FBI officers walk to the crime scene at Mountain Mushroom Farm, Jan. 24, 2023, after a gunman killed several people at two agricultural businesses in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Aaron Kehoe/AP
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Aaron Kehoe/AP
FBI officers walk to the crime scene at Mountain Mushroom Farm, Jan. 24, 2023, after a gunman killed several people at two agricultural businesses in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Aaron Kehoe/AP
SAN FRANCISCO — A farm worker accused of killing seven people at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms reportedly told investigators he was prompted to carry out the shootings after his supervisor demanded he pay $100 to repair a forklift damaged on the job.
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe confirmed that the Bay Area News Group Friday that Chunli Zhao was enraged by the equipment billhe said that a co-worker was to blame for the collision between his forklift and the co-worker’s bulldozer.
KNTV-TV, the NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, was the first to report the development.
Authorities say Zhao, 66, shot and killed four workers and wounded a fifth employee on Monday at California Terra Garden. He then went to nearby Concord Farms, where he had previously worked, and fatally shot three former co-workers.
Zhao told KNTV-TV in an interview in court Thursday that he carried out the shootings. He said he was bullied and worked long hours on farms and his complaints were ignored, the station reported.
On Monday, Zhao went to his supervisor about the bill, but the supervisor insisted that he needed to pay. Zhao then allegedly shot the supervisor and co-worker, news outlets reported.
Speaking in Mandarin, Zhao told the television station from a county jail in Redwood City that he has been in the United States for 11 years and has a green card. He said he has a 40-year-old daughter in China and lived with his wife in Half Moon Bay.
The coroner’s office named six of the victims: 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, whose hometown was not known.
The charging documents identified Jose Romero Perez as the other person killed and Pedro Romero Perez as the eighth victim, who survived.
