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Computer, writings on race are seized
Sunday, April 30, 2000 By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Investigators seized computer equipment and writings about race from Richard Baumhammers' Mt. Lebanon home to determine if a suburban shooting rampage that killed five people and critically wounded a sixth Friday were hate crimes.
The evidence will help prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty for Baumhammers, 34, an out-of-work immigration lawyer suspected in all six shootings.
District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said "quite a bit of evidence" had been obtained, including a computer that was turned over to the FBI. The material taken under a search warrant included "a couple of pages" of computer-generated writings, believed to have been typed by Baumhammers, along with other printed material that involved race and immigration.
Zappala declined to say if he believed the victims -- two Asian, two Indian, one black and one Jewish -- were targeted because of their race or religion. Baumhammers is white.
"I don't want to speculate at this point," Zappala said.
But Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, who appeared beside Zappala at a news conference yesterday, made it plain he had little doubt the shootings were ethnically motivated.
Noting the mostly white makeup of Allegheny County, Wecht said the odds would be "in the trillion range" against the victims being targeted had the shooting been random.
"Anybody who wants to suggest -- especially throwing in the defacement of the two synagogues -- that this was not a hate-related crime, I guess those are people who would say that we're looking at the Empire State Building to see whether we will classify it as a skyscraper," Wecht said.
"I'm not going to play games on this. I have strong feelings about this. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but look at the ethnic, religious and nationality makeup of the people who were shot and see for yourselves what you think.
"There was no hurry. There was no rush from one spot to another," Wecht said of the two-hour rampage through Allegheny County's South Hills that ended in Beaver County. "Facts are facts.
"I would even go so far as to say that the final visit to the karate shop, I think [Baumhammers] never expected to find an African-American man," Wecht said.
He described the C.S. Kim School of Karate in Center as a place where one would expect to find Asians, and Wecht alluded to a published account that a white person in the building had a gun pointed at him but was spared.
Garry Lee, 22, a black student at the school, was fatally wounded there.
"It's an incredible tragedy for Mr. Lee," Wecht said.
Lee was the final victim in Friday's 20-mile series of events, which began in Mt. Lebanon and continued as police said Baumhammers drove to locations in Scott, Robinson, Carnegie and Center.
It ended in Ambridge, when police stopped a sport utility vehicle driven by Baumhammers and took him into custody at gunpoint.
As family and friends of those involved in the shootings mourned -- and others tried to make sense of the violence in their normally quiet communities -- investigators fanned out across both counties yesterday to piece the events together.
Zappala said investigators were not aware of any links between Baumhammers and any commonly known white supremacist groups. Zappala said it was not clear how Baumhammers secured the .357 caliber Magnum handgun that the coroner's office said was used in the killings.
He said investigators were still trying to ascertain if some traumatic event on Friday involving Baumhammers might have triggered the rampage.
"Why the route he took? Why the places he stopped? Those are the questions that are unresolved at this point," Zappala said.
He said the writings seized during a search of Baumhammers' Elmspring Road home "are relevant to the federal government's jurisdiction and they are relevant to the degree of homicide and whether to ultimately seek the death penalty."
A federal prosecution of Baumhammers under the hate crimes statute would differ from a state homicide charge in that it necessitates introduction of evidence of racial animus to prove motivation. Such a conviction could bring the death penalty.
Baumhammers was arraigned Friday night in Lee's death, but no date has been set for his arraignment for the Allegheny County killings.
Late yesterday, investigators with the Allegheny County violent crimes and homicide unit said they were preparing arrest warrants charging Baumhammers with a range of offenses from four counts of criminal homicide to ethnic intimidation.
Zappala and Wecht said county officials were talking with their counterparts in Beaver County and would be open to consolidating both the inquest and trials.
Beaver County Coroner Wayne Tatalovich said last night that he had spoken to Wecht briefly Friday night about consolidating the inquests between the two counties, but he had not made a decision yet about the best way to proceed. That decision, he said, will probably be made tomorrow after he has a chance to talk to the district attorney.
Examinations were still being conducted on some of the victims yesterday, but Wecht said enough work had been done to determine the cause of each death.
He said the first victim was Nicki Gordon, 63, a Jewish woman and a neighbor of Baumhammers in the Virginia Manor neighborhood of Mt. Lebanon. She was shot six and perhaps seven times.
"The reason for that equivocation is there are extensive injuries to fingers on both hands, which may or may not be associated with a defensive posture as she was shot in the neck," Wecht said.
A fire was set at Gordon's home, and firefighters responding to it discovered the woman. Wecht said there were indications it was set by Baumhammers.
The second fatal shooting claimed Anvil Thakur, 31, an Indian in the United States on a work permit. He was shot four times at the India Grocers in Scott Towne Center. He was originally from Bihar, India, and had no known relatives in the United States. He worked for the WideCom Group, a Canada-based producer of copiers and scanners.
The next two fatal shootings were in the Ya Fei Chinese Cuisine at Robinson Town Centre. Ji-ye-Sun, 34, of Churchill, the restaurant manager, was shot once.
"The bullet traversed the chest, did extensive damage to the lungs, the heart, the aorta," Wecht said.
A restaurant delivery man, Theo Q. Pham, 27, of Castle Shannon, was also fatally shot. He was struck three times and sustained multiple injuries to the chest, Wecht said.
Lee, the victim in the karate studio, was shot twice, Wecht said.
In addition to the fatalities, Sandip Patel, 25, manager of the India Grocers, was shot in the neck. He was being treated in Mercy Hospital, and his condition had stabilized. He remained in critical condition late yesterday.
In addition to the dead and wounded, the gunman allegedly fired shots at two synagogues, Beth El Congregation on Cochran Road in Mt. Lebanon and Ahavath Achim Congregation in Carnegie.
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