Hollywood, CA -
(CNS) The drifter convicted in the 2007 overdose death of an Orange County woman he met via craigslist was back behind bars today on a parole violation -- after two women who responded to a recent craigslist ad for a roommate told police about their weird encounter with him.
John Steven Burgess, 42, was booked on suspicion of possessing ammunition -- something forbidden a convicted felon, according to Los Angeles police spokeswoman Karen Rayner. He was picked up at his apartment in the 5500 block of Barton Avenue about 8 p.m. Monday.
Burgess served less than half of a five-year prison sentence for plying 19-year-old Donna Jou -- a San Diego State University freshman nursing student whom he met via her craigslist ad offering math tutoring -- with cocaine, heroin and alcohol at a rented home in the Palms area, then dumping her body at sea after she died.
He fled town and was arrested in Jacksonville, Fla., on a crack cocaine charge, the returned to California to face justice. In December, he was released from prison on a conviction for voluntary manslaughter.
Two women who recently responded to a craigslist ad offering free rent in exchange for cooking a cleaning told police they figured out who Burgess was after talking with him. He reportedly told the women, both writers, that he had a true-life story he wanted to tell them.
In the apartment, according to a broadcast report, was a groggy woman, dressed in underwear and shaking uncontrollably.
"Whatever they observed in the time they were there caused them enough concern that they contacted police,'' Rayner said.
Burgess, who had a conviction for lewd behavior before he met Jou, was jailed at the LAPD's Hollywood Station and denied bail, she said.
