Malibu resident Theodore A. Beason was killed Tuesday of last week when he was hit by a vehicle in the Malibu Bowl neighborhood of Corral Canyon. Early news reports of Beason’s death that were circulated on the Internet had made it appear as if he had intentionally stepped into the path of the oncoming vehicle. However, friends and family say this is erroneous.
During a phone interview Friday with The Malibu Times, Leiland Tang, public information officer for the California Highway Patrol, reading from the accident report, said that Beason, 44, was walking southbound on the west side of Corral Canyon Road around 5:20 p.m. when, for unknown reasons, he stepped in the direct path of a 2007 Honda Odyssey, which struck him from behind.
However, Tang said it could take two months to complete this report, which is pending results from a full investigation that is currently underway. Though the investigation will examine factors such as the speed of the vehicle, physical injuries of the deceased and evidence of the scene to help determine the cause of the collision, Tang said it is not being investigated as a suicide.
The vehicle’s driver, Kathleen Leigh Willis, 69, of Los Angeles, was not injured and not charged, Tang said. Willis is the executive director of Malibu Beach Recovery Center, a residential primary drug and alcohol treatment program located up the road from the Malibu Bowl enclave. Tang said the driver showed no obvious signs of impairment, and therefore was not drug tested at the scene of the collision. Calls made Friday to Willis have not been returned.
Tang said completion of the police report will also rely heavily on information from the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner, whose Public Information Officer Craig Harvey on Friday confirmed Beason’s cause of death as blunt force and head trauma, and the final manner of his death as an accident.
Harvey, reading from a police report, said Beason was walking his dog in the neighborhood, the dog may have run out into the traffic lane, and Beason may have run out into the lane to recover the dog, unaware of the approaching vehicle.
Though only the deceased and the driver witnessed the collision, some of Beason’s family, friends and neighbors say some parts of the police report are incorrect. Beason’s neighbor, Corral Canyon resident Brooke Halpin, on Monday told The Malibu Times he was present at the site of the accident just after it happened. Halpin said the driver at the scene told him she was trying to avoid Beason’s dog, a two-year-old Australian cattle dog named Ace, and in the process struck Beason. Southern California Public Radio last week also reported a call from Beason’s sister, who insisted that her brother did not walk in front of the vehicle.
Since moving to the Malibu Bowl neighborhood seven years ago, Beason’s house burned down twice: in 2002 from a kitchen fire, and in 2007 from the Corral Canyon fire, according to Halpin and Holden MacRae, another one of Beason’s neighbors.
“I thought he would have been devastated to have had it burn down a second time, but he walked into our house and said, ‘It’s not so bad, I get to start over,’” MacRae said of Beason. “It’s amazing to have that attitude. He saw it as an opportunity to start anew, start afresh. The thing I remember the most about him was his generosity and gentleness. He was a peaceful guy. I’m going to miss to miss him a lot.”
“This was his third house, and he just moved back into it a week before the accident,” Halpin said. “Ted was full of life, he had a big heart, big smile, big laugh, was extremely generous and he loved life.”