2. The Pink Bubble

the murder and the near myth. I do what curious reporters do. I start making phone calls and coming out to Malibu every chance I get. The cops at Lost Hill Station want nothing to do with me, someone who's not from around here, looking into a series of shooting crimes around Malibu, trying to figure out who's responsible for

Tristan Boudet's death. No thanks. Whenever I do reach someone at Lost Hills, they immediately redirect me to headquarters, where the outrageously misnamed Sheriff's Information Bureau either ignores me, buries me in press releases, or invites me to enter into a collaborative partnership, which gives them creative control over how I tell their stories. No thanks, but I keep coming out to Malibu anyway seeing what I can learn. What's going on with this What properties am I ingesting magic?

That honey on top is rescue? Did you see my Instagram? And I keep ending up at this weird health food restaurant called Sunlife Organics. That bee pollen comes from a region in Spain that is just completely untouched by man. It's it's the purest. It's ridiculously overpriced, like seventeen dollars for a smoothie. It's just so Malibu. If we really could somehow get in some magic machine that would take us on the journey of the bees and what they went through to make that bee pollen, I mean that

is like it's mind blowing and the nutrients. This is Khalil Rafadi, a co founder of Sunlight Organics. We're sitting in the sunshine outside one of his stores. When I asked him about the Boudette murder, he kind of shrugs it off. That happened in the hills, not his Malibu. It was an isolated event far from home. Malibu Creek State Park is mostly an unincorporated Malibu that rugged will Olderness north of the coastal city of Malibu, and the

park's address is technically Calabasas. But even if Rafadi has no opinion about the killing, he really gets Malibu, the mystique, the image that's his bread and butter, or should I say his bee pollen and rescue honey. My experience with Malibu has been a very very magical, very multifaceted experience. When I was first brought to Malibu, I didn't even know Malibu is a real thing. I thought that was some sort of a Barbie Doll name or something like that.

And Malibu's a tourist town. They're only thirteen thousand residents, but more than thirteen million people visit every year. Most of the people who come to Malibu in search of something, the day trippers, they're just not going to find it. The first thing tourist say. I mean, and I've had this question asked to me, no joke, a hundred times.

Where's Malibu? And I'm like, this is it? Like, yes, Lady Gaga lives here, but she doesn't want you to know that, and you're never going to see her house the Malibu that we get to enjoy and get to experience is not available for the public. Have you ever heard the expression that Pink Bubble used to describe Malibu, pink bubble rose tinted glasses. Sure, this isn't reality. This is definitely not reality. I mean this is There's nothing

on this planet that equals this. It is the most magical, healing, powerful, strange at times, pretentious and shallow at times highly highly spiritual. There's an energy here that you cannot put your finger on, and you cannot describe it. And it is something that will make you if you allow it and you accept it, and you honor and you respect it. And there's an energy out here that will fucking bury you if you don't, and you will lose your mind and you will go crazy.

I'm starting to think Malibu actually has a lot to do with these crimes. I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills, Episode two, the Pink Bubble. In the weeks after Boudette was killed, all through that summer of twenty eighteen, I kept hearing that everyone in Malibu was panicking. The situation seemed out of control. There was a murderer at large, and residents kept calling nine one one reporting the sounds of gunfire in the night. Tristan Boudette was dead? Who

would be next? And no One? What's your emergency? How? Yes? I could folk up to a gun shot outside? Are you served one gun shot? No? Four? Or five? I just heard another one while you put me on hold. Okay, I'm going to be back on hold on't hang up. Yeah, there was a third one breath. Neighbors didn't think the authorities were taking their concerns seriously, and the victims of the near misses were starting to speak out. C. C. Woods is a self described Malibu bigmouth who writes an

online tabloid called The Local. She posted on Facebook that there might be a sniper or sicko in the community. She included a screen grab about the Tesla shooting near miss number six, which caused another near miss victim to comment, I am one of those shootings. It was near miss number three. The victim had been sleeping in her car with her boyfriend in the campground at Malibu Creek State Park. They woke up to find a bullet lodged in the trunk.

