A man accused of fatally shooting his cousin's boyfriend in the stomach inside a hotel room at the Singing Hills Golf Resort near Sycuan Casino pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a murder charge.
Frank Eldon Billeter, 33, is charged in the Feb. 10 slaying of Lakeside resident Dylan Michael Brooks, 28.
Sheriff's deputies and Sycuan police officers responded just after 6 that night and found Brooks on the bathroom floor of a hotel room on the property, Deputy District Attorney Sara Staninger said. Medics took Brooks to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, she said.
The prosecutor said Billeter and Brooks had "some history of disliking each other.''
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Staninger said Billeter was arrested in San Diego about four hours after the killing for allegedly driving a stolen Land Rover. A loaded firearm was found on Billeter that matched a casing found at the murder scene, prosecutors allege.
A Land Rover was also spotted in surveillance footage being driven in and out of the resort around the time of Brooks' slaying, according to Staninger.
Staninger said Billeter has prior convictions that include assault with a deadly weapon in a case in which he stabbed another person. The criminal complaint charging Billeter with Brooks' murder indicates that the stabbing conviction occurred in 2006 in San Diego County.
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Billeter is being held without bail.
