Alleged canyon shooter facing murder rap


The man accused of killing a father in Malibu Creek State Park last year has been charged with murder by a Los Angeles County grand jury.

An indictment unsealed at a Tuesday morning hearing charges 43-year-old Anthony Rauda with 10 counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary. He pleaded not guilty and is being held on $10 million bail.

Rauda is accused in the June 22, 2018 murder of Tristan Beaudette at Malibu Creek State Park. Beaudette, 35, was killed in the early hours of the morning while he slept in a camping tent with his two young daughters. The children were not injured.

He is also believed to have shot at other visitors in Malibu Canyon and people in their cars between November 2016 and the time of his arrest in October 2018. He’s being charged with 10 counts of attempted murder in those incidents. He’s also charged with five counts of burglarizing multiple buildings in the Santa Monica Mountains where he was living as an itinerant.

Security footage from one burglary several weeks before his arrest shows Rauda carrying a weapon similar to the one he possessed at the time of his arrest.

In a grand jury indictment, evidence can be withheld from the public view longer than normal. There’s no preliminary hearing in which the public can hear the facts of the case before it goes to trial.

“A grand jury proceeding is confidential, it’s just the prosecutor; the defendant isn’t present,” said James Bozajian, a member of the Calabasas City Council and an attorney who is following the case.

“The witnesses come in and the prosecutor presents evidence to the jury, not a judge. The benefit is it’s not a public proceeding, so information can remain confidential longer. The trial itself will be public,” Bozajian said.

Beaudette’s wife, Erica Wu, filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and several other local and state agencies claiming they were aware of a shooter on the loose but took no steps to keep visitors out of the park, actions that led to her husband’s death. She is seeking $90 million in damages.

Ian Bradley