Club board member: Soria underwent checks

A board member of the Lake Tahoe Boys & Girls Club said he has received assurances from the club's director that Thomas Robert Soria Jr. underwent a thorough background check before he was hired.

"He had fingerprint checks and background checks," said Fletcher Ingals, a Carson City resident who serves as secretary on the board of the Tahoe club.

Fletcher described the Lake Park club as relatively new.

"This was just done in the last year, year-and-a-half," he said. "I've served on the board for seven years and we have never had any problems."

The Lake Park Apartment branch of the club serves 30-40 children a day and has a computer room.

"That's not bad considering the facility is very limited in scope," he said.

The club was closed Sunday afternoon when 9-year-old Krystal Steadman disappeared from the Stateline apartment complex.

Her body was found along Highway 50 about two miles from the Carson City intersection with Highway 395 on Monday morning. Soria, 19, was arrested shortly after the girls body was found and faces murder and kidnapping charges.

Ingals said the main club meets at South Lake Tahoe Middle School and has about 1,000 members.

"The club serves maybe 150 children a day," he said. "We are now negotiating a lease for the site of the old middle school tennis courts to put up a building."

Donations for an educational memorial for Krystal are being accepted at branches of Wells Fargo Bank. Silver Oak Development Co. of Carson City is donating $500 to the Elizabeth Steadman Savings Account on Behalf of her Daughter memorial fund.