According to reports, the suspect in the murder of seven persons at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay said authorities he was motivated to carry out the shootings after his supervisor demanded $100 from him to fix a forklift he damaged on the job.
On Friday, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the Bay Area News Group that Chunli Zhao was furious about the equipment cost because he believed a coworker was to blame for the accident between his forklift and the coworker’s bulldozer.
The NBC affiliate in the San Francisco area, KNTV-TV, broke the news first.
According to reports, on Monday, Zhao, 66, opened fire at California Terra Garden, killing four employees and wounding a fifth. Three of his old coworkers at Concord Farms, a nearby farm where he had worked, were gunned down.
Zhao admitted his guilt to KNTV-TV in an interview at the courthouse on Thursday. The station added that he claimed he was bullied and made to work long hours on the farms, but his objections were disregarded.
Zhao complained to his boss about the bill on Monday, but his boss urged that he pay it. The news sites claimed that Zhao then shot the supervisor and the coworker.
From the county jail in Redwood City, Zhao spoke to the television station in Mandarin to reveal that he had a green card and had been in the United States for 11 years. He and his wife made their home in Half Moon Bay, and he mentioned having a daughter in China who is now 40 years old.
Six of the victims have been identified by name by the coroner’s office: Zhishen Liu, 73, of San Francisco; Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, of Moss Beach, California; Aixiang Zhang, 74, of San Francisco; Qizhong Cheng, 66, of Half Moon Bay; Jingzhi Lu, 64, of Half Moon Bay; and Yetao Bing, 43, of an unidentified location.
According to the complaint, Pedro Romero Perez was the eighth victim to survive, while his brother Jose Romero Perez was one of the two people slain.
Visit this section of this website for more related updates.