A farmworker accused of killing seven people in back-to-back shootings at two Northern California mushroom farms will be charged with seven counts of murder and one of attempted murder, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
The charges will be filed before Chunli Zhao, 66, makes his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon, said Steve Wagstaffe, the district attorney for San Mateo County.Authorities believe Zhao acted alone Monday when he entered a mushroom farm where he worked in Half Moon Bay and opened fire, killing four people and seriously wounding a fifth, San Mateo County sheriff's officials said.
If convicted of the special circumstance, Zhao could face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on executions in 2019. "He was a good person. He was polite and friendly with everyone. He never had any problems with anyone. I don't understand why all this happened," Martinez Jimenez said in Spanish.
But it would not have been Zhao's first fit of workplace rage, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In 2013 Zhao was accused of threatening to split a coworker's head open with a knife and separately tried to suffocate the man with a pillow, the Chronicle reported, based on court documents. David Oates, a California Terra Garden spokesperson, said that he did not know how long Zhao worked there and that he was one of 35 employees who had stayed when ownership changed. Oates declined to provide details of the four slain workers.
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