Robbers Kill Newport Businessman in Baja Home

A Newport Beach businessman was shot to death near Rosarito Beach, Mexico, in the latest in a rash of attacks there on American residents, Mexican authorities said Saturday.

Claude Falkenstein, 58, founder and president of Mass Media Marketing, was shot and killed last week in his seafront cottage. His girlfriend, Trish Engels, 33, was unharmed in the attack, and neighbors spent a harrowing hour trying to find a telephone to call police, authorities said. Mexican state police said they arrested four Rosarito-area men Friday in connection with Falkenstein’s slaying. The men are being held in a Rosarito jail.

The police said that over the past 2 months there have been between 15 and 20 robberies of Americans living or staying in the La Mision retirement community, a collection of Mediterranean-style homes nestled on the beach about 20 miles south of Rosarito Beach in Baja California. The robbers, in one case, held a gun on an 80-year-old woman, authorities said.

Both Mexican police and U.S. diplomats said the crime wave was the largest to hit Baja’s resident American community in recent memory.

Officials at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana expressed concern Saturday that they had not heard about the string of attacks before Falkenstein’s death. Cathy Peterson, chief of American citizen services for the consulate, said the robberies had not been reported in the Mexican press and, apparently, had not even been reported to police officials in Tijuana, who have jurisdiction over Rosarito field operations.

“We were quite distressed to hear about it,” Peterson said, adding that she blamed the notification failure on a communications breakdown.

Peterson added that none of the Americans who had been victimized told the consulate in Tijuana. Instead, she said, they filed reports with the local police.

On Thursday, a group of about 50 American residents of the retirement community, which is about 30 miles south of Tijuana, met with U.S. Vice Consul Howard Betts and local Mexican authorities to discuss ways they could better protect themselves, Peterson said. They were told to keep their doors locked and to take other security precautions, such as installing burglar alarms and getting dogs, Betts said.

Falkenstein’s house--on the coast near the La Fonda Hotel--had a burglar alarm, Mexican officials said. Falkenstein also kept a gun there, officials said. But that did not stop two gunmen from bursting in at 7 p.m. last Sunday and demanding money, said Manuel Carrasco, the agent in charge of the homicide investigation for the Mexican State Judicial Police.

Falkenstein and Engels, who were in the living room, turned over wallets containing $500 in cash, Carrasco said. The men also took Engels’ purse and Falkenstein’s briefcase.

Falkenstein then broke and ran from the gunmen into a bedroom, Carrasco said. They ran after him and shot him once in the chest with a handgun, Carrasco said.

“They shot him for running,” he said.

While the men chased Falkenstein, Engels ran into the kitchen and hid there until the robbers went outside, Carrasco said. Then she used a citizens band radio in the cottage to call American neighbors for help. There are no telephones in the cottages in the area, he said.

Neighbors went to the La Fonda Hotel, less than a mile away, and told the management there about the shooting. But the hotel does not have a telephone either, so the neighbors had to drive several more miles to find one, Carrasco said.

It took an hour to call police, and it took officers from Rosarito another half hour to drive to the scene, Carrasco said.

Engels was detained in Rosarito for questioning for 2 days and then released. Mexican authorities were making arrangements to ship Falkenstein’s body home.

Carrasco said that the robbery fit the pattern of the others that had been occurring in the area and that the investigation was continuing despite the arrests Friday.

Peterson said the U.S. government did not plan to issue a travel advisory over the incident. She said relatively few Americans are victimized by crime in the Baja peninsula, considering that millions visit there each year. About 40,000 to 50,000 Americans live full or part time in Baja, she said.

Falkenstein and Engels had been staying at his cottage almost every weekend for the past 3 months, said Holly Dufau, vice president of Falkenstein’s marketing firm on Campus Drive. She said that Falkenstein, who she said was a member of the Balboa Bay Club, started the marketing firm 10 to 15 years ago and that he was involved in real estate and several other small businesses. Engels is office manager of the marketing business.