14 DAY TRIAL // John Upton, the filmmaker who traveled to Romania shortly after the 1989 revolution and, through his work, saved the lives of hundreds of orphans kept in inappropriate institutions under the Communist rule, has been killed.
Fox5 reports (see the video below) that he died of a single gunshot to the head, following a dispute with a neighbor.
The neighbor, Michael Vilkin, is now being held without bail on the suspicion of murder. The body of the filmmaker was discovered on a dirt path a short distance from his home in Encinitas.
Besides the heartbreaking documentary into the lives of orphans in Romania, Upton won an Emmy for an after-school special on teenage promiscuity and, in more recent years, had concentrated on the problems back home of orphans, the disabled, and the aged.
John Upton was 58 years old.
Vilkin will be arraigned on Tuesday.