In the recent NBC show Dateline: “Death at the Spa,” viewers were drawn into the scary story of a package bomb that went off at a Long Beach day spa in May 2018 and killed someone. Sad to say, the explosion killed the co-owner of the Magyar Kozmetika spa Ildiko Krajnyak, and badly hurt two other customers. As the investigation went on, the police found Stephen Beal, Krajnyak’s ex-boyfriend.
The 64-year-old former executive consultant Stephen Beal is now at the center of a terrible story that goes beyond the spa bombing. He loves building model rockets. Ildiko Krajnyak opened one of the four cardboard boxes that had been sent to her office while she was visiting her family in Hungary on May 15, 2018. This is when the blast happened. When the bomb went off, Krajnyak died right there. Two of her clients, a mother and daughter who were at the front desk, were seriously hurt.
Friends said that Ildiko Krajnyak, the 48-year-old masseuse who owned a spa in Aliso Viejo, California, was a loving mother and a lively person who loved her friends and clients. The blast shook her close-knit group, leaving them to deal with the quick loss of a beloved friend.
Stephen Beal, her ex-boyfriend, was the person who police followed up on after she died. Beal, who used to work with Krajnyak in the spa business and was an actor in community theater, was being watched by federal officials because they thought he built the homemade bomb that killed her.
By early 2018, Beal and Ildiko Krajnyak were said to be less interested in each other. Beal felt hurt and betrayed when Krajnyak told her that she had started a relationship with another guy while they were out in Portugal.
Before the events of 2018, Beal had been through a terrible loss when his wife, Christine Beal, died in a strange accident in 2008. Christine’s death was first called “probably natural” by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. However, federal prosecutors have since expressed worry, calling the events surrounding her death “highly suspicious.”
Christine died in terrible circumstances after falling down a set of stairs at their Long Beach home. Even though Beal’s daughter Charlene Brown said that her parents had a good marriage and that her mother’s death was a “horrible accident,” prosecutors brought up troubling facts, such as the high level of lead in Christine’s body and Beal’s alleged refusal to cooperate with medical staff.
As the mystery grows, officials say that Beal bought lead tetraoxide before Christine’s death, which supports the idea that she may have been poisoned. Investigators from both the local police and the FBI have not found any solid proof of criminal purpose, though. While Christine’s death was being looked into, Beal’s life took another sad turn when he was linked to Krajnyak’s murder. After these events, there are still questions about Beal’s reasons for doing what he did and how it led to both deaths.
Where is Stephen Beal Now?
Beal is facing a life sentence plus an extra 30 years for his part in the club bombing, even though he says he is innocent and has filed an appeal against his conviction. In addition, Beal is facing separate charges of wire theft and other crimes for how he handled the estate of his late wife and false insurance claims. His lawyer, Meghan Blanco, says that his guilty plea in this case shows that he wants to avoid more legal trouble. Brown, his daughter, strongly supports her father’s character, saying that the accusations against him don’t make sense and go against what she knows about him as a person.
