A 44-year-old ex-convict — already charged with multiple attempted break-ins in Irvine — is expected to be charged Monday with two counts of murder stemming from the killings of a man and woman in a Newport Beach apartment.
Jamon Rayon Buggs of Huntington Beach is scheduled to appear in court at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach Monday morning on the Irvine attempted break-ins. Prosecutors then expect to amend the existing complaint to add the murder counts with a special circumstance of multiple murders.
Prosecutors also plan to charge him with a count of possession of a firearm by a felon, a count of attempted first-degree burglary, and add a sentencing enhancement for the personal discharge of a gun causing death.
The minimum punishment if convicted at trial would be life in prison without the possibility of parole. The charges also make him eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty.
Buggs was convicted of assault on a police officer in San Diego County in 1995, according to Kimberly Edds, a public information officer with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Buggs pleaded guilty to felony vandalism and possession of a firearm by a felon, both felonies, as well as taking property from another and brandishing a firearm, both misdemeanors, in September of 1996, according to court records. He was sentenced to 32 months in state prison, according to court records.
Buggs is accused of killing 48-year-old Wendi Sue Miller of Costa Mesa and 38-year-old Darren Donald Partch of Newport Beach. The two were found in Partch’s residence at Villa Siena, the Orange County coroner’s office reported.
Miller was last seen in Laguna Beach over the weekend. Her family contacted Costa Mesa police when they could not reach her. The bodies were discovered about 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the residence on the 2100 block of East 15th Street near Irvine Avenue, the Newport Beach Police Department reported.
Police would not release further details of why investigators suspect Buggs of the double murder, according to the department’s Heather Rangel.
For the attempted break-ins in Irvine, Buggs is charged with attempted burglary of an inhabited dwelling, discharge of a gun at an inhabited dwelling, possession of a firearm by a felon, and leading police on a chase, all felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of hit-and-run with property damage and a sentencing enhancement allegation of being armed with a gun in the commission of a felony.
The initial attempted break-in occurred about 11:35 p.m. last Saturday, but the burglar ran off when a resident who heard the intrusion on a second-story balcony at 818 Silk Tree made eye contact with the suspect, according to Irvine Police Department Lt. Dave Klug. While fleeing, Buggs allegedly fired a bullet into the residence.
Another attempted break-in happened about 5 a.m. Sunday. Surveillance video shows the man leaving when he failed to open the front door, Klug said.
Both burglary attempts occurred in the vicinity of Harvard Avenue and Barranca Parkway, police said.
About 12:15 a.m. Monday, Irvine police patrolling in the area of the break-ins saw a suspicious vehicle and attempted to pull over the driver, who refused and led officers on a short chase, Klug said. Buggs bailed from the car and ran off following a minor collision with a parked car, Klug said.
The suspect then allegedly broke into an unoccupied residence and was taken into custody about 4 a.m. when he tried to run from the home, the lieutenant said.
Rangel said a man came home to Villa Siena and found his roommate and a woman he didn’t know dead.
Buggs and his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Brewers, got into a legal tussle in which the two traded allegations of domestic violence and sought restraining orders against each other.
In January, Brewers alleged in a restraining order request that Buggs broke into her Huntington Beach residence about 3:30 a.m. On another date, she heard someone jiggling the door to her bedroom and when she asked who it was he refused to answer, she alleged.
“I called 911,” she said in court papers. “Jamon’s car was down the street. My roommates are terrified and now he stated that he will have someone hurt me if I file a restraining order.”
Brewers added, “If you listen to the call I made to dispatch I thought he was going to kill me,” she said. “He told me on Christmas that if I had sex with him one more time we would be done for good.”
Buggs countered that he wasn’t the one continuously pestering Brewers and alleged she had been peppering him with social media and text messages and even emails despite his attempts to block her. He sought a restraining order to prevent her from contacting him and said he didn’t “trust” her around his 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter.
Buggs also accused his ex-girlfriend of pestering him to pay back money he owed her and repeatedly calling Buggs, who is black, a racial epithet.
Miller was the chief executive of the nonprofit organization Wings for Justice, which aims to “protect children in the family court system by creating awareness, providing education, and advocating to bring positive change,” according to the organization’s website.
Miller’s “career includes over 25 years as a national speaker and 12 years with a psychological practice specializing in abuse and domestic violence counseling, and support groups for women and children,” according to Wings for Justice.
Miller was a licensed psychologist in California and Michigan where she counseled children, individuals, couples and families. “During the last several years of Wendi’s practice, she specialized in treating victims of domestic violence and abuse,” according to the nonprofit’s site.
She wrote two books, “Betrayed Vows,” and the “Care Point Training Manual for Facilitators of Support Groups,” according to the organization.
Miller and her children “experienced severe injustice in the family court system and her children are left unprotected along with thousands of others across the country,” according to the website’s biography of Miller.
Miller received a master’s degree in counseling from Hope International University in Fullerton, where she also taught undergraduate classes, according to Wings for Justice. She received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.
Partch played three seasons of minor league hockey with six teams in three leagues from 2003-06.
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