A judge today ordered a jury trial to decide whether a man accused
of murdering seven people in a shooting rampage at Oakland’s Oikos University
in 2012 is mentally competent to stand trial on the charges against him.
One Goh, 46, is charged with seven counts of murder, three counts
of premeditated attempted murder and the special circumstance allegations of
committing a murder during a kidnapping and committing multiple murders for
the shooting at Oikos on April 2, 2012.
A judge previously ruled on Jan. 7, 2013, that Goh, a Korean
national, was incompetent to stand trial, citing reports by two psychiatrists
who examined him, and he’s been treated at the Napa State Hospital for more
than two years.
But prosecutor Stacie Pettigrew today asked for the issue of Goh’s
competence to be reviewed and Alameda County Superior Court Judge Paul
Delucchi granted her request.
Delucchi scheduled a trial on the competence issue to begin on
Sept. 28.
Goh, who didn’t attend today’s hearing, is a former student who
had voluntarily left Oikos University, a Christian vocational school at 7850
Edgewater Drive near the Oakland International Airport.
Prosecutors have said he appears to have wanted a refund of his
tuition and may have been targeting an administrator who was not present on
the day of the shooting.
Oakland police said Goh fled the Oikos campus after the shooting
in a car belonging to one of the victims but was arrested in Alameda a short
time later after he confessed to a Safeway security guard that he had just
shot several people.
Killed in the shooting at Oikos were students Lydia Sim, 21, Sonam
Choedon, 33, Grace Kim, 23, Doris Chibuko, 40, Judith Seymour, 53, and
Tshering Bhutia, 38, as well as Katleen Ping, 24, who worked at the school.
Goh’s attorney, David Klaus, said after today’s hearing that Goh
still suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and depression and may also be
autistic.
Klaus said Goh is still suicidal and staff members at the Napa
State Hospital force him to take medication.
Klaus said five doctors have compiled a total of seven reports on
Goh and all have found him mentally incompetent to stand trial.
One of those doctors has said that he thinks Goh will never be
restored to mental competency, Klaus said.
If the jury finds that Goh is competent to stand trial, Goh will
stand trial on the charges against him at a later date.
But if he’s found to be mentally incompetent he will permanently
placed at a mental institution such as Napa, Klaus said.
Speaking of Oikos University, One Goh
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