4 Arrested in Mexico After Baja Slaying of Newport Businessman

Mexican authorities said Saturday that they have arrested four men in connection with the shooting death last week of a Newport Beach businessman vacationing in Baja California.

Claude Falkenstein, 58, founder and president of Mass Media Marketing Inc., was killed in his seafront cottage halfway between Rosarito Beach and Ensenada, the latest victim in a string of robbery attacks against American tourists there, Mexican state police said.

Falkenstein’s daughter, Trish Engels, 33, was unharmed in the attack and spent a harrowing hour trying to find a telephone to call police, authorities said. The four arrested Friday, all from the Rosarito area, are being held in a jail there.

The police said about 25 robberies of Americans living or staying in the Rosarito Beach area of Baja California have occurred in the last two months.

Self-Protection Discussed

On Thursday, a group of about 50 American residents of Rosarito Beach met with local Mexican authorities to discuss ways they could better protect themselves, said Cathy Peterson, chief of American citizen services for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana. They were told to keep their doors locked and to take whatever security precautions they would take in the United States.

Falkenstein’s house, located on the coast 40 miles south of Rosarito, near the La Fonda Hotel, was equipped with a burglar alarm, Mexican officials said. But that did not stop two gunmen from bursting in at 7 p.m. last Sunday and demanding money, said Manuel Carrasco, agent in charge of homicide investigation for the Mexican State Judicial Police.

Falkenstein and his daughter, who were in the living room, turned over wallets containing $500 in cash, Carrasco said. Then, Falkenstein broke and ran from the gunmen, trying to hide in 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 pursued her father, Engels ran into the kitchen and hid there until the robbers went outside, Carrasco said. Then she used a citizen’s band radio in the cottage to call neighbors for help. There are no telephones in the cottages in this area, Carrasco said.

No Telephone

Neighbors went to the La Fonda Hotel, located less than a mile away, and alerted its management 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 an hour to drive to the scene, he said.

Engels was detained in Rosarito for questioning for two days and then released.

Carrasco said that the robbery fit the pattern of the others 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 few Americans are victimized by crime in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, considering the fact that millions visit there each year. About 40,000 to 50,000 Americans, she said, live full or part-time in Baja California.

Falkenstein and Engels had been staying at his cottage almost every weekend for the last three months, said Holly Dufau, vice president of Falkenstein’s marketing firm on Campus Drive in Newport Beach.