man who faces a murder charge in Southern California was sentenced in Sonoma County Superior Court Monday to 16 months in jail in connection with a spousal battery incident in March.

Larry Clark Stephens, 65, pleaded no contest in May and was sentenced for misdemeanor spousal battery and felony obstructing an executive officer on March 21.

Judge Shelly Averill said Stephens can serve the term in any penal institution.

Stephens was arrested in June in Santa Rosa for the Dec. 11, 1974 murder of 30-year-old Patricia Ross in the bedroom of her La Palma home in Orange County. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office said a DNA sample taken from Stephens when he was arrested in March in Santa Rosa matched DNA at the La Palma crime scene.

La Palma police reviewed the cold case murder in 1996 and submitted evidence to a crime lab in 1997 when they located DNA from an unknown male.

Police went through the entire investigation in 2008 and contacted some people who were not previously interviewed. The DNA taken from Stephens in March broke open the case, La Palma police Capt. Jim Engen said.

Engen said Stephens was a person of interest in the case and was the last one considered a suspect.

“We talked to a lot of people who knew him and some people who mentioned his name,” Engen said last month.

Ross told a friend she had a date on Dec. 11, but she never showed up. Ross’ friend’s date found her naked body in her apartment and a small dog unharmed in a drawer in the bedroom, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.

Stephens was in Southern California at the time of the murder, Engen said.

--Bay City News/Shutterstock image