A reward for information that solves the fatal shooting of a camper in Southern California's Malibu Creek State Park has grown to $30,000, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The County Board of Supervisors added $10,000 on Tuesday, augmenting the $5,000 posted by the city of Malibu, and the pharmaceutical company that employed the victim. Tristan Thomas Beaudette, 35, was shot in the head early in the morning of June 22 while camping with his two young daughters. All were asleep inside the tent.
The park sprawls over a large area of wilderness in the Santa Monica Mountains north of the city of Malibu and alongside Las Virgenes Road, which connects the coast and Calabasas. In the past two years, the area has been struck by a spate of unsolved shootings--authorities count at least seven.
Last week, Sheriff's deputies twice responded to new reports of gunfire along Las Virgenes just south of Malibu Creek, on Monday the 9th and Thursday the 12th, but could not corroborate that shots were fired.
Detectives have disclosed few details about what their investigation has uncovered. But one woman, who was in the campground and was awakened by the gunfire that killed Beaudette, was informed that it appeared the victim was not targeted and that the shots had been fired from outside the campground.
Lauren McClelland described hearing four gunshots. She said another camper identified himself as law enforcement and told her that a deputy had told him it appeared the shots were fired from a nearby hillside.
In two of the previous shooting attacks, a woman who was car camping reported finding a gunshot round in the back of her vehicle, while a backpacker sleeping outside the campground was wounded in the arm.
