Man Killed in Home Where Dad Was Slain

LANCASTER —  A man serving out a jail sentence at home was discovered shot to death Monday night, a year and three months after his father was gunned down outside the house, said a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

Michael Anthony Stitt, 20, was found sitting on his couch with gunshot wounds to his head and chest, according to his mother, Eve Beaudoin. Sheriff’s deputies said they suspect Stitt was shot just before midnight Sunday after an argument that was heard by neighbors.

A friend of Stitt’s discovered the body at 8 p.m. the next day, deputies said. Eve Beaudoin, who also lives at the house, said she was in Los Angeles for the weekend.

Sheriff’s deputies said there was no sign of forced entry but would not release any other details about the slaying.

Stitt had been in trouble with the law on several occasions. Three months ago he was released from jail and sent home under the county’s electronic-monitoring program. He had been convicted of felony false personation and was due to be released in May, deputies said.

Family members said Stitt had also been arrested in the past for grand theft auto. After his death, deputies confiscated his car because they suspected it contained stolen parts, Beaudoin said.

This marks the second time Beaudoin, 52, has lost a loved one to violence at the tract home on the 2600 block of East Avenue J-10.

Her husband, James Beaudoin, was slain in October 1996 outside the home by a man trying to set fire to Michael Stitt’s car, investigators said at the time of the killing. Eve Beaudoin said she stumbled out of the door to see her husband, then 49, lying face-down with bullet wounds in his head and chest.

Sheriff’s officials said that case is still unsolved, but Eve Beaudoin believes the assailants who killed her husband were after her son.

“It was a case of mistaken identity,” she said, crying, on Monday. “They thought he was my baby.”

James Beaudoin was Stitt’s biological father, Eve Beaudoin said. Her son took the name Stitt, she said, to avoid being arrested on a past warrant.