Man sentenced for Yakima-area homicide

While prosecutors described Alilla “Lala” Minthorn’s killer as beyond hope, her relatives were not so ready to write him off.

Family members told Jordan Everett Stevens on Tuesday they were praying that whatever motivated him to take her life would be rooted out of him.

“I pray that you come to learn what it is that made you do what you did to kill her,” said Esther Moses-Hyipeer, Minthorn’s aunt.

Stevens, 32, was convicted in 2021 of first-degree murder and brandishing a firearm in a crime of violence in U.S. District Court. The murder charge carries a mandatory life-without-parole sentence and the firearms charge has a mandatory 10-year sentence that runs consecutively to any other sentence.

The case was heard in federal court because Minthorn and Stevens were both Native Americans, and she was killed inside the Yakama Nation Indian Reservation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Burson said Stevens killed Minthorn, 25, in May 2019 because she spoke to FBI agents investigating a crime in which Stevens was involved near Toppenish. Even though Minthorn did not have information to give investigators, Stevens still forced her into a car, drove her to a remote part of the reservation and shot her in the head with a rifle, Burson said.

Burson said the terms “first-degree murder” and “premeditated murder” do not even adequately describe the nature of the execution-style killing. He noted that Stevens, who took upon himself the moniker “Ruthless,” brought two women with him when he killed Minthorn.

“The (life-without-parole) sentence is mandatory, but it is also the right sentence,” Burson said. “The reason I am allocuting is because of (Stevens’ criminal) history and the nature of the offense. There is not even the glimmer of hope he is going to change,” Burson said, noting that Stevens has not shown any remorse.

He said Stevens’ past crimes include the violent beating of a woman who was still recovering from a miscarriage.

George Lee Jr., Minthorn’s cousin, said he is hurt that Stevens took his cousin’s life, but his Washat religion required him to leave Stevens’ judgment up to God, and that Stevens now has to bear the burden of Minthorn’s pains, trials and sins because he took her life.

“It is my prayer that this (anger and willingness to kill) subside in his heart,” Lee said. He also hoped that people on the reservation would come together and help stop the killing of Indigenous people.

Moses-Hyipeer said she and Minthorn’s relatives are deprived of seeing the woman that Minthorn would have become had she lived.

While the sentence was mandatory, Stevens’ attorney asked the court to understand the rough childhood Stevens experienced.

Stevens lost family members at an early age, was addicted to alcohol and hard drugs when he was 14, and has dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, said attorney Rick Hernandez.

“He never had a chance,” Hernandez said.

Stevens, Hernandez said, chose not to speak in court as he is appealing the case.

Judge Stanley A. Bastian discounted the role that Stevens’ childhood trauma played in Minthorn’s killing. He agreed with Burson that “murder” wasn’t an adequate description of the crime.

“I don’t believe for a moment that your mental health and history led you to execute Ms. Minthorn,” Bastian said. “That is a decision you made.”

Bastian called Minthorn’s killing “revenge” aimed at protecting Stevens, and that she was not the only victim. Among the other victims he said were the two women Stevens brought with him when he killed Minthorn, as well as her family and others.

“You victimized an entire community,” Bastian said.

He noted that Tim Castilleja, the owner of the Brownstown Tavern, was terrified that he would be killed if he testified in Stevens’ trial. Three days after he testified, his tavern burned to the ground and human remains were found in the ruins.

While officials have not said whether the remains were Castilleja’s, Bastian told Stevens that Castilleja was dead.

Moses-Hyipeer said afterward that the sentencing does not give her closure, as her niece is still gone.