California IN BRIEF : FONTANA : Developer Pleads Not Guilty to Murder

An Orange County developer pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering a man who had been acquitted of slaying the developer’s wife at a resort in Tulare County. Jim Hood, 48, of Newport Beach is charged in the March 2 shooting death of Bruce Edward Beauchamp at Hood’s office in Fontana. Beauchamp, who once worked for Hood, was found not guilty a year earlier of the Aug. 19, 1990, shooting death of Bonnie Hood at the Camp Nelson resort she owned in the southern Sierra Nevada. Hood’s trial is scheduled to start June 1 in San Bernardino County Superior Court. Jim Hood did not testify at his preliminary hearing but claimed in an interview that he fired in self-defense because Beauchamp pulled a gun on him. A gun was found in Beauchamp’s hand.