Agreed--(which is why I only stated it was "a possibility" she was born out of wedlock.)
I don't know if they were legally married; what I know is a "DJS****** was born in L.A. on [specific 1959 date] to a woman with maiden name N***** who is also referred to in public records as R*** S******. Highly unusual first name "R" and it is not likely there was any other women so named (with matching surnames N and S) in the area. Here's the key - the two marriage index hints that I have accepted as matching DJS's mom each use a different surname for her when recording her 2nd marriage to RSL in 1979 -- the maiden N***** AND the surname shared by her child, St****r. There is also a public address record for mom R*** (local, identical birthdate) using the last name S******. So here's what my records list looks like (in part) for her:
California, Marriage Index, 1960 - 1985 R*** N****n
California, Marriage Index, 1960 - 1985 R*** S*****r
U.S. Public Records Index, 1950 - 1993, Volume 1 R*** S*****r
You (and a few others in here) have discounted the hints on ancestry as coming "from other people's trees" and therefore not being reliable. What I'm trying to show is how the records themselves can be reliable when combined with logic and deduction. Some record hints might be illogical (eg. one that suggests a person entered the army at age 12); we are free to reject those along with any and all family trees. Other record hints are perfectly reasonable and even irrefutably so. (Eg. A Los Angeles mom with maiden name N***** gave birth to a daughter DJS on such-and-so date. Multiple public records associate the mom's maiden name to that daughter's given surname. That mom uses either surname, apparently interchangeably, in her next marriage record.)
I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother's passing, Gardener. Yes, it takes a while, though it varies--my mom's death record was available about a year after her recent death. And about the other...it's your prerogative, of course, if you believe RS didn't have a daughter DJS with R*** N***** - that the married Van Nuys DS is someone else's daughter, of same name, locality, and age who may or may not have testified in a murder trial. (And if she didn't, then we still have to wonder where
that[/] DJS is...). Personally, I'm not ready to settle on that assumption before trying to find out why there are several different records given for the 'married' DS's birthday, why a search done on that Debbie S and husband yields no results, and why (if she did testify) she would stick around there to raise a family, when at least one killer would be up for parole in ten years. I think I'd be wanting to go into hiding as well. Even if the killers were in prison, their druggie associates could be persuaded to retaliate.
I also know that my 'wrong man' (RS) has a relentlessly curious public records history - eg. A Richard "C" S****** living in Tacoma, WA but then also living in Los Angeles and registered in the military as Richard "B" S****** (identical birthdates)? Other times the minor change is not in the middle initial but in changing the birthday slightly. Maybe making it the same year but a different month, or sometimes a different day (the 1st...easy to remember). It's not that these are 'multiple' men at all - you know this is the same one guy because his household members are the same and sometimes the address itself hasn't even changed. Mistakes can happen in the records. But I've only seen it to this degree and length of time with my own family member who had an alias and was in hiding. Hiding and protecting can be a family affair, and I'm simply wondering if that could be the case, here. I see these kind of identification changes happening with all the family members in this case, particularly from the 80s forward, and especially with the step-mom (multiple names associated with that birth date and address history). Also multiple addresses and PO boxes for the family members, and inexplicable things such as a farm boy having an "address" of a million-dollar L.A. home from the time he graduates military school (age 21) until his death 40+ years later. And I can't help but wonder, with that Laguna Hills address, why would anyone also have up to a half dozen lesser home and apt addresses from L.A. up to Tacoma? Maybe he was a landlord when he wasn't shipped out?
Sorry for the length; this has been incredibly tedious trying to break down the deductive process I used to come to my conclusions. I can only hope it wasn't half as tedious to read as it was to write! You don't have all the information I do in front of you, so it's understandable that you wouldn't have the same perception on this. And no, I don't think ancestry or familysearch are conspiring to hide records from me or anyone else. The sites can't hide information they've not been given access to. Not every record should be expected to be found, even in a typical tree. But in a family tree of 200+ members, now, I do see a noticeable dearth...I think the pattern emerges when you have access to a tree over time, studying it and working with it. I only mention it as an observation, but feel free to disregard any of this if you don't think it's helpful.