BROWN: Prosecution lays out case against man charged in Malibu Creek State Park murder of WM Scientist & father Tristan Beaudette

Arheel's Uncle

Senior Reporter


Prosecution lays out case against man charged in Malibu Creek State Park murder​

Anthony Rauda is accused of murdering a research scientist in Malibu Creek State Park in June 2018.

ByChristiane Cordero
KABC logo

Friday, May 5, 2023 8:43PM

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A five-year-old wound was reopened in criminal courts Friday for those who lost Tristan Beaudette, a beloved husband, scientist and father.

Beaudette was killed in June 2018 while camping at Malibu Creek State Park when he was shot in the head as he and his two daughters were sleeping.

A relative they were with at the time checked in on him after hearing Beaudette's girls - who were 2 and 4 at the time - trying to wake him up.

Anthony Rauda, the man charged with murdering Beaudette, was not in court Friday for opening statements in his trial and he won't be through at least a portion of the trial. The 46-year-old waived that right.

Rauda was convicted last year after being accused of attacking sheriff's deputies while in custody.

READ MORE | Man charged in Malibu Creek State Park murder convicted for attacking deputies while in custody

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A man accused of murdering a research scientist in Malibu Creek State Park was convicted on separate charges of attacking two L.A. County sheriff's deputies while he has been in custody.
In Friday's three-hour long opening statements, prosecutors tried connecting Rauda to each of the 16 charges he faces: one count of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, and five burglary charges.

Detectives arrested him four months after Beaudette's death while he was living in the Santa Monica Mountains, armed with a rifle.

Prosecutors will tie that rifle to Beaudette's murder and one of the attempted murder charges.

They've laid out some of the evidence they plan to present, showing the trail of physical and digital evidence Rauda left that ultimately led to his arrest in the wilderness.

Beaudette's wife was also in court Friday with a large support group as she had to relieve much of the trauma she has endured over the past five years.

Prosecutors showed several photos of her husband and their daughters

The defense will deliver its opening statements Monday, May 8.
 

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A Californian man has been arrested in the murder of a scientist who was killed while camping in a tent with his two young daughters at Malibu Creek State Park in June 2018, authorities say. Anthony Rauda is also accused of trying to kill 10 other people by shooting at them in the Malibu area, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release. Rauda is also facing several burglary charges.

A 42-year-old parolee and drifter, Rauda has been in custody since he was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in October 2018 on suspicion of burglary charges. He was held in jail on a parole violation, according to court records. At the time of his October arrest, there was speculation that Rauda was connected to the shooting death of 35-year-old Tristan Beaudette, who was killed on June 18, 2018, and a string of unsolved shooting incidents in and around Malibu Creek State Park, but police stopped short of calling him a suspect or person of interest.

The charges against Rauda were announced on January 7, 2019. The case remains under investigation by the sheriff’s department, prosecutors say. He was charged with murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary, the district attorney’s office said.

Rauda faces up to life in prison if convicted of the charges against him. He remains in custody on $1.1 million bail after appearing in court on January 7 for his arraignment. He did not enter a plea during the court hearing and his public defender has not commented about the case. Rauda is scheduled to return to court again on January 22. The case is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Barnes of the district attorney’s office’s major crimes division, according to the press release. During a previous court appearance in the parole revocation case, Rauda was wheeled into court strapped to a chair with a spit mask covering his face, according to CBS Los Angeles. Authorities said he tried to bite, spit on and attack people prior to court, the news station reported.

Here’s what you need to know about Anthony Rauda:

1. Rauda Is Accused of Firing at Campers or Drivers Multiple Times From November 2016 Until Just 4 Days Before He Fatally Shot Beaudette, Authorities Say

2. He Was Arrested on a Probation Violation in October While Armed With a Long Gun & Was Suspected in a Series of Food Burglaries, the Sheriff’s Office Says


3. Rauda Is a ‘Survivalist’ Who Lived Outdoors in the Malibu Area & Elsewhere Along the California Coast & Has a Lengthy Criminal Record in Multiple States, Including Gun & Assault Convictions

4. He Was Born in Tampa, Florida, & Has at Times Pursued Careers in Music & Art

5. Beaudette Was a Senior Scientist at a Pharmaceutical Company, Studied at Berkeley & Was Preparing to Move to the Bay Area With His Family

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Tristan Beaudette.
 
Tristan Beaudette
Tristan was working on and also actively promoting "safe vaccines" similar to the CDC man named Timothy Cunningham case of being "suicided" after reporting the deaths of elders from flu vaccines. Can't have that.

Beaudette was originally from Fresno. According to the Fresno Bee, Beaudette was a valedictorian at Edison High School in 2000. He graduated from the University of California San Diego in 2005 with a degree in chemistry, according to his Linkedin profile. Beaudette spent a year as a summer research intern at IBM. He then began pursuing his Ph.D in chemistry at UC Berkeley in 2005, completing his studies in 2010. He wrote a thesis entitled, “Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Acid-Degradable Polymeric Materials for Protein-Based Vaccine,” a research project, ” focused on the design, synthesis, characterization, and implementation of acid-sensitive polymeric microparticulate and nanoparticulate vehicles for vaccine and drug delivery applications,” he wrote on Linkedin.

