Gabriel Fedida, owner of the Westside construction company that is building Fire Station No. 3 in Fox Hills where the project manager working for the city of Culver City recently was shot to death after working hours, pondered a jackpot question.
What do you make of the Jan. 2 killing of Paul Bilodeau?
Israeli by birth, medium by height, military trooper by training, Mr. Fedida looks straight ahead at his interrogator, gaze never straying.
“I…I. Gee, nothing,” he said.
“I mean, I can’t even…
“Why would someone come and shoot someone. That (sic) beyond…
“I don’t know what happened, by the way.
“He got shot how? Where? I mean, I’m not aware of…”
Since his company represented the party of the second part at the murder/construction site on Bristol Parkway, Mr. Fedida was interviewed early by Culver City police after Mr. Bilodeau’s body was found on the floor of his office the morning of Saturday, Jan. 3.
He spoke to the newspaper the first week after the fatal shooting, but not since.
Police Perspective
With a new lead detective on the case, police are sorting through a stack of potential suspects and intriguing motivations and several changing stories or explanations.
“This case is interesting,” said police Lt. Dean Williams, “because it can go in so many directions.”
He said it was like throwing a deck of cards in the air and watching them tumble to the ground.
At this point, police are moving from card to card, through ever shifting scenarios, without eliminating any possibilities yet.
“Not your usual case,” Lt. Williams said.
Nearly three weeks after the homicide, it remains a mystery to police whether the killer — who sneaked into the construction site trailer in mid-evening — came from the 45-year-old Mr. Bilodeau’s personal or professional life.
His family life has been described in ideal terms. The mold of his professional path, as a consultant has been characterized similarly as praiseworthy, although for different reasons.
One of those molds, police suspect, may have contained a still-undetected flaw.
Did the victim know his assailant, with the crime resulting from an argument they may have had?
Or was Mr. Bilodeau, who always locked himself in on those frequent evenings when he worked late, not supposed to know that anyone else was on the dark and remote grounds?
