NEWPORT BEACH : Man Held in Death of Ex-Murder Suspect

A Newport Beach real estate developer was arrested in San Bernardino County on Tuesday and charged with murder in the shooting death of a former employee who, a year earlier, was found innocent of murdering the developer’s wife.

James Newman Hood, 48, was being held without bail at the San Bernardino County Central Detention Center and was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in the death of Bruce Edward Beauchamp, 32, of Fontana.

Nearly a year ago, Beauchamp was acquitted in the murder of Bonnie Hood, who had been found dead in the lodge she operated in the Sierra Nevada mountain hamlet of Camp Nelson.

That murder has remained a mystery, and authorities say no new leads have developed.

Authorities said Monday’s shooting in Bloomington, east of Fontana, occurred in Hood’s office in the Mission Plaza Shopping Center, a strip mall owned by a partnership that includes Hood.

According to Sheriff’s Department spokesman Detective Jim Bryant, at about 11:20 a.m. Hood placed a call to the sheriff’s station in Fontana and told an investigator that he had shot someone.

When deputies arrived, Hood was locked inside the office but was persuaded to come out and relinquish a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun that investigators believe was used in the shooting. Deputies found Beauchamp dead inside the office.

Investigators said they questioned Hood for more than 12 hours Monday before concluding that his statement that he shot Beauchamp in self-defense did not jibe with other witness accounts.

Sheriff’s officials had no information about a motive for the shooting or why Beauchamp was in Hood’s office.

Charles Rothbaum, Beauchamp’s defense attorney during the Bonnie Hood trial, said he was shocked and saddened by the shooting.

“I spoke to him about two weeks ago, and he didn’t sound too good. He said he was down and out,” Rothbaum said.

Rothbaum said that after the trial, Beauchamp had lost custody of his young daughter, had lost his home and could not find work. He said Beauchamp told him he was going to Washington state to look for a job.

Maria Fielding, manager of the Guadalajara Grill next door to Hood’s office, said she heard gunfire just after 11 a.m., but at first thought they came from a video game in the restaurant. However, when customers sitting in the booths next to the window said someone was shooting, she ran to lock her back door.

“It was real exciting for people sitting next to the window, but it wasn’t so exciting for me,” Fielding said.

In 1990, Beauchamp was arrested on suspicion of shooting Bonnie Hood, 46, and a caretaker inside her cabin at Camp Nelson Lodge. Both were shot in the head shortly after closing the lodge’s bar on Aug. 19, in what authorities then believed was a robbery attempt.

Hood was pronounced dead at the scene, but the caretaker, Rudy Manuel, survived and provided a description of the suspect.

At the time of his arrest, Beauchamp was a maintenance foreman at the Mission Plaza shopping center. He became a key suspect when the FBI identified a fingerprint lifted at the scene as his and after Manuel identified him as the gunman.

But during the March, 1991, trial, the case against him fell apart. Defense attorneys brought out several discrepancies in Manuel’s account of events. And forensic experts working for the defense team testified that blood of a type not belonging to any of the principals was found at the scene.