He Killed Homeowner During a Burglary : Man Gets Death in ’85 Slaying

An Orange County judge wished Rodney Gene Beeler “good luck” after sentencing him to death Friday for fatally shooting a young man in 1985 as he burglarized the man’s house.

Beeler, 38, of Santa Ana is the 19th Orange County man now sentenced to die in California.

His attorney appealed to Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald to set aside a jury’s death verdict, pointing to Beeler’s harsh upbringing. Testimony showed that a stepmother had dressed him in girls’ clothes, sometimes forced him to spend the night in a broom closet, and, at times, had tied him to a sewer pipe in a basement.

Fitzgerald agreed that Beeler’s childhood had been difficult. But the nature of the crime, the judge said, “overwhelmingly” outweighed any circumstances in Beeler’s favor.

Beeler was convicted by a jury a year ago for the Dec. 30, 1985, fatal shooting of 23-year-old Anthony J. Stevenson at his house in Orange. Stevenson tried to flee after catching Beeler in a burglary. But Beeler picked up a gun and shot him twice in the back, one shot penetrating his heart.

Judge Fitzgerald noted that Beeler, “in cold blood, simply executed a witness.”

The gun had belonged to the victim’s brother, and apparently was part of Beeler’s loot.

Beeler was arrested after he told co-workers at an Anaheim chemical plant about the burglary.

It was during the investigation of the murder that Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton discovered that Beeler had raped a 53-year-old woman a few months earlier.

Because about 200 items of women’s underwear had been discovered in Beeler’s possession, Middleton asked Beeler’s co-workers if he had ever bragged about any sex-related crimes. One co-worker said that Beeler had boasted about having sex with an attractive older woman and then taking her diamond ring.

Armed with the information about the ring, authorities found the victim through a police report she had filed. She identified Beeler as her assailant during the penalty phase of his trial. She told jurors he threatened to cut off her finger if she could not get her ring off.

But defense attorney John D. Barnett argued that the rape was an indication of Beeler’s mental problems connected to his past. Beeler, who had also stolen the woman’s underwear, had a longtime “panty fetish” because of wearing girls’ clothes in childhood, Barnett told the court.

“His crimes are related to the abuse he suffered as a child,” Barnett stressed.

Beeler’s lawyers wanted to postpone his sentencing, already postponed five times previously, so that they could continue preparing medical evidence that Beeler has long suffered from brain damage. The lawyers wanted their client to take some positron emission tomography scan tests, a new method designed to analyze brain-activity levels.

They argued Friday that they now have the test result but have not completed arrangements to have them analyzed by a doctor in time for the court hearing. Preliminary results, the lawyers contended, “show that there is something very organically, physically, wrong with Mr. Beeler’s brain.”

Judge Rejects Argument

But the judge said he already had given the defense plenty of time to put together its medical argument after the jury’s death verdict last July. The judge also pointed to medical evidence during the trial indicating that Beeler had been “normal” when the crimes were committed.

The judge added that in light of other medical information he knew about, he doubted whether he would be impressed with any more. The defense contends that possible deterioration in the size of Beeler’s brain might have impaired his ability to recognize the nature of his crimes.

“The court is of the mind that there is no expert that can (further) enlighten the court on this issue,” the judge said.

Prosecutor Middleton said later that he did not disagree that Beeler had a difficult childhood.

“But I agree with the jurors, who said after their verdict that the decisions he made to commit these crimes came when he was an adult, and he has to take responsibility for his actions,” Middleton said.