A Southern California man was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences, plus 30 years, for blowing up his ex-girlfriend´s spa business with a package bomb in 2018, killing her and seriously injuring two others.
Stephen Beal, 64, was sentenced Friday to two concurrent life sentences, plus 30 years, in federal prison.
Friday’s hearing concluded the case against Beal, that was fraught with missteps for investigators and prosecutors since the May 15, 2018 bombing in an Aliso Viejo spa, about 50 miles south of Los Angeles.
‘Mr. Beal will never be able to get out to harm innocent victims again,’ said E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, at a news conference after the sentencing.
Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Beal maintained his innocence during Friday’s hearing.
The FBI searches the home of Stephen Beal in Long Beach on March 3, 2019, after taking him into custody in connection with a 2018 bombing at an Aliso Viejo beauty salon that killed his former girlfriend
Eva Boni, left, thanks investigators on Jan. 19 in Los Angeles, for their work to bring her cousin’s killer, Stephen Beal, to justice
A building after a fatal explosion in Aliso Viejo, Calif. Stephen Beal, who was arrested in connection with the 2018 bombing at his ex-girlfriend’s spa that killed her and seriously injured two others
‘I could not think of anything more insulting,’ Barnes said during a news conference after the sentencing.
Ildiko Krajnyak, 48, was killed in the fiery blast when she opened a box with a homemade bomb inside that Beal had slipped into the spa while she was in Hungary visiting family.
Two clients she had just treated – a mother and daughter – were knocked off their feet. The blast destroyed the business and tore a large hunk from the building. Body parts were found in the parking lot.
‘After five years of waiting and wondering, our family and friends have peace knowing that Mr. Beal will spend his remaining days in prison,’ Eva Boni, Krajnyak´s cousin, said at the news conference.
Beal, a partner in the business, was jealous Krajnyak had been dating someone else after their 18-month relationship ended, prosecutors said.
‘She was a shining light,’ Nicole Barrett, her best friend, said at the news conference. ‘She was an amazing human being.’
E. Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, discusses the sentencing of Stephen Beal, Jan. 19, in Los Angeles
Beal was arrested shortly after the explosion on a single charge of possessing an unregistered destructive device but was never officially named as a suspect in the blast in the days that followed.
The charge was dropped after prosecutors questioned whether material found at his Long Beach home constituted a ‘destructive device.’ Beal claimed that explosive material found at his house was for his model rockets.
He was free for nearly 10 months before being re-arrested following a painstaking analysis of the evidence.
Beal’s first trial in 2022 ultimately ended in a mistrial after the federal jury deadlocked. He was retried in 2023 and the second jury convicted him of four felonies including the use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death.
Beal also was found guilty of malicious destruction of a building resulting in death, use of a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence, and possession of an unregistered destructive device.
‘Our justice system can sometimes take time,’ Estrada said on Friday. ‘The end result is what matters.’
Beal´s federal public defender, Craig Harbaugh, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal investigators said they had discovered two improvised explosive devices, three firearms and more than 100 pounds of explosive material during a search that Beal allowed of his house at the time of his arrest.
Prosecutors sought to drop the charge after the FBI said it had questions about whether material found in the house met the legal definition of a ‘destructive device’.
Tape surrounds the home occupied by Stephen Beal in Long Beach, on May 16, 2018. Beal was sentenced Friday to two concurrent life sentences, plus 30 years, in federal prison
Beal, a model rocket hobbyist, told investigators he had not made any bombs and did not have material for an explosion as powerful as the one he saw in news coverage.
The father-of-four told authorities in 2018 that the explosives found at his home were part of his rocket-building hobby.
Krajnyak, 48, was killed and two female clients were seriously injured when she opened a box that erupted in a fiery explosion at the spa in the city of Aliso Viejo, about 50 miles south of Los Angeles, investigators said.
Beal and Krajnyak had recently split up over issues of exclusivity and finances, he told investigators, according to an affidavit filed in court by an FBI agent. But they remained business partners.
Krajnyak, a mother and licensed cosmetologist, had just returned to California after visiting family in her native Hungary when she died in the blast.
Shocking surveillance images released at the time revealed the scale of the devastation caused by the massive explosion.
The image shows an investigator surveying the scene, where much of the ceiling appears to have been collapsed, wires were blown out of place, and a hole was created in the wall.
Krajnyak’s 20-year-old son returned home from Washington State University after hearing the horrific news about his mother.
Stuart Davis, who lives a few doors down from Stephen Beal’s home in Long Beach, said he often saw Beal and his adult son working on large rockets on their front lawn. The son told Davis that they built movie props, he said.
Beal’s wife mysteriously died after she fell down the stairs inside two-story home in a tidy middle class neighborhood.
Neighnor Don Westerhoff, 90, told The Orange County Register that Beal and his late wife Christine were moving a heavy piece of furniture down the stairs and Beal lost his grip.
She died in 2008, aged 48, according to coroner’s records, with the cause of death listed as ‘undetermined’.
Other causes where listed as ‘pancreatitis, electrolyte imbalance and other undetermined factors’.
‘Chronic lead intoxication’ was also mentioned in the report, and an autopsy described the death as mysterious but said there was no evidence of foul play.
The Orange County Register reported that Beal won a $500,000 settlement from American International Life Assurance Company of New York in 2010.
He said Christine died from traumatic pancreatitis after she fell while carrying a 49lb end-table.
An FBI agent wrote a note that was included in the 2018 court filing which said the materials found in Beal’s home were ‘not consistent with that of a model rocket’.
Nathan Beal told The Associated Press that his father built sport rockets fueled by a propellant that is legally available at specialty hobby shops. He believes federal agents may have found ‘motor cases made out of aluminum’.
He said it was ‘highly unlikely’ his father was guilty of any charge related to a destructive device.
The biggest of the rockets used about five pounds of fuel in multiple motors.
The younger Beal also confirmed that Stephen had been in a relationship with the woman killed in the blast but they recently broke up.
Beal’s Facebook page has many photos of him traveling with Krajnyak, a married mother-of-one of Coto de Caza, Orange County.
Krajnyak was a licensed cosmetologist who ran day spa Magyar Kozmetika out of the first floor of the building.
Authorities say the explosion occurred on the same floor, after a package was delivered.
One of the other women injured in the blast told federal investigators that the device was inside one of a number of cardboard boxes on the floor, according to court doucments.
When Krajnyak opened the box, it exploded. The victim said she remembers being thrown backwards onto the floor and seeing smoke and flames.
A witness told investigators that she saw ‘everything on fire’ after the blast.
Investigators said they found a nine-volt battery, a cell phone, melted material believed to be duct tape and loose wires, according to the court filing.
The blast blew siding off the walls, exposing insulation and framing and shattering windows at the two-story building.