The background to Paul Bilodeau’s enigmatic murder 2½ years ago on the site of partially-completed Fire Station 3, Fox Hills, never has been publicly examined.
Homicide suspect Myron Grant, nailed a year and a half after the crime and six months after the Bilodeau cell phone crucially was pawned, is scheduled to return to court next week.
Prosecutors will resume trying to prove this sitting-duck of a young man, 26 years old and a gang member, police say, picked Mr. Bilodeau, well screened from public view, out of millions of more available Westsiders to bump off for scant evident gain.
Or did he?
That delicate question will be addressed separately.
In the Beginning
After City Hall decided to replace sardine-style Fire Station 3 in Sunkist Park with a roomier, smarter building befitting a nationally respected department, Public Works Director Charles Herbertson chose RCI of Oxnard, Rollins Consulting, Inc., to oversee and manage a project that soon morphed into a Frankenstein nightmare.
This was the quintessential When Things Go Wrong experience, a tragically punishing version of “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”
Mr. Bilodeau, in his early 40s, handsome, divorced without children, widely regarded, loved dearly by his family and according to some, professionally impeccable, was the star of the company.
RCI, according to Mr. Herbertson, specialized in supervising the construction of fire stations.
FEI Enterprises, a Venice Boulevard company owned by Israeli-born Gabriel Fedida, came in with a supposedly decent image that since has been shredded like a year’s worth of spaghetti.
Whether FEI had any intention of living up to the contract and building the station in a year, is not known, sources say — especially since the job took three years, by which time FEI was long banished.
City Hall paid REI and owner Nick Rollins $300,000 — how much accrued to Mr. Bilodeau, the man on the scene, is not known. Mr. Rollins was exceedingly fond of Mr. Bilodeau. Beyond their professional relationship, they were close friends.
Dedicated Worker
Mr. Bilodeau lived up to his reputation for superb commitment to a single project, to outworking his colleagues.
Mr. Bilodeau seems to have been on the grounds more than anyone else, nighttime and standard working hours. Mr. Herbertson, to whom Mr. Bilodeau reported, regularly if not fastidiously, was guarded in discussing the case. He presently is in arbitration hearings with FEI, which is seeking lost or denied monies.
Mr. Bilodeau was shot dead with two bullets by an assailant on Friday, Jan. 2, 2009, 16 months after construction started.
Twice during that period, Mr. Herbertson said, the original contract was extended — the delays seemingly costing everyone money except Mr. Fedida and FEI, one source said.
Mr. Herbertson increased his opening contract with Mr. Bilodeau’s company by 50 percent, $150,000, for a total of $450,000.
In the autumn of 2008, more than a year along, the Public Works Director, an unflappable and pointedly reserved gentleman, choosing his words as if selecting from among fine wines, became peeved.
“Let’s say I was concerned about the progress of the project,” said Mr. Herbertson. Ever understated, he added that “the project went longer than needed.”
Mr. Fedida, described by peers as “explosive,” had more than one argument with Mr. Bilodeau, although industry sources said such clashes are hardly unusual.
In the last hour and a half of Mr. Bilodeau’s life, he sent six emails to Mr. Fedida — not a love note among them — and an unknown number of telephone calls.
According to testimony last week by Culver City Police Det. Ryan Thompson, Mr. Fedida acknowledged speaking by telephone with Mr. Bilodeau at 7:04 the night of Jan. 2, chillingly close to the moment the fatal gunshots to Mr. Bilodeau were heard.
Within hours of the discovery of Mr. Bilodeau’s fully clothed, prone body in the doorway of the construction trailer that was his office, Mr. Herbertson suspended operations for the next month.
Parenthetically, Mr. Fedida told the newspaper that at the time of the murder, Fire Station 3 was 80 percent complete, even though it would not really be finished for another 20 months, long after Mr. Fedida’s company had been dismissed.
When the projected started up again in late February, Mr. Bilodeau’s boss, the grief-stricken Mr. Rollins, installed a new construction manager.
But his heart probably never was in it. Several weeks after trying to go again, Mr. Rollins, with tears in his eyes, came to Mr. Herbertson. He said he could not continue.
