Police said Hall then climbed out of the attic to search the house. About three minutes after the first shot, police said, Steele stirred and reached for the weapon again despite a warning from Nanson.
Nanson fired his gun, hitting Steele in the face again, police said. Two other officers heard the second shot and quickly climbed into the attic, police said, and both fired their guns when they saw Steele still grabbing for the gun. One shot hit Steele in the face for the third time and the other shot missed.
The officers found Beyea’s service revolver at the dead youth’s side.
Hernandez, who was found hiding in some bushes nearby, is scheduled to be arraigned today on a murder charge.
A funeral with full police honors is scheduled at 11
a.m. Friday for Beyea, the grandson of a traffic officer, at the Praiswater Funeral Home in Van Nuys, with interment to follow at Oakwood Memorial Park.
1,000 ATTEND RITES FOR SLAIN ROOKIE OFFICER
June 11, 1988
The first police funeral attended by March graduates of the Los Angeles Police Academy was for one of their own.
Two dozen members of the class, tears streaking many of their faces, stood at attention in a line of blue uniforms Friday and snapped crisp salutes as taps was played for Officer James Clark Beyea at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth.
Beyea, 24, who graduated with them on March 25, was fatally shot about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday in North Hollywood during a struggle for control of his service revolver with a burglary suspect.
His funeral drew about 1,000 mourners, most from law enforcement agencies throughout Southern California. Also in attendance were Beyea’s family, Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and representatives of the Air National Guard unit to which Beyea belonged.
“It hurts to lose him,” said Officer William Casey, one of Beyea’s academy classmates. “It hurts when anyone in this profession is killed, but when it is someone that you feel is like a member of your family, it is harder.”
Officer Dave Porras said Beyea, the grandson of a Los Angeles traffic officer, was quick to share action stories from his new job.
“He would tell me about the foot pursuits and the narcotics arrests and the fun he was having,” a tearful Porras said to the overflow crowd at Praiswater Funeral Home in Van Nuys.
“Jim once told me that he couldn’t believe he was actually paid to do police work. But you can’t put a price on what happened this week. Jim was out there because he wanted to be out there.”
Beyea was shot when he confronted a 16-year-old youth suspected of burglarizing an electronics store.
Authorities said Beyea’s killer was Robert Jay Steele, a suspected gang member who was later cornered in the attic of a nearby house and shot to death by other officers when he attempted to reach for a gun. An accused accomplice in the burglary, Alberto B. Hernandez, 19, was captured and has been charged with murder and burglary.
The two teen-agers “were both active members” of a street gang that often gathers in East San Fernando Valley parks, including Sun Valley Park, where Steele was also known as a talented member of a youth baseball team, Sgt. Ray Davies said.
Beyea was the first Los Angeles police officer to die in the line of duty in a year and the 175th killed since 1907.
PART TWO. THE KILLERS
KILLER ON THE RUN
WILDER CHARGED WITH SLAYING HOUSEWIFE
SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
April 7, 1984
As federal fugitive Christopher Bernard Wilder continued to elude authorities Friday, he was charged with the first-degree murder of an Oklahoma City housewife and another grim stop-off was added to the trail FBI agents suspect he has taken west from South Florida since March.
The charge filed in Junction City, Kansas, near where the woman’s body was found March 26 is the first murder charge lodged against the Boynton Beach man who authorities suspect has gone from Miami to Las Vegas, Nev., on a kidnapping and murdering spree.
Wilder, 39, has been charged in Florida for the kidnap and rape of a Tallahassee college coed. The electrical contractor, part-time race car driver and self-styled photographer was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list this week and is now suspected in at least eight abductions or murders of young, attractive women.
In Miami, FBI agents Friday released a 1981 video recording of a well-groomed and quiet-spoken Wilder, sitting relaxed before a camera and discussing what he called his goals, his need to meet more women and his description of who the right person for him would be.
Agents said they hope broadcasts of the cassette tape across the nation will help lead to Wilder’s capture.
“It’s a hell of an investigative aid for us,” said bureau spokesman Dennis Erich. “Anyone who has seen this and then sees him will know it’s him.”
The FBI declined to identify where the six-minute tape came from. In what appears to be an interview for a dating service, the cassette depicts Wilder in a yellow sports shirt and jeans, sitting on a couch while being questioned by an unseen interviewer.
“I have what I call a need to meet and socialize on a more wider basis than I’ve been,” Wilder said. “I want to date. I want to socially meet and enjoy the company of a number of women.”
When asked what his objectives for the future were in the three-year-old tape, Wilder said, “Hopefully meeting the right person. Somebody with depth, somebody with some background specifically to themselves. Somebody that I can feel comfortable with.”
Wilder discussed his contracting business, his hobbies of car racing and water skiing and his dislike for “barhopping” as a means of meeting women.
“Barhopping is not and never has been one of my greater joys,” he said. “I’ve reached the point where I can’t go to Big Daddy’s and feel comfortable.
“I’m a little out of that category,” he added with a laugh.
The version of a reserved and good-natured Wilder captured on the videocassette seems a contrast to the man authorities across the country suspect him to be.
Wilder, who investigators believe fled from his Palm Beach County home in mid-March following the disappearances of two Miami models, was charged Friday with the murder of Suzanne Wendy Logan, a 21-yearold Oklahoma City woman who disappeared March 25 from a shopping mall.
The victim’s body was found the next day in a picnic area at Milford Lake in Geary County, Kans.
Wilder “very definitely is our man,” said Geary County Deputy Sheriff William Deppish. The warrant listed bond for the elusive fugitive at $2million.
Officials said Wilder became the prime suspect because Mrs. Logan’s murder was similar to the other disappearances and the murder fits into the path and time frame of the fugitive’s alleged trek west.
“We suspect Wilder because of the way he operates, tying a women’s wrists with duct tape, bruises about the wrists and body and long knife wounds in the back,” said John DiPersio, Geary County undersheriff.
“The time schedule and the geography make him a prime suspect,” said Max Geiman, FBI special agent in Kansas City, Mo.
Positive identification of Mrs. Logan was made Thursday through dental records. A fisherman had discovered her body partially hidden beneath the low branches of a pine tree on the banks of Milford Lake near Junction City. An autopsy showed she had died of one stab wound to the back.
FBI officials in Washington this week said that if Wilder is responsible for the murders and disappearances he is sought for, then it would be a classic case of sexual serial murders. Wilder was placed on the Ten Most Wanted list faster than any other fugitive before.