'It Was a Very Mournful Cry for Daddy Over and Over Again'

The man who fatally shot a father as he slept in a tent with his two young daughters at California's Malibu Creek State Park campground was on Wednesday sentenced to 119 years to life behind bars. Anthony Rauda, 46, had been convicted of 35-year-old Tristan Beaudette's 2018 murder on May 26, ABC 7 reports. He was also convicted of three counts of attempted murder, two of those involving Beaudette's daughters, who were not injured in the shooting, as well as five burglary counts. While officials had blamed Rauda for a series of other unsolved shootings in the area, jurors ended up acquitting him on seven other attempted murder counts related to those shootings, NBC News reports.

Beaudette's brother-in-law, who was camping in a nearby tent, testified during the trial about hearing what he initially thought were fireworks but later realized were gunshots. He then heard one of his young nieces crying and saying "wet, wet." He initially waited for Beaudette to comfort her, but when she continued crying and he heard her older sister talking to her and also crying, he went to investigate and found the girls, then ages 2 and 4, kneeling in a pool of their father's blood. Another witness who was also camping nearby testified that she was awakened by gunfire and then heard a man calling for help and a small child crying, so she called 911. "It was a very mournful cry for daddy over and over again," she said. "Daddy, daddy, daddy." (More California stories.)