Shooting Victim Had Been Ready for New Life

After two decades of being an absentee father, Ronald Look was eager to be permanently reunited with his son Darren, who recently visited him in Seattle.

But first the 21-year-old Darren had to return to his mother’s Anaheim home to gather up his belongings and clear up some outstanding traffic tickets, Ronald Look recalled Sunday.

Before Darren could do all that, tragedy struck. Darren Look was shot and killed Saturday at his mother’s home by her ex-boyfriend, according to police.

“He wanted to get out of this particular area,” Ronald Look said of his son. “It just wasn’t a good scene.”

Look, who had been divorced from Darren’s mother, Barbara Badgett, for 21 years, was among several relatives and friends who gathered at the Badgett home Sunday to console the family in the wake of the fatal shooting.

Darren Look had been in a bedroom at his mother’s home at 1337 Aetna St. at about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday when her ex-boyfriend, George Burnside, 31, came to the house, angry and threatening to kill the seven people inside, according to witnesses.

Barbara Badgett had tried to break off her relationship with Burnside, but “he wouldn’t take no for an answer,” family friend Don Carter said Sunday.

Burnside “busted in” the house and followed Barbara to her bedroom, Ronald Look said. Darren Look “ran in the room, turned and bam!”--was shot, the youth’s father said.

Barbara Badgett and others inside the house fled Saturday, but Burnside remained inside holding the woman’s 67 year-old mother, Jean Badgett, hostage for more than five hours before he finally surrendered to police, authorities said.

Ronald Look, an electronics installation manager, arrived in Orange County at noon Sunday from Seattle, where he has lived for years since his divorce from Barbara. The couple’s oldest son, Craig, had joined his father in the Seattle area several months ago.

Brother Got News

It was Craig who received a telephone call Saturday evening telling him that his brother had been killed, Ronald Look said.

“He thought that maybe a couple of his friends were pulling a joke on him,” Ronald Look said. “He called me.

“You are never prepared for something like this,” Ronald Look said. “Everybody’s in deep shock.”

Carter said Saturday was not the first time Burnside had wielded a weapon in arguments with Barbara Badgett.

“He stuck a BB gun in his mouth and said he was going to blow his brains out,” Carter recalled.

Carter said Barbara Badgett knew little of Burnside’s background after meeting him through mutual friends about eight months ago.

Meanwhile, a mile to the south, residents in the 2200 block of Colchester Drive in Anaheim were shocked to learn Sunday that their neighbor had been arrested for the killing.

Quiet Neighbor

Several neighbors, who asked that their names be withheld, described Burnside as a quiet man who kept to himself, sold perfume at swap meets and lived in a modest one-room apartment with his mother. Burnside did odd jobs but appeared to have no permanent employment, neighbors said.

No one answered the door at the Burnsides’ apartment Sunday, but neighbors said police had visited Burnside’s mother at the residence Saturday.

“He was the quiet type,” one neighbor said. “You never can tell when they are going to snap.”

On Saturday some neighbors said they were not shocked at the shooting because police had been called to the Badgett home several times to quell fights between Badgett and Burnside. Although some neighbors said they also had called police because they believed that drugs were used at the home, a Police Department spokesman said Sunday that he was unaware of any police activity at the residence other than for the domestic disturbances.

Mike Belknap, 21, a next-door-neighbor who attended Savanna High School with Darren Look, said he has never seen drugs used at the Badgett home. Some neighbors, Belknap said, may have stereotyped the family because of large crowds of young people who often gather at the residence.