The accused Half Moon Bay gunman told investigators that he had been “disrespected” by coworkers in the years leading up to Monday’s shootings, two police sources with direct knowledge of the investigation tell NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit. Eight workers were shot at two separate mushroom farms; seven died.
Chunli Zhao, 66, was arrested about two hours after the shooting as he sat in his parked car in the Half Moon Bay Sheriff’s substation lot. Those sources tell us they quickly recovered a Glock semiautomatic handgun, several rounds of ammo as well as a goodbye note Zhao wrote to his wife.
In what sources describe as a “matter of fact” note, the suspect allegedly acknowledged having shot eight people and urged his wife to take care of their adult child living in China. Part of the scribbled note is still being deciphered, according to sources.
They also say Zhao insisted he didn’t know anything about the weekend mass shooting that left 11 dead in Monterey Park in Southern California.
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The operators who took over the farm where the first of the two shootings occurred, California Terra Garden, said Tuesday that they saw no indication of a workplace problem before the shooting. “No issues, no indication he was capable of anything like that,’’ said spokesman David Oates.
But Sheriff Christina Corpus said Tuesday that’s the direction the investigation is going.
“All of the evidence we have points to this being the instance of workplace violence,” the sheriff said.
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Investigators with knowledge of the case say that in an interview, the suspect recounted becoming enraged after he complained to a co-worker he considered his boss, outside a row of a dozen trailers and the wooden outbuilding where the suspect lived with his wife.
The investigators told our investigative Unit that Zhao told them he felt the co-worker dismissed his concerns and rode off on his bicycle to another part of the farm. About 30 minutes later, according to sources, the suspect told them he shot the co-worker along with a second farm worker near a greenhouse on the farm property.
After the initial double shooting, our sources say they believe the suspect returned to the farm’s trailer encampment and shot and killed the first targeted co-worker’s wife in her trailer. Authorities believe he then went to another trailer to hunt down another co-worker who he believed had “disrespected” him, shooting that man in his sleep, and wounding another co-worker in the same trailer.
Investigators say Zhao told them he then drove to a nearby, separate mushroom farm on Cabrillo Road where he had previously worked. That’s where they believe he sought out and killed a former co-worker, that worker’s wife, and a third former co-worker.
Authorities say Zhao had been in the U.S. on a work visa and had no prior criminal record. He purchased the Glock handgun locally about two years before the attack. Investigators interviewed Zhao’s wife, who allegedly said she knew nothing about a shooting plan.
