James ""Thumper" Steen

At the beginning of the year I did a blog about the 1994 kidnapping and presumed murder of Heidi Allen in New York. Two brothers were tried separately for that crime but only one was convicted. Several years later more than a few people came forward and implicated James Steen in that crime. Some would claim that he had confessed while others seemed to report seeing Steen on the night Heidi was kidnapped. Still others would claim that since by the time he was implicated he was serving a sentence of life without parole for two murders he committed that simply made him an easy scapegoat. Investigators looked into the allegations but were unable to come to any conclusions whether the rumors were true and by then Steen was denying any involvement.

In 2007 James “Thumper” Steen got married to Vicki who was ten years younger than him. It is not completely clear how many children they had but by 2010 it seems that they had at least a two year old son and a daughter. I cannot say if his daughter was older or younger than his son. In February of 2010 Vicki left him after he had “pinned her on the couch and choked her until she passed out.” The police had been called and it appears that Steen was arrested. It also appears that he was convicted later on charges of “menacing and endangering the welfare of a child” because his son had been just feet away when the incident occurred. I found nothing however that stated he had been charged, let alone convicted of domestic violence.

Vicki went on to have a relationship with Charles Carr Jr. Charles Carr Sr was said to be a second cousin to James and this obviously did not go over well. It was said that on September 8, 2010 Vicki had told James that they were officially done. Four days later, on September 12^th James went to Vicki's apartment in Hastings New York. He sent his son, now three, outside the apartment, but not the building, he then walked back into the apartment and shot both Vicki and Charles multiple times. When he was done he called Charles Carr Sr. and said “I told you it was gonna be bad. Now it's all over with.” It is unclear who called the police to respond. Once they were there it became a seven hour standoff with police. In fact, he attempted to point his weapon at the police apparently hoping for “suicide by cop.” When he finally emerged it was discovered that he was wearing a t-shirt that said “It's all fun and games until the cops show up.”

Over the course of the next several months many phone calls from Steen to other people were recorded at the jail. Nearly fifty of these calls were obtained by a newspaper and were released. It was said that he showed no remorse for his actions and in fact he was often heard boasting about his actions. Many of his friends, family and former friends would say that he had always been a bragger and exaggerator. If there was a fight, he was in it and he won against everyone.... this seemed to be his logic. He even boasted in one call that he had sent flowers to Vicki's funeral and that they were larger than any of them there. Whether this is true or not is unknown.

One thing that I found interesting is that later when investigators were looking into the allegations that Steen was involved in the kidnapping and murder of Heidi Allen and they found nothing they would claim to the media that after the murders of Vicki and Charles he was very distraught. This completely contradicts everything that not only the media had reported but things that even the friends and family of his victims would claim. I am not going to sit here and say that I know for a fact that Steen was involved in the kidnapping of Heidi Allen, but I am going to say that it seems more likely that it was Steen and not the man that was ultimately convicted for that crime. The rumor was that Steen, and a few friends, had kidnapped Heidi, taken her to a home, later murdered her and dismembered her body. There were a few rumors as to what exactly happened to her body. One was that it was place under a particular house that was searched and the other was that her body was placed in a crushed car that Steen later took to Canada as part of his job. The latter obviously could not be proven.

Investigators would also indicate as if Steen was a fairly upstanding individual prior to the murders of Vicki and Charles. It is true that it appears the only legal issues he had were the charges regarding the issue of his child earlier in the year and a drug conviction several years prior. But, Charles Carr Sr, who had known his cousin all of his life would proclaim that Steen had “always been trouble” and that he knew of many crimes that he had committed and simply not been caught. Now, obviously some could say that Carr was bitter and angry with Steen and had every right to. The man had murdered his son, but in my opinion when you add it to what others have said and what we can “see” with our own eyes, it does not seem to be a small stretch to believe Carr in what he is saying.

Steen did a lot of talking both to the hostage negotiator, as well as to investigators after his arrest. He told the negotiator that he was upset with Vicki because she had been allowing their children to call Charles Jr their father. Then after his arrest he claimed that he killed Vicki because she had left their daughter with an allegedly known child molester and that killing Charles Jr. had not been his intention. He claimed that after hitting Charles Jr. and thinking he was knocked out he had gone and shot Vicki. He claimed he was getting ready to leave the home when Charles Jr. woke up and attacked him and they struggled over the gun when it went off killing him. However, Charles Jr. was found laying faced down on the ground in the home with a gunshot wound behind his left ear. This does not “jive” with being an accidental killing or simply a gun going off. It appears that Charles Jr. had been murdered execution style.

Steen was ultimately convicted on one count of first degree murder and two counts of second degree murder. As much as I have done these types of cases I do often get confused how charges are filed. In this case the second degree murders were based on the murders of the actual victims. The first degree charge came from the fact that he killed more than one person “in one action.” This one makes sense to me and I was happy to see the explanation. In June of 2011 he was given a sentenced of life without parole. He was also given two sentences of twenty-five years to life but the first sentence pretty much outweighed the others.

It is unclear whether authorities will ever be able to connect him to the Heidi Allen murder or any other crimes but it seems clear that he will never get out of prison.