The man suspected of killing seven of his fellow California farmworkers and wounding another faces the death penalty if convicted, a prosecutor said Wednesday in his first court appearance.
Chunli Zhao is expected to face seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and what prosecutors call special circumstance for multiple murders. Her lawyer asked that her arraignment be postponed.
Judge Susan Jakubowski ordered Chunli Zhao to remain in custody and appear again on February 16. The special circumstance could earn him “a life sentence or the death penalty,” San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe told the San Francisco Chronicle.
This decision will be made “once the investigation is complete, when we have learned as much as we can” about the suspect, Stephen Wagstaffe added.
“Today I’m going to kill you”
Chunli Zhao and his wife lived, along with other employees, at the Mountain Mushroom Farms site where the first attack took place.
A former colleague of the suspect, with whom he would have worked in a restaurant, had obtained an expulsion order against him for violence, the newspaper reported Tuesday. San Francisco Chronicle.
“Today I’m going to kill you,” Chunli Zhao reportedly told her before trying to suffocate her with a pillow.
The shooting Monday, less than 48 hours after 11 people were killed at a popular Asian dance hall near Los Angeles, shocked California’s large Asian American community.
Source: BFM TV
