A man has been found guilty in the killing that terrorized and shut down a Southern California state park in 2018.
In June 2018, 35-year-old Irvine scientist Tristan Beaudette decided to take his daughters, then 2 and 4, on a camping trip. The next week, the family was moving to the Bay Area, but that evening, Beaudette’s wife, Erica Wu, needed to study for her medical board exam.
Hoping to give her a solo night without the kids, Beaudette packed up the girls and their tent for an overnight stay in Malibu Creek State Park.
Malibu Creek State Park is a popular spot for recreation just 30 miles from Los Angeles. For TV buffs, it’s also the place where “M-A-S-H” was once filmed. Beaudette was sleeping beside his daughters when someone approached their tent, fired a shot inside and killed the father with a bullet to the head.
The random shooting at a well-trafficked park sent shock and fear through the community — even more so when it became public that this was not the only targeted shooting in the area. The campground was closed for nearly a year while the investigation took place.
“Over the previous twenty months, multiple victims had reported to authorities that they’d been shot at in Malibu Creek State Park or on the nearby canyon road,” the New Yorker reported in 2021. “There had been six near-misses, two of them in the campground where Beaudette was killed. One person was injured, requiring surgery.”
In October 2018, after months of uncertainty, Anthony Rauda was taken into custody; he was found near the park with a rifle. Rauda previously served time in state prison for possessing explosives and later for possessing a loaded gun, which is illegal for people with felony convictions. He was on probation at the time of his arrest, authorities said.
Rauda was accused of a litany of felonies, including the killing of Beaudette, the attempted killing of his two daughters and eight additional counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary in a rash of shootings and break-ins that began in 2016.
On Friday, Rauda was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Beaudette and attempted murder in the attack on the girls. He was found not guilty in seven of the attempted murder counts. The jury found him guilty of the burglary charges, as well as attempted murder for deliberately shooting at a man driving to a movie set just days before Beaudette’s killing. The driver was not injured.
The jury determined Rauda did not act with premeditation, which is required for a first-degree murder conviction. He faces 40 years to life in prison and will be sentenced next month.
“Tristan was a devoted husband and father whose life revolved around our family, our happiness, and his hopes and dreams for our future,” Wu said in a statement in July 2018. “We met when we were teenagers, grew up together, married, and had two amazing and beautiful daughters. In everything that he did, Tristan was kind, selfless, and giving, and had a natural ability to connect with just about anyone.”