She wrote. The shooter used a shotgun with a slug shot through my car from a point blank range and then took off. I came very very close to being hit, but luckily I wasn't. When the police came, which took over two hours to show up, they told me quote, things like this don't happen out here. I asked what they were going to do about it, and they told me they couldn't do anything. I asked if I'd been dead,

if they would have shown up sooner. All the story has had something in common the fact that the authorities didn't seem to care. The driver of the Porsche hit on the Canyon Road near Miss number four later reported that after calling nine to one one, he waited thirty minutes for a patrol car to come. When one did, it passed him by without stopping. He finally drove himself to Lost Hill station and demanded deputies take a report. One of them dug metal pellets out of his car

with a knife, but didn't book them into evidence. Did anyone even want to solve these crimes? Residents wanted answers, but the Sheriff's department kept putting out press releases saying things like, quote, homicide detectives are advising At this time, there is no evidence to suggest the past shootings are related to the June twenty second, twenty eighteen homicide. Finally, in August, State Senator Henry Stern called a public safety meeting,

the first since all this started. We're here today because many of you, including myself, have serious concerns that Senator Stern, we need to take our land back and we can't see these mountains to any kind of violence or fear. We don't want to be known in this region for these kinds of incidents. We don't want to be defined by this, and we certainly don't want to live in fear. He asks a detective named Lieutenant James Royal to speak on behalf of Lost Hill Station. Good afternoon, can you

hear me? Okay? He's been the community liaison to Malibu for years. People trust him. Our primary objective today is to share with you as much information as possible without jeopardizing our case. What I'd like to do first is discuss the exact dates of the actual shooting events. Confirmed shooting events that we've been dealing with since November third, twenty sixteen, and culminating on June twenty of twenty eighteen,

with the tragic death of mister Bodatt. He states the department's official position detectives haven't established a connection between any of the near misses and the murder, and the newly reported shots may or may not be related to the near misses, the murder, or to each other. I really want to reassure you that this investigation did not start on June twenty second. However, we still cannot confirm that the series of events are related forensically. It just seems crazy.

A specific area of the park and the Canyon Road are being targeted repeatedly. People keep hearing shots. What law enforcements saying isn't calming anybody down. It doesn't even seem true. And I just want to think everyone who came out from the community, especially to take time out of your day so hopefully get some answers and some clarity. A couple of weeks later, in September of twenty eighteen, I

meet up with Cecy Woods of the local. When we get together, there's still no suspecting custody and Ceci is outraged. She thinks law enforcement is engaged in a big cover up. We arranged to meet at a shopping mall on Pacific Coast Highway, and I spot her right away, Cecie. You can't miss her, bright blonde hair, low cut T shirt, homemade press pass sticking out from a Louis Vuittam purse. Okay, so what exactly are you gonna want to get? Like? Overall?

She points to her hands, which are covered in little spots. By the way, I don't have chicken box, so I just got laser. That's cc. CC is new to reporting and she's definitely unconventional. Some of her best tips come from a tea leafreeder in Burbank named Monica Source. Source, she says, has given her a lot of information about the case. The killer was a hiker or he was hiking, who was wearing a mask, all alone, camping out crazy. His name started with the letter R. Wait until I

tell you about that one, because that I did. You see my rant on Facebook. With little official information and no one in custody yet, Cecie's filling a vacuum. She's got sources in the community. They're telling her what's happening. Even if law enforcement won't problem missus. There's a lot of people who are out there already delivering information to me because they want to make sure somebody that they

can trust, and you know it. Who knows. If these criminals out there know that this stuff is being blasted and they're more likely to get caught, maybe they'll maybe they'll slow it down a little. Just then, she spots a tall man coming out of a Starbucks carrying Ventti coffee. He's wearing a fireman's uniform. Mister Mullen, this is our mayor, the mayor of Malibu. Believe it or not, Dana Goodyear,

It's Rick Mullen. He's the mayor of Malibu. He's also a fire captain and according to a big La Times expose, he made more than four hundred thousand dollars in pay and overtime in twenty seventeen. Running into the mayor coming out of Starbucks, that makes Malibu feel perfectly quaint, Like mister Rogers neighborhood with laser surgery. The Mayor, I sec warily. They clearly know each other. This could be a new Kumbayan moment. I'm trying here, I'm trying. Really, she's now

a resident of the city of Malibu. I live in Point Doum right now. I do I live on Point Doum. I live in it. Yes, we're a resident, unincorporated. Lot of science of this account. That's a good story. I tell him that I'm looking into the cluster of shooting crimes in Malibu. Those are very new, dual events, kind of sleepy but sophisticated beach town in southern California, and all of a sudden there's this other facet of it that's being revealed or has emerged. Well, you're from a

