Lost Hills

As described by Dana Goodyear ’94, Tristan Beaudette “was a brilliant scientist, a real nature lover, and an exceptional father, who was the glue of his extended family.”

 

Goodyear, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has come to know Beaudette’s story well while reporting on the random shooting that killed him on June 22, 2018. Beaudette was 35, a beloved husband and father. His two young daughters were asleep beside him in California’s Malibu Creek State Park when a bullet pierced their tent and struck him in the head. Goodyear has spent the better part of the past three years following the investigation for The New Yorker and in a podcast about the case, Lost Hills, which recently reached No. 1 on the Apple charts.

 

Lost Hills represents a pair of new experiences for the seasoned journalist: The episodic narrative is Goodyear’s first foray into podcasts and also her first murder investigation. By the time she became intrigued by Beaudette’s story, she had already developed an interest in the dark secrets she suspected Malibu held after exploring the hidden lives of mountain lions for a 2017 piece in The New Yorker. It was that fascination with the underside of Malibu — a city known for pristine beaches that are home to both celebrities and beach bums — that led her to further inquiry.

 

“Once I heard about [Beaudette’s murder], I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Goodyear says in the first episode of Lost Hills. “How does this happen? How does anything like this happen in Malibu, of all places? As I’d come to find out, inexplicable, nightmarish things happen in Malibu all the time.”

 

For the eight-part series, a partnership with producer Ben Adair of Western Sound and Malcolm Gladwell’s company, Pushkin, Goodyear conducted dozens of interviews to get a full picture of the circumstances surrounding the murder. That included conversations with Beaudette’s widow, Erica Wu; accused shooter Anthony Rauda’s father and younger sister; authorities involved in the investigation; and a pair of young hikers, who stumbled upon the reclusive Rauda’s abandoned camp in the woods of Malibu Creek State Park. A bonus episode features Stacey Sebourn, who was camping one site away with her young daughter and the girl’s friend the night Beaudette was murdered. A recurring voice in the podcast is Malibu-based journalist Cece Woods, an outspoken insider who takes a skeptical Goodyear to a psychic to get her read on what happened to Beaudette.

 

Along the way, Goodyear gained an education on the inner workings of both the remote Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station and the larger Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LACSD). Prior to Beaudette’s death, there had been a series of near misses in the park with shots fired at random occupied cars and unsuspecting park visitors. Despite the shooting spree, the public — which included Beaudette — was not warned of potential danger.

 

Through her reporting, including interviews with experts, members of the Malibu community, and former LACSD Sergeant Tui Wright, Goodyear helps to connect the shootings and expose a cover-up. She does so with humanity and a sense of fairness, not only in telling the story of Tristan Beaudette and his family’s loss, but also in examining the mental health history of the accused shooter and the police work that both delayed and led to his capture.

 

Lost Hills is personal to Goodyear, who says it is a “close-to-home kind of story. As it turned out, I had been taking my kids to that park in the time period of the shootings that were unknown to the public,” she says. “Something about that really got my attention, and there was this feeling of the contrast, what people expect of a beautiful state park in Malibu versus the reality. I saw a seam between the image and the reality of a place and thought there was room for me in that seam.”

 

Goodyear is already deep into production for season two of Lost Hills. She will cover the criminal proceedings if Rauda is deemed competent to stand trial on murder charges. Goodyear is also exploring what she calls the “foundational mysteries of Malibu” that lay the groundwork for the unseen layer of the beach city, along with the culture of law enforcement in the region and its relationship to celebrity and privacy.

 

“All the things that didn’t make sense about the [Beaudette case] attracted me as a puzzle solver,” Goodyear says. “As soon as I started talking to Erica Wu, the fact that she couldn’t get answers gave me a feeling of moral permission to pursue the story. I really wanted to make sure that Tristan was something more than a victim and that the dimensions of his life were represented — and the same with the accused. What this story is about in a lot of ways is what happens when there is a break or trauma and how it reverberates through generations.”