LOS ANGELES _ A 42-year-old man with a history of arrests connected with weapons offenses is expected to be charged Monday in a series of bizarre shooting incidents that left a father dead and caused widespread panic in Malibu last year, authorities said.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office will file charges against Anthony Rauda, 42, in connection with several shooting incidents in Malibu Creek State Park between 2016 and 2018, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the situation.
The charges will include the July slaying of Tristan Beaudette, a 35-year-old research scientist from Irvine who was shot and killed while camping with his two young daughters. Rauda also will face 10 counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary, according to the official.
The official requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Rauda, who has a history of arrests in connection with weapons possession and burglaries, was arrested on suspicion of burglary in Malibu in October.
Rauda is scheduled to appear in a Van Nuys courtroom Monday, according to online jail records.
Beaudette's slaying left Malibu residents unnerved and frustrated. As investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department struggled to come up with a motive or suspect, news of other shooting incidents stretching back as far as 2016 began to surface, leading to speculation that a sniper was stalking the area. Unfounded reports of shootings and gunfire _ some of which were dismissed as residents simply responding to the sound of a transformer explosion _ began pouring into the Lost Hills sheriff's station last summer.
"They aren't answering our questions. They are clueless, or they sandbag us," Calabasas resident Linda Edwards said at a town hall meeting held by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in response to the shootings last year.
Rauda was arrested in the area in October on suspicion of burglary while carrying a rifle that investigators believed might be linked to the shootings. He had been held on a parole violation since then, and was set to be released this week, the official said.
After news of Beaudette's killing surfaced, several other people came forward to report they had been shot at or injured in the area in recent years.
A young man hiking the Backbone Trail and sleeping overnight in a hammock in Tapia Park, just south of Malibu Creek State Park, was struck by pellets from a shotgun in November 2016.
The victim, James Rogers, said he needed surgery to remove the pellets.
"I heard a loud bang and then felt a burning sensation in my arm and fell to the ground," he said. "Before I could look at my wound, I did a quick check of the perimeter and I saw nothing."
Meliss Tatangelo was camping in her Honda when she heard a loud noise around 5 a.m. in January 2017. She and another camper did not go outside, but she later found what looked like spent ammunition in the back of her car where she had been sleeping.
