Article about the guy from sporting events that wore the rainbow afro wig and started holding up the John 3:16 signs.
But the fanatic who was always there, Stewart says, really was no fan at all.
"I despised sports," he says.
Stewart is 63 now, no longer wears an Afro or any other type of hairpiece to mask his baldness and last attended a sporting event about 20 years ago.
Serving three life sentences for hostage-taking, he has been imprisoned since 1992. The punishment was the result of a bizarre incident in which an armed Stewart locked himself in a hotel room near Los Angeles International Airport and kicked off an 8 1/2 -hour standoff with police, demanding a three-hour, televised news conference to air his views. Earlier, he had driven two day laborers to the hotel, both of whom escaped, and encountered a frightened housekeeper who locked herself in a bathroom.
Currently serving time at Mule Creek State Prison, about an hour southeast of Sacramento, he has been denied parole three times in the last six years, most recently in March, and does not believe he will ever be set free.
"Jesus will come back before I get out," Stewart tells a visitor from Los Angeles, his startlingly blue eyes revealing little emotion. "To justify their own unbelief, they use me as a scapegoat so they can sleep at night.
"But they've still got their Rolaids next to the bed."
Stewart says his "final presentation" in 1992 was mistimed -- the end of the world was nigh, he believed -- but otherwise does not regret his actions.
"It was a crime to prevent a greater harm," he says, explaining that it was his duty to warn the world of the coming Apocalypse. "If somebody's standing in the way of me going into a burning building, I'm going to knock them on their butt."
"I despised sports," he says.
Stewart is 63 now, no longer wears an Afro or any other type of hairpiece to mask his baldness and last attended a sporting event about 20 years ago.
Serving three life sentences for hostage-taking, he has been imprisoned since 1992. The punishment was the result of a bizarre incident in which an armed Stewart locked himself in a hotel room near Los Angeles International Airport and kicked off an 8 1/2 -hour standoff with police, demanding a three-hour, televised news conference to air his views. Earlier, he had driven two day laborers to the hotel, both of whom escaped, and encountered a frightened housekeeper who locked herself in a bathroom.
Currently serving time at Mule Creek State Prison, about an hour southeast of Sacramento, he has been denied parole three times in the last six years, most recently in March, and does not believe he will ever be set free.
"Jesus will come back before I get out," Stewart tells a visitor from Los Angeles, his startlingly blue eyes revealing little emotion. "To justify their own unbelief, they use me as a scapegoat so they can sleep at night.
"But they've still got their Rolaids next to the bed."
Stewart says his "final presentation" in 1992 was mistimed -- the end of the world was nigh, he believed -- but otherwise does not regret his actions.
"It was a crime to prevent a greater harm," he says, explaining that it was his duty to warn the world of the coming Apocalypse. "If somebody's standing in the way of me going into a burning building, I'm going to knock them on their butt."
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