Roseville man to stand trial for stepfather’s death

ROSEVILLE — A Placer County judge ruled today that there is enough evidence for a  Roseville man to stand trial on a murder charge in a case in which the defendant’s stepfather was found beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat.Superior Court Judge Mark S. Curry held defendant David Harrison Buzzetta to answer following a three-day preliminary hearing into the 2007 death of his stepfather, Paul Gregory Bonomo.

Buzzetta, 22, will be arraigned Friday on one count of murder with a special circumstance that he was lying in wait for the victim and on two counts of residential burglary.

Prosecutor Tracy Lunardi of the Placer County District Attorney’s Office presented evidence during the preliminary hearing in an effort to show that the defendant burglarized his parents’ home before moving to Colorado, where he entered a drug rehabilitation program.

But when Buzzetta returned to Roseville, he went to Bonomo’s home on March 18, 2007 and used the baseball bat to kill the 47-year-old victim, who had separated from the defendant’s mother, Lunardi alleged.

Buzzetta’s mother found the body the following day when she stopped by Bonomo’s house, Lunardi said. Roseville police arrested Buzzetta later that evening.

Today’s ruling marked the second time Buzzetta had been held to answer in Bonomo’s death.

The defendant went through a preliminary hearing in 2007. However, the District Attorney’s Office later refiled the murder charge, this time adding the special circumstance of lying in wait — an allegation that, if found to be true, could send Buzzetta to state prison for life.