New Yorker, so I'll leave the sophistication judgments up to you. Guys. So it is a quiet, small coastal town that isn't known for dramatic things like that. As she can tell you, it's difficult to figure out what's going on. Are they all independent things, not related to each other, or is it kind of odd that there's so many things that are shooting related in a fairly close proximity to each

other relatively. We just want to make sure that people are locking their doors, are careful when they're on trails, are not caught by surprise, and are informed like this guy who went camping Tristan Boudet had state parks just put up a flyer and said, listen, we've had these

incidents here. Let people make their own informed decisions. This guy had no warning and his girls were laying right next to him, and that to me, the way he died, and the fact that this guy didn't spray all the other tents around him, I mean, was it a lucky shot? Was it not a lucky shot? You know it? It could be a target. I don't know. I don't know. I don't pretend to know. I don't know if any of these other shootings are even the same guy. It could be other people. Who knows. But the fact of

the matter is people need to be careful. And that's all I care about is I'm being careful. I don't want them to live in fear, which is why I'm trying to inform them and keep them safe, Okay, And I expect my city to do the same. I expect law enforcement to do the same. I expect state parks to do the same. I shouldn't be the one doing it, and I have been, unfortunately. So let me address what

she just said. And by the way, I was the first fire department person to respond to Tristan Boudet's murder work and when a tragedy like that happens, everybody wants to know. How come I didn't know about that. I didn't want to be like the mayor from Jaws saying, hey, you know, you yell shark and we got a problem on our hands. It's not the city of Melibou where all these things happen, but nevertheless, it affects a lot of people who live in Malibou, and they should know

about this policy Number thirty eight. Can we talk about Jaws for a second. Jaws takes place in high summer in a fictional beach town that's being terrorized by a great white shark. After a young tourist is killed, the mayor refuses to warn the public. He's worried about the town's reputation. The famous line Mayor Mullins referring to is you yell shark, and we've got a panic on our

hands on the fourth of July. Maybe may Or Mullin doesn't want to be the mayor from Jaws, but he also doesn't seem particularly eager to get to the bottom of anything. I would defer the questions to the people actually doing the investigation. It's a big mystery it's a big mystery, and everybody wants to know the answers, and maybe there aren't answers. After saying goodbye to the Mayor, Cecie and I jump into her black Porsche Suv. I thought we were going for a tour of where the

shooting has happened. But there's someone she wants me to meet, someone who was shot at a few days ago. So we're going up Malibu Canyon, which is also known as Las Virginus, which is where all these shootings are taking place. Malibu Canyon Road is treacherous, looming cliffs on one side, deep drop off on the other in every direction, acres of wilderness. It gives you a sense of what all of southern California must have looked like before Paradise got paved.

Cars often go off the side into the ravine below, a scary thought because Ceci's constantly looking at her phone while she drives, and she never stops ranting about the lost Hills cops. See. The problem is it's been the good old boys forever, okay, Like these guys could get away with whatever they wanted to get away with because

nobody would challenge them. Right now, there's a lot of people talking about their own personal experiences with law enforcement here, and you know what, it a pretty okay, it's not pretty. Cecy says that Lost Hill Station has had serious problems going back a decade or more. In her opinion, it needs a lot more supervision from Sheriff's Department headquarters downtown. We need to tear down to rebuild. Let's just put it that way. So my big mouth is now shining

the light on what's going on here. Now, you know what, does the city of Malibu really like the fact that I'm shining the light on this? Nope? Oh, wait on on. She's fixated on the upcoming election for Sheriff of La County. A challenger, Alex Vienneueva, is running against the incumbent, Jim McDonnell. CC Woods is all in for Vienneueva. If anyone can get Lost Hills in line, it's him. And I pray that Alex Villeneueva becomes the sheriff because he will clean

that department up, period and that includes Lost Hills. And I'm going to make sure that ship gets straightened up

