{"id":452849,"date":"2026-09-04T02:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T02:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452849\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T02:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T02:46:08","slug":"victim-of-deadly-alleged-hatchet-attack-in-mission-bay-idd-suspect-pleads-not-guilty-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452849\/","title":{"rendered":"Victim of deadly alleged hatchet attack in Mission Bay ID\u2019d, suspect pleads not guilty \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities Thursday publicly identified a man who was fatally wounded this week in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsandiego.com\/news\/local\/person-dead-following-report-of-a-fight-in-clairemont\/4067863\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">alleged hatchet attack<\/a> near Mission Bay.<\/p>\n<p>Patrol officers responding to a report of an assault found David Bugaj, 69, suffering from severe head injuries in the area of Damon and Santa Fe streets in Bay Ho about 5 p.m. Monday, according to the San Diego Police Department. Bugaj died despite lifesaving efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Officers learned the (suspected assailant) was likely inside a travel trailer parked nearby,&#8221; SDPD Lt. Lou Maggi said. &#8220;The officers surrounded the trailer and called out for any occupants to exit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The suspect, 39-year-old Larry Raymond Rodriguez, eventually emerged from the trailer and surrendered peaceably. His young daughter was taken into protective custody at the scene, Maggi said.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators determined that Bugaj&#8217;s fatal injuries were inflicted by a hatchet, according to police.<\/p>\n<p>Police have disclosed no suspected motive for the alleged slaying, and the nature of the relationship between the suspect and victim, if any, remains unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez was booked into San Diego Central Jail. He remains jailed without bail following a Thursday afternoon arraignment, during which he pleaded not guilty to murder, plus an allegation of using a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPolice said the relationship between the men and the motive for the attack were not known, reports NBC 7&#8217;s Dana Williams.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities Thursday publicly identified a man who was fatally wounded this week in an alleged hatchet attack near&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-452849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}