New Zealand drug dealer who kept girlfriend’s body on ice in California hotel is deported

Man who kept body on ice in California is deported

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Federal officials have deported a New Zealand drug dealer who kept his dead girlfriend’s body on dry ice in a swanky Newport Beach hotel after she died of an overdose.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Stephen David Royds was deported June 25.

The 49-year-old Royds was paroled in May after serving about 1½ years of a four-year prison sentence on felony drug charges.

He was arrested in 2008 for allegedly selling cocaine and pleaded guilty to drug charges. Investigators who searched his room at the Fairmont Hotel found the body of 33-year-old Monique Trepp in a plastic box filled with dry ice. Acquaintances said she died of an accidental drug overdose nearly a year earlier.