Newport Developer to Be Retried on Charge of Murder

Prosecutors said Wednesday that they will retry a Newport Beach developer accused of murdering his ex-employee, a construction superintendent who was acquitted of killing the developer’s wife.

On Tuesday, after a 41-day trial and four weeks of deliberations, a San Bernardino County Superior Court jury deadlocked 10 to 2 to convict James Hood, 48. The judge in the case then declared a mistrial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Whitney said Wednesday that lawyers for both sides will return to court April 2 to set a date for Hood’s second trial on charges he murdered Bruce Beauchamp, 32. The retrial is not expected to begin before early summer and will have a new judge, since Judge Don A. Turner is retiring.

“It’s always frustrating when you can’t get a resolution on a case,” Whitney said of the mistrial.

Whitney said the cost of a new trial would be “no problem.” The district attorney’s office “thinks it’s an important case, and I agree. We should retry it. We can’t let something like that go without another try.”

Hood’s lawyer, Philip Bourdette of Visalia, could not be reached for comment.

Beauchamp was shot to death in Hood’s shopping center office in Fontana on March 2, 1992.

Hood testified that Beauchamp was angry because Beauchamp’s brother-in-law had been arrested on suspicion of stealing equipment from Hood’s company and that he shot Beauchamp in self-defense after an angry confrontation.

Beauchamp was acquitted of murdering Hood’s wife, Bonnie, in her bedroom in a Northern California lodge the Hoods owned. A handyman, who was in the room at 3 a.m., was wounded in the head in the attack and identified Beauchamp as the assailant.

Prosecutors charged that Hood hired Beauchamp to kill his wife and then murdered the man to keep him quiet. Hood was never tried for his wife’s death.