Santa Cruz Slaying Suspect's Father Says Son Might Have Been 'Creepy' But Wasn't a Killer

The father of homicide suspect Steven J. Carlson shared his story with Patch on the condition that his name not be published. He no longer lives in California and was concerned about the privacy of family members who still live in the Bay Area.

Homicide suspect Steven Carlson's dad says his son didn't stab high school freshman to death that spring day in 1984.

"He was a lot of things, but a murderer? I don't think he is," he said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

on suspicion of killing Faelz as she was walking home from school 27 years ago, when they were students at . She was 14, and Carlson was 16.

"He got into trouble like a lot of kids, but he was never in fights, was never mean, was never violent.

"All these folks say he's creepy, and yeah maybe he was," he added. "But he wasn't a murderer."

Police interviewed Steven, who lived with his family in a house mere feet away from the culvert where Faelz' body was found, right after the April 5 killing, along with a slew of other people, but made no arrests.

The case went cold, but authorities said they never gave up on it, chasing leads over the years and then submitting new evidence samples for DNA testing in 2007.

Then shocked the community by announcing Monday, almost three decades later, that they had arrested someone based on new analysis of the evidence, coupled with new information from a round of fresh witness interviews.

They say this wasn't a random attack — that the suspect, who will be arraigned in juvenile court Wednesday, targeted Faelz. Why? They won't say.

Suspect's troubled life

According to his father, Steven has led a troubled life.

He started using drugs as a teen and stopped speaking to his parents in his early 20s. He married, had a child and ended up in prison.

When Pleasanton police arrested him, he was being held on a drug charge and probation violation in Santa Cruz, and his records show he was arrested a handful of times last year for nonviolent crimes.

In 1989 in Yolo County, at age 21, he was convicted of committing lewd acts with a child under 14 and was required to register as a sex offender. He served three years in prison. Then in 2008, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and went back to jail.

"His brain is so burned from drugs, and I could see the police looking at him and thinking, 'This isn't a very good person in society, so let's just get him,'" said his dad.

"Maybe he had some mental problems, I don't know. You look at him and you see that he's all tattooed up and hardly knows where he is, so he looks good for this."

His father, who now lives out of state, asked not to be named in this story. He said he realizes people who know him in Pleasanton will figure out his identity, but people elsewhere might not.

Steven's beginnings

His father says Steven was brought up in a house where kids admitted when they did something wrong and had to stand up and accept the punishment.

He has a brother and a sister, both of whom are working, well-functioning people, he said. His brother served in the Army, and his sister is a wife and mother.

As a child, Steven Carlson played baseball and football, was friends with neighbor kids, and was a charmer, his dad said.

Then, he started lying, smoking pot and stealing from the liquor cabinet.

When he was 17, he stole some checks from his parents, along with a coin collection of his brother's, and soon left his family home at Ashwood Court and Lemonwood Way, not far from Foothill High and Interstate 680.

His dad said he hasn't seen his son since he was 21 or 22, about the time he got married.

"He never tried to contact me, but he did talk to my sister for awhile," his father said. "But then she quit hearing from him."

In 1995, Steven's father said he retired, and he and his wife, Steven's  mother, moved out of state; she died last March.

"I'm glad she's not here to see this," Steven's dad said. "She would be going crazy."

Now, he lives alone with his dogs. He found out about his son's arrest on Monday from the media, along with the rest of the community.

Steven and his wife Justine, who had liver problems and eventually died, both used drugs, his father said. They had a daughter who would be about 16 years old by now and may be living with Justine's parents. He doesn't know if Steven has had contact with her in recent years.

"As for me, I doubt he even knows what state I live in," he said.

April 5, 1984

The afternoon Faelz was killed, Steven Carlson's parents were out of town, his father said.

When they got home later that day, police were "all over" the Carlson's house, he said.

He said the police drove his son and another friend around in a police cruiser, asking them questions.

He said the two boys had said they'd seen Faelz' body lying in the culvert that day, in an area that was a popular walking path for kids coming home from school. He said Steven told him he'd run home and called his grandma to tell her about it.

"I can't imagine he could have done it, or he would have had blood all over him," he said.

He said he figured police were trying to find out from his son how he and his friend found Faelz.

The police searched the house, even asking the Carlsons if they could go up in the attic, Steven's dad said.

"I said go ahead," he said. "They crawled up there, probably looking for a weapon or something."

Police to this day say a weapon was never found.

"I never saw him with a knife, that day or ever, and my wife looked all over his clothes and didn't find anything. I guess that's why they eliminated Steven as a suspect.

"I just don't want to see him get railroaded," he said.

He said he doesn't know whether his son knew Tina.

But he does remember his son telling people that he had killed her, something his high school classmates and acquaintances have been talking about for years.

"That was him trying to make everyone think he was cool or something," he said.

"Kids say all kinds of things. I think he thought people would think he was a big man, and I don't think a lot of people believed him. I don't know why he would say that. What was he thinking?"