Former Fresno County Sheriff who served three terms in the 1990s has died

Steve Magarian ran the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office for the full span of the 1990s.

He was elected three times, twice without opposition, and led the department during a period of expansion and innovation.

He also oversaw one of Fresno’s most notorious murder cases: The three-year investigation led to the conviction of Dana Ewell for the murder of his family in 1992.

Magarian died Monday at the age of 82. News of his death was shared among the department Monday morning and confirmed by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

“Steve put up a fierce battle with cancer,” Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said in a statement.

“We now know he is no longer suffering and is in a better place.”

From reserve deputy to Sheriff

Margarian was born in Fresno in 1942 and attended Roosevelt High School and then Fresno State, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminology.

He was already working with the sheriff’s office by then, having joined as a reserve deputy in 1966. As a full-time deputy he worked in the jail, in court and on patrol before working supervisory positions and being promoted to assistant sheriff in 1983.

He was elected as sheriff four years later.

The man behind MAGEC

During his tenure, Magarian oversaw the completion of both a new main jail at M and Fresno streets, but also its northern annex. The later of which opened in 1993.

He was there when the office got its first helicopter and computerized field reporting system (which allowed deputies to prepare reports in the field), and was instrumental in forming the Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium, which was a first in the state and is still in operation.

Finding cooperation among law enforcement agencies was a delicate balance at the time.

“It’s amazing what we can do if we don’t worry about who is going to get the credit,” Magarian told The Fresno Bee at the time.

There were smaller changes, too.

It was under Magarian the department shifted to its current tan and green uniforms. The old uniforms were tan on tan and had been modified to the point that “there was no longer any uniformity to the uniforms,” Magarian told The Bee in 1990. “You’d see a deputy in the west side of the county and he was wearing one thing, and a deputy in the east part of the county was wearing another thing.”

The Ewell murders

Magarian was Sheriff on Easter Sunday 1992 when Dale Ewell, his wife Glee and daughter Tiffany were shot to death in their Sunnyside home in what authorities first believed was a burglary gone wrong.

The discovery launched one of the most intense investigations in the history of the Sheriff’s Office.

It took three years of before the sheriff’s office arrested the Ewell’s son Dana and his friend Joel Radovcich; alleging the 21-year-old set Ewell up the killings to inherit the family’s $8 million estate and that Radovcich pulled the trigger.

It took another two years for the headline-drawing case to go to trial, with prosecutors at one point asking for extra security, alleging Radovcich was planning a “violent escape.” Both men were convicted of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 2022, the case became the subject of “Murdered for Millions,” a true-crime documentary that aired on ABC30.

In retirement, Magarian was still connected with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, serving as a mentor at least one other former Sheriff; Margaret Mims. He recently partnered with Zanoni and Mims on the Fresno Sheriff’s Memorial, which will open at the office’s Area Two Substation next month.

“Steve was a great man who cared for his family and our agency,” Zanoni wrote.

“His life may have ended, but his legacy here at the Fresno County Sheriff’s will be forever remembered by all of us.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 1:21 PM.