Youth Enters Guilty Plea in Friend’s Death : Courts: The defendant, who shot and killed another boy four years earlier, surprises attorneys by admitting to second-degree murder. He faces up to 15 years to life in prison.

In an unexpected move, an Anaheim Hills teen-ager pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the shooting death of a 17-year-old classmate who was slain four years after the defendant fatally shot another friend in the same room.

“This caught me as a complete surprise,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathi Harper after Richard H. Bourassa Jr., 18, entered his guilty plea for the death last May of Christian Wiedepuhl of Anaheim Hills.

Defense attorney Edward W. Hall said he, too, was shocked by his client’s desire to change his plea just as the case was going to trial. Jury selection was to have begun Monday.

“I’m flabbergasted, quite honestly,” Hall said. “The worst-case scenario had we gone to trial, I felt, would have been a second-degree (murder) conviction.”

Bourassa, who was offered no special sentencing deals, faces a maximum of 15 years to life in prison.

“You do appreciate that it’s time to stop shooting people, is that correct?” asked Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald as he accepted Bourassa’s plea.

“Yes,” said Bourassa, who was weeping.

Bourassa will undergo a psychological examination at the California Youth Authority to determine whether he should be sentenced to the youth facility, state prison or a combination of both. A sentencing hearing was set for June 28.

Prosecutors had accused Bourassa of shooting Wiedepuhl in the head while acting out a form of Russian roulette at Bourassa’s house. In his plea, however, Bourassa did not say how the shooting occurred, stating only that he knowingly pointed a loaded .38-caliber handgun at his friend and pulled the trigger.

On Sept. 12, 1986, Bourassa and 13-year-old Jeffrey A. Bush of Anaheim Hills were playing with a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle at Bourassa’s house. The shotgun Bourassa was holding fired, fatally hitting Bush in the chest and head, police said. That shooting was ruled an accident.

Both shootings occurred shortly after 4 p.m. in the family den at Bourassa’s house.