HUNTINGTON BEACH : Defense Says Killings a Crime of Passion

A Huntington Beach man, driven crazy by rage and humiliation, fatally shot his estranged wife and her lover after they laughed when he confronted them, a defense attorney told jurors Tuesday.

Gary Ernest Beaudoin, 32, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in the Sept. 10, 1992, shootings of Patricia Beaudoin, 22, and Mark Forshee, 23, both of Huntington Beach.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans told an Orange County Superior Court jury in opening statements that Gary Beaudoin committed the murders after he became obsessed with his wife and vowed: “If I can’t have her, nobody can have her.”

Evans said Gary Beaudoin “thought about it, warned people he was going to do it and he did it,” adding that witnesses will testify that the defendant talked about shooting Forshee out of revenge.

But Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia told jurors that the shootings were done in the “heat of passion” after Gary Beaudoin discovered that his wife and the mother of his 9-month-old daughter was having an affair with a former neighbor.

The shooting took place on Bolsa Chica Street after Patricia Beaudoin and Forshee pulled over to the side of the road when they realized Gary Beaudoin was following them. Earlier, Gary Beaudoin coincidentally had caught sight of Forshee driving a pickup truck laden with Beaudoin’s daughter’s belongings. Forshee was helping Patricia Beaudoin move from the condominium she had shared with her husband, Gumlia said.

Evans told jurors that the couple never knew what hit them; they were both looking straight ahead when the bullets struck them in the head.

But Gumlia told jurors that Beaudoin will testify that the shootings took place after he approached the truck and pleaded to Forshee: “How can you take away a man’s wife and daughter like this?”

Forshee and Patricia Beaudoin then broke into laughter and Beaudoin went berserk and shot them, Gumlia said.

“They never saw it coming because they were laughing and sharing a laugh at his expense,” said Gumlia, who asked jurors to convict his client of less-serious manslaughter charges.

Beaudoin, a vice president at his father’s electrical company, surrendered to authorities several hours after the shooting.

During opening statements Tuesday, Beaudoin wept and kept his head bowed.

Evans, however, told jurors that Gary Beaudoin could not deal with losing control over his much-younger wife, and refused to let her go on with her life without him. When she announced after they separated that she would start dating, he tried to forbid it, Evans said.