Family slaying a mystery

The intruder climbed a stairway tucked amid the rocks, walked through an open patio door into the beach house and, with repeated knife slashes, thrust a family into a nightmare.

Authorities said Thursday they had no suspect or motive in the slayings at the upscale Faria Beach Colony, a gated community about six miles up the coast from Ventura. The killer stabbed to death a pregnant woman and her husband about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday as their horrified 9-year-old son looked on.

Officials with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said the assailant may have been a stranger, drawn by lights and an open door. He was wearing a motorcycle helmet, but whether he had been riding a motorcycle is unknown.

Brock Husted and his wife Davina, both 42, died at the scene. She was about five or six months pregnant, said Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Carpenter.

According to Carpenter, Davina Husted was in the kitchen when the man entered the living room; he attacked her and then her husband, who came rushing in to help her.

Their son, who was watching TV when the man appeared, fled with his 11-year-old sister to the home of a neighbor, who called police. The children have been taken in by relatives.

Carpenter said police bloodhounds, as well as observers in helicopters and on the ground, scoured the area.

On Thursday, detectives gathered evidence as waves pounded the rocks below the family’s home. The murder weapon was still inside. Whether any items had been stolen was unknown.

A gated strip of multimillion-dollar homes beside Pacific Coast Highway, Faria Beach sits across from a set of railroad tracks and down the road from several campgrounds. Transients are often seen in the area, but violent crimes are rare.

Husted and his wife grew up in Ventura County. He owned a wrought-iron business in Santa Barbara, family friends said. She was active in the National Charity League, a women’s philanthropic group.

The couple had recently put their extensively remodeled three-bedroom home up for sale to prepare for the new baby. It was listed at $3.25 million.

Brock Husted “had no disputes at work, no disputes in his life, no financial problems and no history of problems,” his brother Scott Husted said in an interview outside the beach house. “It’s a horrible situation. There’s a killer out there who came in and did this to a man and a woman with their children there.”

Next door, Bill Stratton, 78, mused over the deceptive feel of security provided by an electronic gate.

“You’re really quite vulnerable from the beach,” said Stratton, a writer who used to sell scripts to crime shows such as “Vegas” and “Hawaii Five-0.”

He said he did not hear anything unusual -- no screams, no loud noises -- from his neighbor’s house just a few yards away.

A few houses up the street, Malinda Chouinard, the wife of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, said that sometime after 10 p.m., she and her husband heard furniture being shoved around and doors in their home opening and closing. She assumed it was their houseguest -- but later, when helicopters were churning overhead and a reverse 911 call ordered residents to stay inside and lock their doors, they grew worried.

“Clearly, someone was in my house,” she said. Hours later, they learned that their guest had been stopped at a police blockade and did not make it to their home until 4 a.m.

Police searched the house twice but found nothing.

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steve.chawkins@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.