Overview
- Eric Bigone, 58, was found with multiple gunshot wounds outside his Outer Sunset home and was pronounced dead after an early-morning shooting on May 17.
- Police arrested 68-year-old Philippe Chagniot about 10 days later and prosecutors on May 28 charged him with murder plus counts that include lying in wait, assault with an automatic firearm, arson, possession of a silencer and possession of a high-capacity magazine.
- Authorities allege the killing was an ambush in which the suspect arrived masked by bicycle, spray-painted security cameras, set a fire on the victim’s car to draw him outside, and shot him with an automatic weapon fitted with a silencer.
- Chagniot is a retired dentist who served as Bigone’s landlord and whose family owns the property where the tenant lived; investigators executed a search warrant at his home and seized evidence after his arrest.
- Neighbors and friends remember Bigone as a longtime local who turned his life around after an earlier criminal conviction, the investigation remains open, and prosecutors say the lying-in-wait special circumstance could make him eligible for life in prison if proven.