Missing Son, 19, Found in County Morgue After 3 Years

After three years in the Orange County coroner’s morgue, a body has been identified as the missing son of William H. Ivers, a former assemblyman from La Canada and current director of the state Department of Boating and Waterways.

The disclosure was a relief for the family, Ivers said Friday, but it was also painful.

Stephen J. Ivers had been missing since 1984, when he was 19. He died in a stolen car that police believe he intentionally crashed into oncoming traffic as he was fleeing officers in Newport Beach. Six others were injured in the Aug. 3, 1984, pileup on MacArthur Boulevard near Newport Center.

Investigators had checked fingerprints and missing-persons reports across the nation, but were unsuccessful until last month, when they sent prints from nine unidentified bodies to the new computerized fingerprint identification system at the state Department of Justice. The prints were matched with those of Stephen Ivers.

Ivers was reported missing three years ago by his sister, Lorraine, after she ordered him out of the family’s La Canada house on June 21, 1984, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said.

Given Ultimatum

According to the missing person report, Lorraine Ivers had told her brother that he could return home after a week or when he found employment. She filed the report when he did not return after that week.

When he returned home July 7, 1984, the Sheriff’s Department closed his file, the spokeswoman said. But William Ivers said the family assumed the file was still active when his son disappeared a second time, so he did not file another report.

The car was stolen from a convenience store parking lot near Interstate 5 in Encinitas in San Diego County after a customer left it idling and unattended, according to San Diego County sheriff’s deputies. A clerk at the store told investigators that the man who took it had been thrown out of the store the previous day for shoplifting.

Nearly five hours later, the car ran through the Border Patrol checkpoint near San Clemente, and officers began a 35-minute chase. When the car turned onto MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach, federal, Orange County, San Clemente and Newport Beach officers were following it.

Officers said later that they had kept their distance and had tried to block the car or run it off the road. They said the driver was speeding but was not driving erratically and slowed at intersections.

Turned Into Traffic

They said the driver then seemed to intentionally turn into oncoming traffic and ram a car head-on. Ivers was killed instantly.

Newport Beach police investigated the case as a possible attempted murder by the fleeing driver. The Orange County coroner’s office, considering it a possible suicide, did not classify the death. An autopsy found no significant traces of alcohol or drugs in Ivers’ blood.

“He was just a 19-year-old,” William Ivers said Friday. “He had just finished high school. He was one of the nicest boys--always fun-loving and carefree.”

He said his family has been unburdened after three years of uncertainty about Stephen Ivers’ fate. “The family is relieved. We’ve given him a good Christian burial,” the father said.

Stephen Ivers leaves two brothers and five sisters. A third brother, William Jr., died of a brain tumor while a cadet at the Air Force Academy.