By now, everybody’s heard about the “Stevie Steve” Facebook Live homicide and manhunt that came to an end 48 hours after it started this week.
On April 17th, 2017, a Cleveland man by the name of Steve Stephens, “Stevie Steve”, started recording on Facebook Live from his personal account. Nonchalant, precise, and calculated, he poured out the grievances of his life to the world in different streams. He claimed he’s been in debt, had a gambling problem as well as suicidal thoughts. He blamed these grievances on a woman named Joy Lane, his ex-girlfriend. In one video, he records outside of her job and called her the love of his life that drove him crazy. He said it was because of her that he started gambling and spiraling out of control.
“I don’t have sh*t. I lost everything I had. I’m out of options. So now I’m just on some murder type sh*t so.” His demeanor seemed calm and collected as he spoke of wanting to get revenge. In fact if you didn’t pay that close attention to his words because of how calm he was, you’d miss his exact statements that garnered people watching him on Live to become concerned.
“What I’m gonna do is, because she works here (states area), I’m going to try to kill as many people as possible as I can over here.” He also blamed his mother saying he tried to reach out to her to talk about being suicidal, but she didn’t seem to care.
“I guess it was how I was raised, she just didn’t give a f*ck.” Stephens stated that he worked at Beech Brook, a mental health facility in Cleveland for troubled youth. Ironically he dealt with people’s problems everyday, and says when it came to him wanting people to hear his problems, “nobody [gave] a f*ck.” His voice quivered slightly as he spoke on feeling like he’s always been the bad guy, a monster. Then it’s back to a calm tone as he seemed unbothered when he stated: “It’s just f*cked up, ya know, cause innocent people are about to die today. Hopefully, I’m gonna kill as many people as I can. I’ll be on death row or whatever the case may be, but I just don’t give a f*ck no more.” Stephens stated this isn’t the first time he’s killed people.
An original post from Steve Stephens from his Facebook page:
After the Facebook Live slaying of Robert Godwin Sr., people locally who saw the video began to put the word out. This would be one of the last posts before Facebook would take his page down. He did one more video where he was on a phone with one or some of his friends. These are allegedly his fraternity brothers of the Zeta Omega Chapter of Omega Psi Phi. “[I killed] just a couple…I’m at the point that I snapped. See the thing is, every time I try to talk to you…ya’ll always blowing me off or just make my sh*t seem like it ain’t sh*t.” He claimed he wanted to go shoot some more Greek people. He also referred whoever was on the phone with him to just go to his Facebook page and check it out.
With all the verbal claims that Stephens killed multiple people, panic spread via social media with the notion that he committed more than one murder.
With information spreading so fast, it’s easy to understand that the general public will just read something and instantaneously believe it. News literacy isn’t taught publically even though the outcomes of having basic knowledge of it might keep a lot of widespread division between people from happening. From the @ATLGreekPicnic Twitter page, the name “Zeta Omega Que” became Steve Stephen’s title in the beginning of this breaking news story. This took away from other elements of the story, because then people became focused on his fraternity association.
Without even reading how and why people associated his fraternity, the conversations became a Greek vs Non-Greek debate in choosing Zeta Omega as his title. @ATLGreekPicnic would say that’s how his fraternity brothers sent in the information to warn people he was at large.
People don’t usually keep up with stories when they initially break, which means if they miss the beginning, they won’t know its origin. They’re just caught up where the story is presently at. This also means that they don’t keep up with the story until it’s conclusion, so they miss details in-between. Just because the suspect claims to have done something, doesn’t mean it’s actually true. Cleveland Police looked into any other possible leads to indicate that Stephens killed anyone else and found nothing. This doesn’t stop the same information from being recycled through social media.
It’s misinformation like this that garners outrage from the public. People get a lot of news information from Twitter, which can be an unreliable source when you don’t fact check. The general public aren’t the ones who are suppose to be journalists, but there are plenty of journalist out there who give you a run down of the facts as they happen. Cleveland 19 News had all the info looking into Stephen’s financial reports, interviewing Godwin Sr.’s family, and keeping up with the police for updates. It’s just that journalists and official police accounts are usually the last accounts to be retweeted or spread via social.
There are plenty of resources to fact-check before believing everything you see and hear on social media. People don’t watch the news anymore, but verified news is available online via the journalists who serve their communities. Follow your local police force’s accounts. Remember to stay vigilant.
You can check out all original content of Steve Stephens (WARNING GRAPHIC) at the link below:
http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/videos-alleged-cleveland-killer-steve-stevie-steve-stephens-graphic/