out here. It seems like a stretch. If her candidate does get elected, is he really going to care about a sleepy little beach town full of tourists and celebrities, Not to mention it's so far away from the Sheriff's department headquarters it might take two hours to get out here in La traffic high Hopefully we reach Malibu Creek State Park and the road changes names to Las virginas we turn off away from the park, heading up to

a scenic overlook on the opposite ridge. That's where we're going to meet this guy who says someone shot at him. She hasn't met him in person yet, but a couple days earlier, he sent an email to the local hi Cecy. He wrote, I hike daily way in the back of Carbon Canyon, and yesterday someone fired a single shot at me. With the other things I know, I'm betting it's the killer. Who's the right cop to talk to if they give a shit? I called nine one one Nada. We get

up to the overlook and it's really spectacular. The Pacific spreads out like a blanket on one side, and miles of mountainous wilderness and the entire San Fernando Valley are on the other. There's a middle aged man waiting beside a tricked out jeep with four labradors sticking their heads out the windows. Well, he doesn't his name. He's a local, let's just put it that way. Yeah, I live down on Ramdlet. He's a retired exploration geologist who helped mining

companies find gold. Somebody shot at me, not to hit me, but to tell me to you know, fuck off. But you have to understand it's hard to describe without you seeing the geometry. How did that person get there? There's no tracks on the road I was walking on. It's almost inaccessible unless you're like a mountain guy. So who would be shooting at somebody literally in the middle of nowhere unless it's somehow related to all this other stuff that's going on? Bad daylight forty four in the morning.

One shot was one shot, clearly, if you know, if it had been aimed at me, I would have been hit, or if it was me and I wasn't hit, there would have been follow up, which there was not. But one shot, just like so many of the other shootings. With everything else that's going on, it's definitely alarming to me. It was probably it's a small caliber rifle you can kill humans with him like that, but louder, of course, and it has a certain amount of base to it

that I can't do in my hands. What would you use a twenty two four other than target shooting? Yeah, you shoot a cans. In the old days, we called it happy gunfire because people just shot for the hell of it. Sean Penn was very frequent. What do you mean. I used to hear automatic gunfire from across the canyon. You hear Sean Penn's house. It's a fact. But he's not harming anyone. He's just shooting. And that's plinking only

in a sort of a grandiose way celebrity. If one of his neighbors called him an, he would have been in the poop poop. It's being who he is reporting in Malibu. Every story can lead you down a celebrity rabbit hole. For the record, although Sean Penn at one point had a large and well publicized gun collection, I haven't been able to confirm that he's engaged in celebrity plinking. But I want to get back to the part where

the victim called nine one one, Oh. Yeah. I just stepped around the corner where I thought I was out of sight and dialed nine one one, and shot fired way back in the canyon. Can you guys triangulate my position, because we can find this guy if you sound up Chopper. Literally, the guy could have taken off and been over my head in less than two minutes, but nobody called back. A man had been killed. There'd been six near misses

shots in the night all summer long. A potential suspect was pinned in the canyon, and no one came to check it out. You clearly felt that shot was for you. So there was one Lost Hills deputy who was interested in a single shot fired deep the canyon. Sergeant Towey Wright, the leader of the search and rescue team, the person who would later help find Rauda. He called the victim back.

The sheriffs they're saying one thing, but I could tell from his incredibly avid interest in what had happened to me that there was something about it that he found extremely important. But all this stuff happening, it's people are starting to get hysterically. Is it overreacting? Well, I don't think so, not. Given a set of events. Two weeks after the meeting with CC's source, there are a couple of man hunts in Malibu Creek State Park bloodhounds helicopters

the works. CC's cynical about the display. She thinks it's all a big dog and pony show. But then, after Sergeant Wright follows a trail of bootprints from a burglary behind the Sheriff's station, Anthony Rowda is captured, and somehow it doesn't settle anything. Seems like no one in Malibu believes the copse. They think it's a setup. That Route is taking the fall. The fever gripping Malibu doesn't break, it intensifies, and suddenly everyone in Malibu is running for

their lives. Less than a month after Rout's arrest, the Woolsey Fire ravages Malibu. Ninety seven thousand acres burn. It's one of the most destructive fires in California history. Seventy mile an hour gusts. The devil winds propel the fire through the canyons, scorching the wilderness. In and around the park route is Camp, the area where the shooter lay in wait, shooting at cars, the Camp round where Tristan Bodett was killed, the entire killing zone up in smoke.

