Neighbors Shocked by Son’s Arrest in Shooting

A 16-year-old Fullerton boy who called police Saturday afternoon to report that his father had been shot was arrested about five hours later on suspicion of murder, police said Sunday.

Rex Mark Coday, 47, was found in the front yard of his home about 6 p.m. suffering from several gunshot wounds. Paramedics treated him and took him to St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton, where he died.

The son, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was taken to Fullerton City Jail Sunday and was scheduled to be transferred to Juvenile Hall later in the day, police said.

Police released no further details.

According to neighbors of the family, the younger of Coday’s two sons was arrested. The older boy does not live at the Coday home, according to a family friend. Rex Coday was a longtime employee of Aerojet, a family friend said. Marjorie Williams, who lives next door, said Coday’s wife, who works in the antique business, was at an antique show at the time of the shooting.

‘We’re Heartbroken’

Neighbors of the Coday family were shocked by the shooting in their hillside community of ranch-style houses.

“We’re heartbroken,” Williams said. The son who was arrested “is such a nice kid, and they are such a nice family . . . . But tragedies happen, and it’s horrible to think how lives are ruined over a spur-of-the-moment happening.”

Neighbors said Rex Coday jogged every afternoon and that the shooting apparently occurred as he returned home from his daily run. Neighbors said that they had heard that an intruder wearing a ski mask had encountered Rex Coday and shot him, and it was with reluctance that they accepted the news that the 16-year-old had been arrested.

There was never any evidence of trouble between father and son, neighbors said. The 16-year-old “is such a good kid,” said Jon Erickson, who lives next door to the Codays. “I don’t believe it.” The boy delivered the Fullerton News Tribune to the neighborhood until the paper stopped publishing a few months ago, neighbors said.

Erickson came home about an hour after the shooting, he said, and saw that the son was “pretty broken up.”

Neighbor Heard Cries

Louise Cosgriff, who lives around a bend two doors away from the Codays, said she was outside Saturday afternoon picking up her mail when she heard three shots, followed by Rex Coday’s cries for help.

“I heard him yell, ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ ” she said. “It’s a shocking thing. You read about these things in the paper, and you never expect them to happen to you.”

Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood nearly 30 years, said the Codays moved in about eight years ago. Rex Coday was friendly to the neighbors and a “hard worker” who had volunteered to plant grass on a patch of dirt between their houses, Williams said.

Neighbors said they were unnerved by the story that an armed intruder had come into their neighborhood.

Then they were shocked to hear the boy had been arrested.

“They’re such a nice family, with two boys and all. I hope they didn’t have anything to do with it. They have their whole lives ahead of them to live with that,” Cosgriff said.