By Mirna AlshariffNBC
News
An Arizona man who flagged down a sheriff's deputy in the middle of the road Thursday and confessed to killing his stepfather allegedly did so over an argument over the Bible, according to an indictment filed by the Arizona Sheriff's Office. Cochise County.
Jay Albert Stevens, 52, told officers he killed his stepfather, Mark Kilbourne, 61, after an argument Wednesday afternoon in which he accused Stevens of never having read the Bible or, in any case, of having read it without understanding anything of its message, the authorities indicated in a statement.
Stevens and Kilbourne got into an argument in the garage of their home and as tempers started to heat up, Stevens went to his room.
He remained there for several hours "boiling" with anger.
He then decided to go downstairs with a .40-caliber pistol to confront Kilbourne in the courtroom, according to the statement.
Cochise County Jail, Arizona. Google Maps
Stevens stood five feet from Kilbourne, who was sitting in a chair, and allegedly shot him in the chest.
Kilbourne was still alive after the first shot, but Stevens shot him again a second time, then punched him in the face "in rage and rage".
Deputies said Stevens dragged his stepfather out of the house intending to bury him, but decided it was too difficult to dig a big enough hole and believed he would be caught anyway.
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Then Stevens took his dogs with him and took them to his sister's house, to whom he confessed that he had killed Kilbourne.
He then asked her to call the sheriff's office to have him arrested.
That's when Stevens left the house and stopped in the middle of the road at 1:00 am local time to flag down a Cochise County deputy who was responding to his sister's call.
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Kilbourne had been Stevens' stepfather for more than 20 years.
But they had only lived together on a daily basis for four years, ever since Stevens moved from Washington to Arizona to help care for his ailing mother.
He made it clear to authorities that
he had a "major dislike" for his stepfather and told them that he had spent many years "taking the ***" out of him.
Stevens was arrested early Thursday and charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of abandoning or concealing a body, according to the Cochise County Prosecutor's Office.
He is being held on $1 million bond at the Cochise County Jail.
Our sister network NBC News contacted Stevens' attorney, Sara Xochitl Orozco, who declined to comment on the case.
Stevens is expected to be arraigned in two weeks, but an exact date has not yet been set, county prosecutor Brian McIntyre told NBC News.
