OAKLAND: Former wife says suspect in torture-chamber slaying abused her

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 10/6/6 | Jaxon Van Derbeken and Jim Herron Zamora

[SmithL]

Woman tells of living in fear with son of ex-leader of Oakland Hells Angels until meth charge sent her and husband to prison -

A former wife of an Oakland roofer accused of beating a woman to death said Thursday that she had lived in fear of her husband and endured "major abuse'' during their relationship a decade ago.

She said the abuse stopped only after she and her husband, Earl Stefanson, were arrested for running a methamphetamine lab in Butte County.

"I was forced to be there. I was afraid to leave,'' said the woman, who has since remarried and asked that she not be named because she was afraid for her safety. "I lived in a state of fear."

Stefanson, 41, the son of an ex-president of the Hells Angels' Oakland chapter, was charged Thursday with murdering Leslie Lamb, a single mother who police said was his girlfriend. Police said he had a torture chamber in his home in the Oakland foothills and that they fear he may have harmed other women.

Investigators say Stefanson delivered a badly beaten Lamb, 36, to Highland Hospital in Oakland the night of Aug. 26, where she later died. He was arrested Tuesday after leading officers on a car chase through Oakland and Hayward, police said, and is to be arraigned today in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.

When police served a search warrant at his home, they found a basement chamber that one investigator, while refusing to provide details, said was reminiscent of "The Silence of the Lambs,'' the 1991 movie in which a psychopathic serial killer imprisons and skins his victims.

Blood from Lamb and two other people was found on a wall of the home, . . .

[SmithL]

Police say Earl Stefanson's home concealed a basement room that was like something out of a horror movie.

[ConservativeMind]

You've just got to scratch your head over the women who go after an obvious "tough guy".

[lesser_satan]

bump