2004 slaying of camp counselors on California beach may be solved

SANTA ROSA, Calif. — California authorities said Friday the believe they have solved the slayings of two young Bible-camp counselors found shot to death as they slept on a Northern California beach more than a decade ago.

The killings and the mysteries surrounding them long had drawn national attention: Lindsay Cutshall, 22, and her fiance, Jason Allen, 26, were found dead next to each other on an isolated and driftwood-strewn beach near the Sonoma County village of Jenner on Aug. 18, 2004.

The two summer Bible-camp workers were still zipped into their sleeping bags on the beach about 80 miles north of San Francisco, and authorities believe they were shot in the head as they slept.

This spring, authorities arrested a Sonoma County man, Shaun Gallon, 38, in the unrelated March 24 fatal shooting of his brother, Sheriff Steve Freitas said Friday. Freitas said Gallon had come under scrutiny earlier in the beach killings, but authorities gave no details.

Questioned after his recent arrest about the 2004 killings, Gallon relayed “information about the killings that no other person could have known,” the sheriff said. Authorities have since found further corroborating evidence, he said.

Gallon was arrested and charged with murder on March 25 in the shooting death of his younger brother.

He is being held in the Sonoma County Jail without bail, but he has not yet been charged in the beach killings, Freitas said.

Cutshall, a native of Fresno, Ohio, and Allen, from Zeeland, Mich., were on a weekend trip. They worked at a Christian youth camp in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. They were to marry within weeks.