Christopher Stevens

John Christopher Stevens (April 18, 1960 – September 11, 2012) was an American career diplomat and lawyer who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya from May 22, 2012, to September 11, 2012. Stevens was killed when the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by members of Ansar al-Sharia on September 11–12, 2012. Stevens was the eighth U.S. Ambassador to be killed while in office. Early life and education Stevens was born on April 18, 1960, in Grass Valley, California, the eldest of three siblings born to Jan S. Stevens, a California Assistant Attorney General, and his wife Mary J. Stevens (née Floris; born 1937), from a West Coast family of French, Swedish and Chinook ancestry. Stevens was raised in Northern California and had two younger siblings, Anne (b. 1962) and Thomas (b. 1965). Stevens' parents divorced in 1975, and both remarried. Stevens himself never married. His mother, a cellist, joined the Marin Symphony Orchestra (1969—2004), and in 1976 married Robert Commanday, a music critic with the San Francisco Chronicle.