Man Who Shot Panhandler Involved in ’87 Case : Van Nuys: Charles Hoyle was released Tuesday on claims of self-defense. He made the same claim six years ago.

A Van Nuys man who fatally shot a panhandler last week but was released from jail after he claimed self-defense also shot someone six years ago in a case that didn’t come to trial because he made the same claim.

In the earlier case, Charles Hoyle wounded a man who knocked on the door of his house by mistake looking for a friend. Hoyle’s attorney said the man had forced his way into the house.

Detectives confirmed Thursday that Hoyle, 25, was involved in both cases, but said they were unaware of the previous shooting Tuesday when they released him from jail. After learning of it late Thursday from a Times reporter, they interviewed Hoyle again, said Detective John Edwards of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys Division.

“It’s definitely him,” Edwards said. “He acknowledged the earlier shooting.”

But Edwards said he was not sure what influence, if any, the previous shooting would have on the current case.

“That’s extremely good information, but I don’t know if it will be enough to sway it,” Edwards said. “We may simply not have enough to prosecute, it looks like.”

Hoyle was arrested last week in the death of Reggie Brian MacKay, 25, at a Van Nuys gas station. He was released Tuesday to allow detectives more time to investigate conflicting eyewitness statements, some of which corroborated Hoyle’s account that MacKay was armed with a knife or a screwdriver when he confronted him and asked for money.

Hoyle refused, and when MacKay approached him a second time moments later, Hoyle shot him twice.

Hoyle did not respond Thursday to inquiries from The Times, including two visits to his Langdon Avenue home, where three “No Trespassing” signs were posted near the front door.

According to documents filed in Van Nuys Superior Court and interviews with attorneys on both sides of the earlier case, Hoyle shot Michael Leon Beaman on Dec. 16, 1987.

Hoyle was not prosecuted on criminal charges then because he claimed that Beaman forced his way into his house on Langdon Avenue and threatened to kill him and his parents, said Christina Arnall, one of Hoyle’s attorneys in the case. A 1984 state law allows homeowners to defend themselves against an intruder without determining whether the intruder is armed or otherwise intends harm.

Beaman has since moved out of state and could not be reached for comment.

After prosecutors declined to file charges against Hoyle, Beaman filed a civil lawsuit against him in November, 1988, seeking damages of $150,000, Arnall said.

The attorney who represented him, Gordon D. Soladar, said that Beaman, who both lawyers agree was drunk at the time, simply knocked on the front door of the house looking for a friend he mistakenly believed was there. When Beaman refused to leave the front stoop, Hoyle shot him in the left foot, Soladar said.

“If he was breaking down the door, that would have been one thing,” Soladar said. “But to open the door, poke a shotgun out and go ‘Boom’ is something else.”

Last year, Beaman received a settlement of under $20,000 from Hoyle’s insurance company under the family’s homeowners policy, both attorneys said Thursday.

“When I heard Hoyle shot a panhandler, it was like deja vu ,” Soladar said.

But Arnall said Hoyle easily could have acted in self-defense both times.

“I hate to tell you how many horrible coincidences there are in life,” Arnall said. “You get somebody who has been driving accident-free for 30 years and then all of a sudden in three years, they get rear-ended three times.”

The current case against Hoyle is weak because at least two eyewitnesses said MacKay threatened him, Edwards said. Hoyle, who stopped by the gas station on his way home from a local shooting range, told detectives that MacKay was armed with a small knife.

The gas station attendant at the scene said MacKay was not armed and no weapon was found, Edwards said. But two panhandlers who were there with MacKay said MacKay was armed with a screwdriver that may have resembled a knife, Edwards said.

“Somebody could have taken the screwdriver before we got there--it’s worth about $5 on the street,” he said.

The panhandlers said MacKay had shot up cocaine earlier that evening and drank two beers in the three minutes between Hoyle’s arrival at the gas station and the confrontation.

“It’s like two of the wrong people happened to meet that night,” Edwards said. “Both of them had an attitude, and both together they made bad news.”

The shooting is the San Fernando Valley’s second in one month involving transients or panhandlers. Raymond John Komoorian, 47, of Winnetka fatally shot one transient and wounded another Aug. 29 after he caught them ransacking his bedroom. He too said the shooting was in self-defense.

Times special correspondent Thom Mrozek contributed to this story.