We've got our press passes, so we're coming back in during the fire. I link up with Cecy Woods, who's out reporting for the local. We're press. We have her angle. The authorities have abandoned Malibu, left the residence to fend for themselves. Park you can't go that, We're press. Ceci is driving past burning palm trees and melted telephone poles. Her friend ride shotgun. I'm in the back backseat driving.

I tell her to put on her brides telephone. We drive into Point Doom, one of Malibu's most exclusive neighborhoods. Point Doom sees some of the most intense destruction. Julia Roberts slips here, Geeze Crawford. The sky is filled with plumes of gray smoke, and the only other cars out on the roads are emergency vehicles going full tilt, sirens blaring, coming at us through a fog. I don't know how

to do that. Jesus Christ. Trying to get out of here. Yeah, powerline, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa wa Okay, let's get out of here. Try to get out of here. The fire is terrifyingly random. A shift of the wind, the difference between existing and not. Mayor Mullen, the mayor who's also a fire captain, fights the fire NonStop for days. It's harder to begrudge him his four hundred thousand. Now, after the apocalypse, when the

flames are extinguished, I go to see him. From the top of the canyon where he'd been on twenty four seven duty, I look out over a moonscape. The world is a charcoal drawing in the ocean below. A plume of ash stains the water. Mullin describes the fire as nuclear in scale. Everything vaporized, he says. On my way home, I drive past the charred remains of a ranch, identifiable by a bunch of rusted horseshoes and an old windmill.

I recognize this place. This is the place a couple of years ago I listened to the owner call for vigilante justice against a murderous mountain lion known as P forty five. The old ranch is burned to the studs as land is your a Sland is my Oswald Rowda goes by Ozzie. He's the father of Anthony Rowda, the man arrested behind Lost Hill Station, califn New YORKA. He sings me a little bit of that song while we're sitting on benches outside the courtroom waiting for Anthony to

show up for his hearing. Fool to go shame, But that's not Ozzie singing. Ozzie gets uncomfortable whenever I ask about recording him. It's now a week after the Wolsey fire ignited, and Malibu is still smoldering. But the cameramen for the local news affiliates are here at the Criminal Courts building in downtown LA. They're always here for Anthony Rowda. He put on a good show that first day in court. They're hoping for an outburst to show on the six

o'clock news. Ozzie is sixty four and planning to retire soon. He can't get in to see his son, and he thinks the deputies who run the jails might be abusing him. His son has never been too good with authority, he says. Still, Ozzie is feeling relief, thanking God that Anthony wasn't out there. His camp was right in the path of the fire. That's not all, though, Ozzie's feeling relief because, as he tells me, other fires I used to worry he set them.

He says that Anthony's got a history, a history of combustion, shooting things off, setting things on fire, and he's done stints in county jail and state prison. Eventually, Ozzie says, Anthony went to Big five Sporting Goods and bought camping supplies. He told as he wanted to live in the wild, away from everyone. Sometimes Ozzie would go up to Malibu to try to find Anthony to check on him. I was always worried I would find him dead, he tells me.

But the camp was neat, no trash. Anthony cleared the brush with the machete, he says. One thing Ozzie noticed over the years in Malibu, he says, the rich people don't lie homeless. I've been sitting there talking to Ozzie for a while when I overhear someone talking about Anthony. He says, right in front of Ozzie that fucker should have burned. A few weeks later, I'm back at court. The prosecutor is presenting evidence about the weapon and ammunition

deputies say they found when they arrested Rauda. It's the prosecutor questioning one of the deputies who arrested Rowda. He's showing him a photograph that is the same rifle that came out of the back back and what kind of rifleness. Then it's a nine millimeter carbing rifle. A car being is a cheap, lightweight rifle. Not very common. People call detective Mark and Donald. Understand Donald is one of the

major crimes detectives. I noticed in court a few weeks back, directing your attention to October ten, twenty and eighteen, at sometime around three in the afternoon. Where were you helps that the email of the Creech State Park in kel Passes. And do you see someone in court today that you saw at that location? Yes, I do identify and wear that person is seated and what he's wearing the gentleman

mow behind the glass to mine left. That would be Anthony Rowda, who today is in a restraint chair with his mouth covered in mass so he can't spit at anyone. His hands are tethered, but he still managed to flip off the news cruise with his left hand as he was wheeled in. Now he's studying his right hand slowly clenching it and releasing it, clenching and releasing, as if observing a fascinating butterfly beating its wings in the sun.

