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Body Found By San Clemente High School Identified As Missing 22-Year-Old
The body of a man found in a flood control channel next to San Clemente High School has been identified as 22-year-old Nicholas Stevens, who had been missing since November 6. While the cause of death is unknown as of yet, it's being investigated by police as "suspicious."
ABC-7 reports that Stevens was last seen at a 7-11 about a mile away from where his body was found—in a flood control channel between a McDonalds and the San Clemente High School baseball field.
Police said Stevens was bar-hopping with his co-workers, who said that even though he was drinking, he didn't seem too severely impaired. But when he got a ride home, authorities said that Stevens struggled to remember his home address, and asked the driver to drop him off at the 7-Eleven on the 1800 block of North El Camino Real, reports KTLA. According to ABC, surveillance video shows Stevens entering and exiting the 7-Eleven, and walking up Avenido Pico in the direction of his apartment that is two miles away. But that was the last time he was seen.
Stevens, a native of New York, had just moved to San Clemente three months ago, according to the O.C. Register. He had recently started a job in the area as a landscape architect.
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Lt. Jeff Hallock told ABC in an earlier report, "No activity on his bank accounts, nothing on his cellphone, no social media. His vehicle doesn't appear to have been moved," he said. "It's suspicious."
His father, Terry, said in that same report that the disappearance was completely out of character for Nick, and that he'd spoken with his son just a few hours before he went missing. "He told me he was out with his co-workers," he said. "I said, 'Nick be safe.'"
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