Feds: Jealousy Prompted Long Beach Man To Plot Aliso Viejo Day Spa Explosion
LONG BEACH (CBSLA) – Jealousy is likely what prompted a Long Beach man to plot an explosion at an Aliso Viejo day spa he co-owned with his ex-girlfriend last May, killing her and seriously wounding two other women, federal authorities announced Monday.
FBI agents Sunday arrested 59-year-old Stephen Beal at his Long Beach home on a federal count of malicious destruction of a building resulting in the death of 48-year-old Ildiko Krajnyak. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
On May 15, 2018, Krajnyak was killed when she opened a brown cardboard package that had been on the floor near the front counter of the Magyar Kozmetika spa located at 11 Mareblu. Two other women who were in the day spa at the time of the explosion suffered significant burns and other injuries.
On Monday afternoon, Beal appeared in federal court in Santa Ana and was ordered to remain jailed without bail. A preliminary hearing in his case has been tentatively set for March 18.
In a news conference Monday, federal officials said Beal planted the bomb because he was jealous that Krajnyak was in another relationship.
"In the months leading up to the explosion, Ms. Krajnyak admitted to being in a relationship with another man, and her relationship with Mr. Beal ended," U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said. "Mr. Beal himself admitted to feeling betrayed. Ms. Krajnyak told friends that she was scared of being harmed by Mr. Beal, and that he had made threats."
Beal was previously arrested on May 16, just one day after the blast. However, that arrest was not directly tied to the blast. At the time, investigators reported finding two improvised explosive devices, three unregistered firearms and more than 100 pounds of explosive material during a search of his Long Beach house.
He was released and the charges were dropped on May 29 when investigators said the material appeared to be part of his rocket-building hobby. Until Sunday, Beal had not been officially named a suspect in the blast.
In the ensuing months, investigators were able to find evidence tying Beal to the explosion, Hanna said. He purchased three cardboard boxes similar to the one containing the package bomb. Chemicals found inside Beal's car were also similar to those detected at the explosion scene.
Beal was one of few people to have access to the business and was seen at the spa days before the blast, authorities disclosed. A battery found at the scene is consistent with one that Beal purchased just a week prior to the blast.
"The partially destroyed battery found at the scene had very specific characteristics that allowed investigators to determine the likely source of the battery," Hanna said. "Further investigation revealed that Mr. Beal had made a cash purchase of a battery consistent with the recovered evidence at a store in his hometown of Long Beach only one week before the explosion."
Authorities say more than 1,000 pieces of evidence were collected from the crime scene, 300 of which were sent to FBI's Laboratory Division in Quantico, Virginia, to be examined. Investigators have also accumulated "terrabytes of digital media and hours of surveillance footage."
Meanwhile, Long Beach police previously said they were reopening a case into the death of another Beal love interest — his late wife who reportedly died while moving furniture back in 2008.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
