Area Combed for Murder Suspect

Residents of a tightknit Laguna Beach neighborhood were stunned Monday to find their streets patrolled by dozens of law enforcement officers with rifles, pistols and bloodhounds.

The object of the search by U.S. marshals, Orange County sheriff’s deputies and Laguna Beach police was a murder suspect who authorities believed might be staying with a friend there.

The five-hour search for Mark Booher was called off at 4:30 p.m. after officers concluded that he had fled the area, but Sunset Terrace and the neighborhood remained in shock.

Neighbors were even more distressed when they realized that the face on the flyers being circulated by officers was a familiar one--that of a man they had seen chatting on a cell phone and jogging on the beach. In fact, some had befriended him and offered him help finding an apartment and a job when he came to town two months ago.

“When somebody sneezes around here,” one resident said, “everybody says ‘Bless you.’ ”

Booher, 36, is wanted in connection with the fatal stabbing of an Indianapolis antiques dealer Jan. 9 during a robbery, said Brian Salt, supervisory deputy U.S. marshal. Authorities believe Booher hitchhiked across country; an anonymous tip led them to Laguna Beach.

Using a helicopter unit, foot patrols and three search dogs, officers spotted a man they believed was Booher in the 100 block of Sunset Terrace, where two plainclothes deputy marshals tried to arrest him. But a fight ensued, Salt said, and the suspect fled into an apartment and jumped off the second-story balcony to the street, where he disappeared.

Residents said no shots were fired.

Search dogs followed a scent along the beach for about three-fourths of a mile before losing it on Pacific Coast Highway, Salt said, suggesting that the suspect escaped in a car.

Officers searched several beach and inland communities Monday night, Salt said, but did not find Booher, who is believed to be armed with a knife.

As police went door-to-door on Sunset Terrace, Fred and Sharon Briggs frantically sent their housekeeper home and left, locking the door behind them.

“When I kept seeing the helicopter circling overhead, I started thinking, ‘This is unusual,’ ” Sharon Briggs said. Her husband added: “How many times do you have somebody from Indiana who’s wanted for murder in your neighborhood?”

Linda Peterson was on her balcony watering plants when she saw the deputies fighting with the suspect.

“I grabbed my dog and went inside,” she said. “I didn’t want to be out there when bullets started flying.”

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Fugitive Search

U.S. marshals pursued a suspected murderer through a Laguna Beach neighborhood Monday afternoon but lost him when he disappeared down a set of stairs toward the beach.