Deputy Held in Fatal Shooting of Girlfriend

An off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of murder in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend in his mobile home in the Point Dume area of Malibu.

William J. Burke, 30, a six-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department assigned to the West Hollywood station, was taken into custody by deputies after he telephoned a 911 emergency line about 2 a.m. and reported the shooting, authorities said.

Deputy Patrick Hunter said that Brenda Berndt, 25, who had worked with the department as a civilian employee until November, 1989, was shot in the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hunter said Burke and Berndt had maintained an “on-again, off-again relationship.” Berndt had been in the process of moving in with Burke early Saturday when the two quarreled inside the mobile home in the 29000 block of Heathercliff Road, Hunter said.

Burke was being held without bail at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles.