Stephenie Glas, 37, died June 9 at her home in what is being investigated as a “suicide/homicide.”
By Darlene Ricker / Special to The Malibu Times
A suicide/homicide investigation is continuing into the June 9 shooting death of Stephenie Glas, 37, of Malibu, who was memorialized in a City of Los Angeles firefighter’s funeral on Tuesday.
Steve Woods, 56, at whose Corral Canyon home the shooting happened, said he is cooperating with authorities and confirmed that he voluntarily took a polygraph test last week at the request of homicide detectives. Results have not been released from it, nor from ballistics and toxicology tests.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau and the Los Angeles Department of Coroner confirmed that the case is still under investigation but would not comment on an open investigation.
In a 90-minute interview last week with The Malibu Times, Woods recounted the events that led to the death of Glas, a seven-year veteran firefighter and Malibu community activist who was his live-in girlfriend. Intermittently sobbing and referring to her in the present tense, he portrayed Glas as physically and emotionally exhausted in the weeks preceding her death. He said she seemed to be having a “nervous breakdown” the night of her death.
“I don’t know why she did it. I guess it was just some weird, impulsive thing that happened,” said Woods, adding that Glas had never threatened suicide. He said she used her own handgun to kill herself and that he had not seen the weapon that day. Woods denied that alcohol was a factor in Glas’ death.
Glas had come home early that Saturday morning after completing a 24-hour shift at Firehouse 93 in Tarzana, where she was assigned, he said. She spent the next several hours working on her web page, TheRealMalibu411, which Glas had created to educate the public about the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project and other causes she supported.
“She felt a duty to inform people of the truth—the facts, based on science. She wouldn’t rest until she accomplished that,” said Woods.
The afternoon of the day she died, the two went to the beach with her dog, said Woods. He described the outing as relaxing. When the couple returned home, Glas offered to make supper, he said. “We got along well. It was a nice day.”
But things turned horribly wrong as the evening hours ensued, he said. Woods recounted the last 20 to 30 minutes of Glas’ life.
He said she went upstairs to their bedroom to watch game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. Woods stayed downstairs to watch a live surfing contest in Fiji, telling Glas he would join her afterward. As time passed, however, Glas grew increasingly irritated, he said, calling to him every few minutes. “I couldn’t understand why [my] watching the game with her was so important,” said Woods.
He remained downstairs and Glas began emailing him, he said, describing her messages as “angry” and “hostile.” (The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department took possession of the computers after the incident for investigation.)
Things escalated to such a point, said Woods, that he decided to take a walk in hopes Glas would calm down.
When he got outside the house, Woods said he heard Glas coming down the interior stairs, shouting at him. He continued to walk down the driveway, he said, and then heard a gunshot. He ran back into the house to find Glas slumped behind the front door, bleeding profusely from the head. She was airlifted to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where she died shortly thereafter.
When asked what may have prompted Glas to shoot herself that night, Woods said he didn’t know. He said Glas had been exposed to an inordinate amount of stress over the past year, the majority of which stemmed from anger directed at her by opponents of the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project, which she and Woods supported. Glas was also dealing with financial burdens related to maintaining her web page and had suffered recent personal disappointments, said Woods.
But opponents of the project last week rejected the notion that Glas was heckled and that it contributed to her death.
“If people have dealt with suicide and abuse, they well know that you don’t kill yourself over a lagoon,” said Kace Wanland, a member of the Surfers Coalition, which opposes the lagoon project. “There were deeper issues there.”
Glas’ stress also may have stemmed from her unwavering need to excel. Cece Stein of Point Dume, Glas’ best friend and former neighbor, said they spent “endless hours together” working on the “411” page. While she found Glas “tremendously focused and driven,” Stein said, “What people didn’t get to see was her compassionate, giving nature and how sensitive and childlike she was in so many ways. She was very wounded [about the anger directed at her]. Unfortunately, she had to present this super-tough exterior because she was constantly on the defense for the past year.”
Woods said he loved Glas deeply and described their relationship as “soulmates … we were two peas in a pod.” He conceded, however, that they had a “tumultuous” past and confirmed Glas suffered a broken wrist two years ago during an argument between them. Woods said he pushed her away in self-defense and that she fell backward with her arm outstretched. He was arrested and jailed for three days, but domestic violence charges were later dropped, he said.
Glas is featured in the current issue of Westlake Magazine, which selected her as a recipient of its 2012 Westlake Achievers award.
More than 100 firefighters attended her memorial service Tuesday. Among them was Frank Lima, who spoke on behalf of the International Association of Firefighters. “I got to know Stephenie a year ago and found this was a person who wasn’t afraid to ask questions,” he said. “She worked really hard—and in a profession overwhelmingly dominated by men, she had to work that much harder. She earned our respect, and that’s saying a lot.”