While at Berkeley, Beaudette was a graduate student instructor and worked on several research projects that were focused on pharmaceuticals and vaccines, according to his Linkedin profile. He wrote that he, “Synthesized polyacrylamide, polyacetal, and polysaccharide-based acid-degradable microparticles and used in vitro and in vivo techniques to characterize their ability to elicit cell-mediated immune responses for applications in vaccines and cancer therapy.” He also wrote, he, “Developed methods for chemoselective particle functionalization for use in targeted drug and gene delivery.” And, “Led a multidisciplinary team of chemists, immunologists, and biologists in an NIH-funded collaborative project involving the design of novel protein-based vaccine formulations,” while also composing, “multiple scientific research proposals. Presented and published graduate work at national conferences and in peer-reviewed journals.”
 
Tristan was working on and also actively promoting "safe vaccines"
SNIPPED to the vaccines
“Four incidents with a shotgun,” Woods speculated, “and at least three of them were inside state parks and not investigated at all.” Woods also had alternate theories about Tristan’s death. “Speculation, too, was that Beaudette was a professional hit,” she said. “And I heard that from guys inside law enforcement. He [Baudette] was a scientist who was researching vaccines, that kind of thing. Must have been close to something, who knows? Yesterday, when I talked to this homicide detective, he's got like an 80-percent-plus conviction rate. He said, ‘It sounds like the guy who committed the murder, and potentially the Tesla thing, hit smack right in the hood to pop it open. That had to have been done with a scope. Somebody knows what they're doing. They've got night vision goggles.’ This guy is not that guy. He's not that guy. Interestingly enough, in my readings, it said, ‘Rifle with a scope.’ ”
 

Closing arguments expected to conclude Tuesday in case of father killed in Malibu Creek State Park​

City News Service
Tuesday, May 23, 2023 9:03AM


Jury to begin deliberations in killing of father camping in Malibu



Jurors are expected to be handed the case against a man linked to a crime spree that included the killing of a research scientist shot while camping with his two young daughters in a tent at Malibu Creek State Park.
Following a prosecutor's rebuttal in closing arguments, jurors Tuesday are expected to be handed the case against a man linked to a crime spree that included the killing of a research scientist shot while camping with his two young daughters in a tent at Malibu Creek State Park nearly five years ago.

Anthony Rauda, now 46, is facing a murder charge stemming from the June 22, 2018, killing of Tristan Beaudette, along with attempted murder charges involving a series of early morning shootings typically between 3 and 5 a.m, including one in which a man who had been sleeping in a hammock initially thought he had been bitten in the arm by an animal.

The defendant is also facing five counts of second-degree commercial burglary involving 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, that primarily involved food that was taken from the facilities.

In closing arguments Monday, prosecutors told jurors that evidence links Rauda to the killing and the crime spree -- while a defense attorney told the panel there is reasonable doubt and urged the jury to acquit his client.

In her closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Antonella Nistorescu told jurors 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 between 3 and 5 a.m. -- a time when the prosecutor said people are usually in their deepest, most peaceful sleep -- as they camped at the state park.

Unsuspecting motorists were also shot at while driving nearby in white vehicles in the dark of night, with ballistics testing subsequently linking a rifle that was found in a backpack that Rauda was carrying at the time of his arrest to the bullet that killed Beaudette and a shooting that damaged a white Tesla that was being driven nearby a few days earlier, according to the prosecutor.

Nistorescu said the defendant "managed to do what he had persistently tried" to do since 2016 when he killed Beaudette as he was sleeping next to his daughters, who are named as victims among the 10 attempted murder charges. His youngest daughter's leggings were covered in her father's blood when she kneeled next to him after the shooting, the prosecutor said.

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Opening statements continue in the case against Anthony Rauda, a 46-year-old man suspected of killing Tristan Beaudette, a man who was camping with his family in 2018.
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.

Deputy District Attorney Brian Kang said a search of Rauda's devices showed that he had researched homemade firearms, hitting a car with a bullet and being a fugitive, with the prosecutor adding, "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have to be a fugitive."

Rauda's attorney, Nicholas Okorocha, countered that there was "reasonable doubt" involving the charges against his client.

He told jurors that 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 done 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.

Okorocha said the investigation has gone on for 4 1/2 years and is "still ongoing" as authorities try to figure out whose DNA was on the cigarette butts.

"There's clearly reasonable doubt," he said, telling jurors that he is asking them to "follow the law" and "find Anthony Rauda not guilty."

Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter noted that Rauda was not in court just before the trial's opening statements, telling jurors that he had "elected to exercise his constitutional right not to be present."

Rauda was arrested 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.
 
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