Jury finds man guilty of murder in shooting of research scientist camping at Malibu Creek State Park
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A jury on Friday found a man guilty of murder in connection with the shooting of a father who was camping in a tent with his two young daughters at Malibu Creek State Park in 2018.
Anthony Rauda, 46, had been accused of a slew of charges in the shooting and what prosecutors said was a related crime spree.
Rauda was found guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Tristan Beaudette, attempted murder of Beaudette's two daughters and one other person, and five counts of second-degree commercial burglary. He was exonerated on the separate counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder of seven other victims.
Rauda is scheduled to be sentenced on June 7.
Prosecutors had been seeking a first-degree murder conviction for the June 22, 2018, killing of Tristan Beaudette as he camped with his daughters, but jurors convicted Rauda instead of the lesser charge of second-degree murder.
The downtown Los Angeles jury was handed the case Tuesday morning after hearing a rebuttal argument from a prosecutor.
Prosecutors tried to link Rauda to a series of shootings, all of which generally occurred in the early morning hours. The commercial burglary charges involved a series of break-ins, including two at the Calabasas Community Center and two at the Las Virgenes Water District facility between July and October 2018, which primarily involved food that was taken from the facilities.
Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter noted that Rauda had opted not to be present in court during the trial.
In the prosecution's final argument Tuesday just before jurors were sent back for deliberations, Deputy District Attorney Antonella Nistorescu told jurors the evidence against Rauda was "overwhelming."
In his closing argument Monday, Rauda's attorney told the panel there is reasonable doubt and urged the jury to acquit his client.
The prosecutor told jurors Monday that Rauda had a "pattern of stalking and preying on campers" at Malibu Creek State Park that began with a man being shot while sleeping in a hammock in November 2016 and that the victims were shot at in the pre-dawn hours -- a time when the prosecutor said people are usually in their deepest, most peaceful sleep -- as they camped at the state park.
Nistorescu said the defendant "managed to do what he had persistently tried" to do since 2016 when he killed Beaudette, a research scientist, as he was sleeping next to his daughters, who were named as victims among the 10 attempted murder charges.
The prosecutor alleged that Rauda wore a mask and dark clothing and toted a rifle when he committed the burglaries, calling him "thorough," "deliberate" and "careful."
After the last break-in, Rauda was tracked down through bootprints and a scent dog to a makeshift encampment on Oct.10, 2018, Nistorescu said.
Rauda's attorney, Nicholas Okorocha, countered that there was "reasonable doubt" involving the charges against his client.
He told jurors they should watch for an absence of evidence that indicates gaps in the case.
"You have these unanswered questions," the defense lawyer said in his closing argument.
He noted that DNA testing performed on cigarette butts found near where authorities believe the gunman shot at Beaudette's tent showed that the DNA came from an as-yet unidentified male and that it does not match his client's DNA.
In her rebuttal argument, the prosecutor countered that the discussion about the cigarette butts was a "red herring," saying they were found in a public campground and had no logical connection to Beaudette's shooting.
During the trial, Beaudette's brother-in-law, who was camping in a tent nearby, testified that he heard loud popping sounds and one of the victim's children crying, and found the man dead as his two daughters kneeled next to him in a pool of blood.
During emotional testimony, Scott McCurdy told the downtown Los Angeles jury that he was sleeping in a nearby tent when he was awakened by several loud pops'' that he initially thought may have been fireworks or something from a nearby fire pit and saw like a flash of light'' early the morning of June 22, 2018.
He said he heard one of Beaudette's daughters start to cry and waited for his brother-in-law to calm the girl down, then decided to get out of his own tent to see what was going on when he heard the girl's older sister talking with her.
"I heard the girls crying," he said, telling jurors that Beaudette's youngest daughter said, "Wet, wet" and that he didn't think anything about it at the time.
McCurdy said he tried to verbally comfort the girls while trying to rouse his brother-in-law from sleep and turned on his brother-in-law's phone after noticing that his own hand felt slippery.
"My hand was covered in blood," he said, noting that he turned back to his brother-in-law and saw the girls kneeling in a pool of blood and his brother-in-law's face in a pool of blood.
He said he reached down to try to feel his brother-in-law's neck for a pulse and realized he should get the girls out of the tent and call out to neighboring campers for help.
The victim's brother-in-law said he held on to the girls until a few neighbors came over and then went back into the tent to check on Beaudette.
"I noticed there was nothing in his eyes," he said of the 35-year-old Allergan research scientist from Irvine. "I realized he was gone and I left."
He said he started to put together what had happened to Beaudette and recalled that he had noticed that there was a small hole in the fairly new tent at the campsite, where toys were strewn about and a children's bike was on top of one of the vehicles.
The prosecution's first witness, Stacey Sebourn, who was camping nearby, said she was awakened early that day by the sound of gunshots that sounded like they came from a shotgun or rifle. She said she called 911 after hearing a man calling for help and a baby crying.
"It was a very mournful cry for daddy over and over again - 'daddy, daddy, daddy,'" she said.
She said she whispered during her 911 call to report the shooting because she didn't want to bring attention to her own tent.
"I was petrified," she said, noting that she didn't initially come out of her tent after the shooting.
Rauda was arrested on Oct. 10, 2018.
He was sentenced in December 2018 to six months in jail for gun and ammunition violations, a sentence set to run consecutively with an earlier 160-day sentence for a probation violation.
He was charged in January 2019 with the alleged crime spree and subsequently indicted in October 2019.
Rauda was sentenced last June to three years and eight months in jail after being convicted of attacking two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies since he's been in custody. Both of those attacks were caught on surveillance video, and Rauda was subsequently brought into court for further hearings in a chair in which he was confined.
City News Service contributed to this report.
