‘Malibu Sniper’ sentenced to life in prison for killing of dad on camping trip
A man dubbed the “Malibu Sniper,” who was convicted last month in the fatal shooting of a father who was camping with his daughters at a Los Angeles area park, was ordered to spend life in prison Wednesday.
Anthony Rauda, 46 — who was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Tristan Beaudette and of the attempted murder of his two young daughters, ages 2 and 4 — was sentenced to 119 years behind bars.
Rauda fatally shot Beaudette, 35, while he was camped out in a tent with his daughters in the middle of the night on June 18, 2018, in Malibu Creek State Park, about 30 miles west of downtown Los Angeles.
He was taken into custody in late 2018.
He appeared in court Wednesday in a restraint chair and wearing a spit hood over his head, NBC Los Angeles reported.
His attorney, Nicholas C. Okorocha, declined to comment on his sentencing but said he appreciated the “deeply moving” victim impact statement delivered by Beaudette’s wife, Erica.
Beaudette, a pharmaceutical researcher, had taken the girls on what was supposed to be a final camping trip in Los Angeles before his family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.
His wife skipped the trip because she was preparing to take an exam.
His daughters were uninjured in the shooting but considered victims of attempted murder.
The jury convicted Rauda on the counts related to the girls but ruled that Rauda had not acted willfully to kill them or with premeditation.
Beaudette’s brother-in-law Scott McCurdy, who was sleeping in a nearby tent, gave emotional testimony, recalling how he awoke to several loud pops and saw a “flash of light” that he thought might have been fireworks.
“I heard the girls crying,” he said, telling jurors that the younger daughter said, “Wet, wet” and he didn’t think anything of it until he noticed his brother-in-law lying in a pool of blood.
“I noticed there was nothing in his eyes,” he said of Beaudette. “I realized he was gone and I left.”
Rauda faced eight additional counts of attempted murder and five counts of burglary connected to a shooting spree that targeted sleeping campers in Malibu Creek State Park in 2016.
He was found not guilty on seven of the attempted murder counts.
Jurors 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.
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.
With Post wires
