Friend’s Fears Borne Out in Killing During Baja Robbery

Just 2 weeks before Newport Beach businessman Claude Falkenstien was killed during an apparent robbery at his Mexican vacation cottage, a close friend had expressed concern for his safety in the isolated, affluent seafront community about 40 miles south of Tijuana.

Falkenstien, 58, president of Mass Media Marketing, assured his friend over lunch that he had purchased “one of the best security systems you can get,” with a screeching alarm, high-power strobe lights and two panic buttons to trigger the system, according to the friend, William J. Taylor.

“In a relatively remote place, security is always an issue,” said Taylor, marketing director of a Santa Monica company. “But he seemed to think it was safe. He was most enthusiastic, and he wanted his friends to visit and to buy into the area.”

That lunch was the last time Taylor saw Falkenstien, who according to Mexican police was shot and killed Nov. 6 by two men who apparently slipped into his La Mision retirement community cottage through a sliding glass door. Trish Engels, who was with Falkenstien at the time, alerted neighbors, who drove to a police substation and notified authorities in Rosarito Beach, about 20 miles away.

Spent Weekends There

Engels was identified as Falkenstien’s 33-year-old girlfriend by homicide investigator Manuel Carrasco of the Mexico State Judicial Police, but Taylor and others contacted by The Times on Monday said she is Falkenstien’s daughter. A woman who identified herself as Engels declined to be interviewed Monday at the Mass Media office at 1200 Quail St., Newport Beach.

After Falkenstien bought the cottage earlier this year, he and Engels, office manager at Mass Media, had spent almost every weekend there for the last 3 months, according to an employee of the firm.

Two gunmen surprised Falkenstien and Engels in the cottage’s living room about 7 p.m. and forced them to turn over Falkenstien’s briefcase, Engels’ purse and wallets containing about $500, according to Mexican police. Falkenstien was shot once in the chest after he broke away and ran into a bedroom.

Taylor said he spoke to Engels on Friday upon her return from Mexico, and she described her ordeal.

Engels was quoted as saying that the alarm installation had been completed the day before the robbery.

“Trish said (Falkenstien) ran to the bedroom to get a gun that was there, to hit the panic button there or just to divert attention from her,” Taylor said. “She ran to the kitchen and hit a panic button there, and the alarm and the lights went off. When the robbers came after her, she said, they pointed a gun at her and, smiling at her, simply backed out the door. They weren’t panicked by the alarm. They didn’t run.”

According to Taylor, Engels summoned neighbors by firing her father’s handgun into the air several times after the attackers had fled.

Falkenstien’s body was returned to the United States on Friday, but on Monday funeral arrangements were still pending.

Mexican police detained three suspects but released them over the weekend after determining that a gun found on one of the three was not the weapon used to shoot Falkenstien, Carrasco said Monday. He declined to identify the gun used in the attack or comment further on the investigation.

15 to 20 Burglaries

Officials at the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana said there have been 15 to 20 burglaries during the last 4 months in the La Mision community, which is home to about 150 American citizens and many well-to-do Mexicans. The area has no telephone service, so residents use radio to communicate among themselves and with the outside, according to Howard Betts, U.S. vice consul in Tijuana. “It is a very accessible location right off the highway, and anybody can blow right in,” he said.

Betts met with area residents after the slaying last week to offer security advice and communication assistance. He described the La Mision area as a target for criminals because of its concentration of wealth in an otherwise impoverished region.

“A lot of these are vacation homes, and vacation homes are burglarized whether they are in Big Bear or Baja,” Betts said. “But it is certainly the largest number of crimes in a given area against a U.S. community that I have ever heard about here.”

Betts said there is no apparent connection between Falkenstien’s killing and the deaths of six other Americans in Tijuana and Baja California during the last year. Three of the killings occurred during holdups, and a fourth occurred when an American sailor was beaten to death in Tijuana, allegedly by his Navy drinking buddy, Betts said.

Involved in Hotel Project

Falkenstien was described by Taylor and another close friend, Bob Skripko, as an outgoing entrepreneur who quit a job selling advertising space in pulp circulars several years ago to launch Mass Media, his own national advertisement placement service. Falkenstien also was involved in construction of a hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Taylor and Skripko said. “Claude had been going to Mexico for as long as I had known him. I know he used to vacation down there in a motor home back in the mid-’70s,” said Skripko, an executive with Targeted Coverage Inc., a Glendora advertising firm. “He talked to my boss here to see if he wanted to get involved in his hotel down there.”

Taylor said Falkenstien “traveled in the fast track” and spent a lot of time in Mexico, although he spoke only “very, very basic Spanish.” Falkenstien, who was known to friends as “Falky,” had been married and divorced at least three times, Taylor said.

“He was a very alive person, absolutely honest and always looking for something else,” according to Taylor. “He was an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. While doing well in one business, he was always looking for the next venture.”