Youth Who Shot 2 Friends Is Charged With Murder : Prosecution: The 17-year-old from Anaheim Hills may be tried as an adult in classmate’s death.

A 17-year-old boy who, in the span of four years, fatally shot two schoolmates in the same room of his Anaheim Hills home at about the same time of day, was charged with murder Friday in the most recent death, authorities said.

In an effort to ensure he is “punished,” prosecutors also charged Richard H. Bourassa Jr. with the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter in the event he is not found guilty of murder, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathi Harper, who reviewed the case.

She would not comment on whether she believes the shooting was premeditated, but she said she will seek to try Bourassa as an adult.

Bourassa told investigators that both shootings--the first, of Jeffrey Bush, 13, in 1986 and the latest, which killed Christian Wiedepuhl, 17, on May 24--were accidental. But Harper said authorities doubted the former Canyon High School student’s version of Wiedepuhl’s death.

“We have one survivor, and he’s told us a story we don’t believe,” Harper said. “We felt very strongly that something needed to be done.”

The Wiedepuhl shooting prompted authorities to reopen the investigation into Bush’s death, which police had deemed accidental. Harper said Friday, however, that she did not have enough evidence to charge Bourassa in the 1986 death.

Bourassa, a high school junior now living with relatives in the San Bernardino desert, was not arrested. Harper said arrangements had been made with Bourassa’s attorney to have the youth surrender in Orange County Juvenile Court as early as Monday.

Bourassa and his parents could not be reached for comment Friday. His lawyer, Edward Hall of Santa Ana, said his client has cooperated with authorities and expressed confidence that the case would end “in a fashion that is favorable to the minor.”

Christian’s father, Richard Wiedepuhl, said he was “relieved” that Bourassa was charged in his son’s death.

“I thought that the D.A. would let it slide and (Bourassa) would be free and laughing his head off,” he said. “It’s a long road to some point of justice. I’m just glad the D.A. had enough guts to charge him. I know it’s not an easy case. There are no witnesses.”

On Sept. 13, 1986, Bourassa and Bush were in the second-floor study of the Bourassas’ Wade Circle home playing with a 12-gauge shotgun. Bourassa told police that he was pointing the gun at Bush around 4 p.m. when it accidentally discharged.

Struck by pellets in the head and chest, Bush died the following morning. In a tragic footnote, his organs were transplanted to a woman in Northern California who later died.

Almost four years later, at roughly the same time of day, Bourassa was in the same office of the family home, this time with his stepfather’s .38-caliber revolver. It was kept tucked between two blankets in the headboard of his parents’ bed, Harper said. She would not say whether the gun was loaded when Bourassa removed it. Christian Wiedepuhl, a classmate at Canyon High School in Anaheim, was with him.

On that May 24 afternoon, Bourassa shot Wiedepuhl in the head in what he said was an accident. Wiedepuhl was pronounced dead the following morning.

In both cases, the boys were alone in the home. Although the guns were not locked up in either case, Harper said she will not seek charges against the parents because the weapons were not out in the open.

Concerned that a teen-ager had now killed two friends, investigators were nonetheless handicapped by the lack of any witnesses. So they spent four months painstakingly “reconstructing the shooting” with physical evidence to see if it supported Bourassa’s account.

Those studies included analysis of gun residue on Bourassa’s clothing and ballistics tests, both of which Harper called “critical” to the case.

The investigation, Harper said, was further delayed by four shootings in which juveniles killed other youths--three of them in Anaheim--that were assigned to the same detective. Then there was the difficulty of locating, during summer vacation, students who might have provided information about Wiedepuhl and the youth who killed him.

Harper would reveal few details about the investigation into the shootings.

One problem, she said, was that the shooting four years ago was ruled an accident and police reports were never submitted to the district attorney’s office; hence, there were few records of that case to examine.

She said Bush’s killing “certainly made us look long and hard at the minor in (the Wiedepuhl) case and who he is and what he’s about.” But Harper said she would have filed the same charges had the first shooting never happened.

That Bourassa had already killed one boy “just makes it that much stronger of a case to go up to an adult court,” she added.

Bush’s family could not be reached for comment Friday, but they have said in the past that they believe Jeffrey’s death was accidental.

Some neighbors and classmates said the suspect was a troubled boy who usually wore military-style clothing and talked about joining the Army after high school. But a next-door neighbor said he seemed like an average teen-ager.

Bourassa was charged in documents filed Friday in Orange County Juvenile Court in Orange. Harper said she also charged the teen-ager with involuntary manslaughter so that a jury or a judge will have the option of considering Bourassa’s guilt on a lesser charge.

“Then, you don’t end up with an all-or-nothing situation,” she said.

The difference between murder and involuntary manslaughter, she said, is a matter of intent: Did the suspect intend to kill, or did he or she kill as a result of criminal negligence?

Harper said a special allegation about Bourassa’s use of a firearm in the commission of the Wiedepuhl killing--which would add to Bourassa’s sentence if he is found guilty--has been submitted to the court.

Whether to hold Bourassa in custody will be decided at his first appearance in court, Harper said. A subsequent hearing will be held to determine if he should be tried as an adult.

On Friday, Richard Wiedepuhl said his son’s death was “senseless” but he has accepted it.

“Nothing can bring Christian back, and I don’t want revenge,” he said. “I just hope people will hear about this and maybe they will say ‘Hey, what are we doing with our firearms? Are they locked up? Are we being responsible? Are our children educated about how to handle guns?’ ”

Nonetheless, Wiedepuhl said, he believes that Bourassa deserves to be locked up “if only for the next person that crosses his path. I would hate to hear three or four years down the road Richard Bourassa has killed again. . . . How many times can it be an accident?”