Guard Aids in Capture of Suspect

A Laguna Beach-area transient was held by a security guard from Leisure World on Monday until police arrived and arrested him on suspicion of stabbing another transient to death with a bayonet.

An anonymous caller had notified police about 10:19 p.m. Sunday of an injured person in the rear of the Union 76 station at 120 S. Coast Highway, police said. The victim, later identified as Robert Charles Colburn, 32, was found dead in a sleeping bag with a stab wound in the rib cage, according to a coroner’s report.

Police Lt. Jim White said other transients in the area told police that they had overheard Colburn arguing with David Lynn LaVilla, 39.

Description of Truck

On Monday, Bob Rimmer, retired Los Angeles police detective and a security guard at Leisure World in Laguna Hills, was listening to his police scanner when he heard a description of a white Ford pickup carrying a suspect in the Colburn slaying and a passenger eastbound on El Toro Road.

Rimmer and other security guards were searching the area when he spotted a white Ford pickup in the corner of a church parking lot on El Toro Road, 12 miles from where Colburn’s body had been found.

From the radio description, “I pretty well knew that this was the suspect,” Rimmer said, despite the suspect’s explanation that he was having car trouble. Rimmer held the men until a backup unit arrived, he said.

“I had my hand on my gun, but I didn’t pull it. I told them to keep their hands in sight . . . that’s all.”

Rimmer, a Costa Mesa resident in his late 50s, said he had arrested murder suspects during his 21 years as a Los Angeles police officer. “It’s just part of being a police officer, that’s all. It’s no big thing.”

A bayonet was found in LaVilla’s truck, White said, and LaVilla was booked on suspicion of murder. His passenger was not arrested.

LaVilla was held in the city jail in lieu of $250,000 bond. He is scheduled for arraignment today in South Orange County Municipal Court.