The prosecutor shows Detective Donald a photograph. Was this a backpack that you saw at that vocation and what if anything, did you recover from that backpack? There are multiple items and two magazines floated with nine millimeter rounds. Along the day, plastic bag continued nine moving around call which were a life So at the time of his arrest, Rata had a nine millimeter carbing rifle and the ammunition to go

with it. This gets my attention. So far, there's been no official information about what kind of ammunition killed Tristan Bodett, but the rumor going around Malibu is that it was a nine millimeter round. Routa's public defender starts to argue that the whole thing is a setup, a scheme by the Sheriff's department to pin the murder on a homeless guy, blame him in order to mollify the agitated folks in Malibu.

I think mister Routa is being skapegoated for something, and as a result of that, they've brought all of this different evidence in to try and prove something else. The reason I was asking, first of all, whether the gun had been tested or anything like that, was for the reason that I think everybody expects inappropriate. It's interesting about that rifle. Ozzie tells me he didn't know Anthony had one. Can't imagine how he got it. He doesn't even hunt,

as he says, he eats from the McDonald's dumpster. Today, Anthony Route is sentenced to one hundred and eighty days in County jail for the rifle and ammy mission. As an ex felon, he's not supposed to have them, but he's already been in for a while, so the clock is ticking. The prosecutor has told me that the last thing the major Crimes and homicide detectives want is for

Rowda to walk out of jail a freeman. I have never been a conspiracy theorist before I started doing this for a living, and I only started a few months ago. Cc Woods is not feeling Anthony Routa as the cannon shooter, the armed burglar, or the killer of Tristan Boudette. She calls me to meet her at her home away from home, a private club on Pacific Coast Highway. But I'm going to tell you what, when things line up too perfectly, you can't plan a wedding with these kind of conditions

and have it just come out flawless. For one thing, she tells me before the arrest, the Sheriff's Department had said they were looking for a male of slender build in connection with the burglaries. Doesn't sound like routed to her. Did that guy look like slender? He had a pooch like this, he looks like he eats Mexican food with the officers over at lapause, this guy did not fit the description. And look at this haircut, like that's a

fashionable haircut. That is not a supercut's cut. Okay, I hate to say this, but you know, and my intuition is almost never wrong, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, I mean, this guy looked like a cop to me. Sorry. In her view, he's not just the wrong guy, a fall guy. He's an undercover cop, was suspiciously good hair. Of course they knew who he was because he's a plant. She's calling bs on the whole routa thing and doesn't care what the Sheriff's Department

or any of the cops at Lost Hills think. I am not your little, quiet, little mousey girl. I'm a big mouth, big boobed blonde and that does not work for them. Okay, and I'm smart, which is even worse. You know, I can't go along with Cecy's idea that Rouda is actually an undercover cop. But there is what seems like an actual snag in the theory that Routa did all these crimes. Rouda was arrested with a nine millimeter carbing rifle, but near missus one through five didn't

use nine millimeter ammunition. They all involved shotgun ammo, a metal slug in the case of near miss number three, and the rest, as far as I can piece together, bird shot small metal pellets kind of like babies that are designed to scatter. CEC posted a picture of the white BMW near Miss Num five riddled with holes, but there was no shotgun found at Roudah's camp, which means there's either another weapon or another shooter. But as I drive away from CC's club, I'm thinking about Malibu, this

private paradise that people guard so fiercely. In some ways, the shooting's so shocking, don't feel all that out of place. This is a place where celebrities have guns and locals defend their turf, and the cops might drive by you when you call nine one one, and the rangers tell

victims things like this don't happen here. In just the first few months of my reporting, there's been a murder, an uproar, accusations of a cover up, man hunts for an armed burglar, a suspicious arrest, and a catastrophic fire. Malibu doesn't look like a postcard anymore. That pretty surface has been seared off, and there's chaos raging underneath.