Man pleads guilty to murder for stabbing in Northern California violent rampage
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Joseph James Stephens-Jenkins pleaded guilty to murder and two counts of attempted murder.
- Prosecutors said he broke into Lori Owens' Ione home and brutally stabbed her.
- Two others, including a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. worker, were stabbed but survived.
An Amador County man on Friday pleaded guilty to murder for a 2023 stabbing that killed a 63-year-old woman who was attacked in her Ione home.
The convicted man went on a violent rampage that day, wounding two other people who were attacked with a knife in the same Northern California neighborhood. Those two victims included a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. worker on duty.
Joseph James Stephens-Jenkins, 36, of Ione, pleaded guilty to the murder of Lori Owens and two counts of attempted murder for attacks on Shane Billows and George Orozco during the stabbing spree in the Ione neighborhood, Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe announced Friday afternoon in a news release.
Stephens-Jenkins is scheduled to be sentenced May 12 in Amador Superior Court, where the surviving victims and Owens’ family will have an opportunity to speak about the impact of the defendant’s violent crimes. Riebe said Stephens-Jenkins will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As part of the plea deal with prosecutors, Stephens-Jenkins admitted to two special circumstances in Owens’ murder. Stephens-Jenkins admitted that Owen’s murder was intentional and involved torture, and that he committed the stabbing to commit a home burglary.
“In accepting this outcome, the victims and their families now have the certainty that they will never have to endure a lengthy trial, reliving the nightmares,” Riebe said in the news release. “They are spared the ordeal of further litigation and the unknown prospects of decades of appeals.”
Released on parole
Stephens-Jenkins was released from prison in July 2023 on parole and had received treatment at Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obsipo County. The hospital provides mental health treatment for patients who are incarcerated, either awaiting trial or after they’ve been sentenced to prison.
In 2011, Jenkins reportedly stabbed a then-41-year-old man in the Sutter Creek Basin and severely wounded him, the Stockton Record reported.
After his release from prison, Stephens-Jenkins returned to Ione and was living in the neighborhood where the Monday morning violent rampage occurred on Oct. 30, 2023, just west of Highway 124 in the small Amador County town.
Ione stabbing spree
On Friday, prosecutors said Stephens-Jenkins used a knife to attack Billows and Orozco and stabbed both men in the area of Shakely Lane, a few blocks away from where Owens would be brutally stabbed in her home.
Stephens-Jenkins broke into Owens’ Violet Lane home and stabbed her repeatedly, killing the woman, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Authorities found and apprehended Stephens-Jenkins in a nearby home’s backyard.
At a news conference following Stephens-Jenkins’ October 2023 arrest, Ione Police Chief John Alfred said the stabbing victims didn’t know each other, and Stephen-Jenkins didn’t know them. He said at the time that the brutal attacks appeared to be “a random act of violence.”
On Friday, the district attorney said Stephens-Jenkins, who never should’ve been paroled, will remain in prison for the rest of his life.
“This murderer should never be released from prison, and should be held within walls until the end of his days,” Riebe said in the news release. “The defendant will be forgotten. But Lori’s memory, plus the lives of Shane and George, will go on.”
