EL CAJON (CNS) - A man accused of shooting his cousin's boyfriend in the stomach inside a hotel room at the Singing Hills Golf Resort near Sycuan Casino pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a murder charge.
Frank Eldon Billeter, 33, is charged in the Feb. 10 slaying of 28-year-old Lakeside resident Dylan Michael Brooks. He faces 75 years to life in state prison if convicted of murder, plus several firearm use enhancements.
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.
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The prosecutor said Billeter and Brooks had "some history of disliking each other."
Staninger said Billeter was arrested in San Diego about four hours after the killing for driving a stolen Land Rover. A loaded firearm was found on Billeter, which matched a casing found at the murder scene, the prosecutor alleged.
A Land Rover was also spotted in surveillance footage being driven in and out of the resort around the time of Brooks' slaying, she said.
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 the conviction occurred in 2006 in San Diego County.
Billeter is being held without bail, following a request from the prosecutor and Brooks' older sister, who told a judge the defendant had been out of prison for less than two years at the time of her brother's killing.
"Dylan had the biggest heart and would have given his shirt off his back at any given moment if he felt the need to," Britney Brooks said. "Frank Billeter took him from us in a way we can never recover from."
