Former nursing student, One Goh, who is accused of murdering 7 people and wounding 3 others at Oikos University, appeared in Alameda County Superior Court on January 7, 2013 in Oakland. During the court session, Judge Carrie Panetta ruled that Goh is incompetent to stand trial.
On Monday, January 28, Judge Panetta ordered the former nursing student to seek treatment inside a locked psychiatric hospital, where doctors will attempt to restore his mental competence so he can stand trial. Judge Panetta ordered Goh, 44, to be transferred from Alameda County Jail to Napa State Hospital, where psychiatrists will conduct therapy sessions and administer anti-psychotic medication.
Psychiatrists will deliver the first progress report to Panetta in 90 days, and then every 6 months until Goh is deemed capable of understanding the legal proceedings and can assist in his defense.
If he is not restored to competency within three years – or if doctors conclude during that time that he is unlikely to be restored – he could be placed under a conservator who would make decisions about his future.
Roughly 35 criminal defendants from Alameda County are currently considered incompetent to stand trial and are being treated at Napa State Hospital, said David Cook, a county prosecutor who acts as a point person on mental health issues.
Goh, who pleaded not guilty to the slayings in April, was found incompetent to stand trial earlier this month after 2 psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.
Police said Goh has confessed to the April 2, 2012 slayings. According to police, Goh confessed to taking a staff member hostage, forcing her into a classroom and shooting her and several others before driving off in a car belonging to another victim who was also killed. He was soon arrested in Alameda.
6 of the victims were women, and they hailed from countries around the world, including Nepal, Nigeria and the Philippines. The husband of one of them attended Monday’s hearing and said afterward that he wanted to see Goh put on trial without delay.
“Every time the case comes up the wound is going to be fresh,” said Efanye Chibuko of Tracy, whose wife, 40-year-old nursing student Doris Chibuko, was slain. “Let’s get it over with. Then we can really go through the healing process.”
Chibuko asserted that Goh was playing up mental illness to try to avoid responsibility. “If he is remorseful, he wouldn’t be playing the games he is playing,” Chibuko said. “It’s an act, I believe. But I don’t believe he’s going to get away with it.”
Goh appeared gaunt at Monday’s hearing in Superior Court in Oakland. His attorney said Goh has lost 60 pounds since his arrest in April.
“He does not seem to be taking good care of himself,” said the attorney, Assistant Public Defender David Klaus. “He continues to lose weight, and he continues to have low insight into the situation.”
Recalling the Tragedy
On April 2, 2012, at approximately 10:30 am, One Goh arrived at the glass door entrance to Oikos University, a long, flat-roofed building in an industrial complex at 7850 Edgewater Drive.
Police said he’d taken BART to the Coliseum Station and transferred to an AC Transit bus. He carried a .45-caliber handgun and four magazines of ammunition.
Before he’d dropped out of the school’s nursing program a few months earlier, Goh had developed a reputation for his brooding personality, an intense man who had trouble getting along with his female peers. When he quit, he’d argued with the director of nursing, who denied him a full refund of his $6000 tuition payment.
Goh knew the layout of the Oikos building.
Police believe Goh arrived with the intent of killing Wonja Kim, who had been Oikos’ assistant director of nursing. But he learned she was not there; she’d also left the university months earlier.
Goh pulled out the gun. Goh then began shooting – killing 7 and wounding 3 others.
At a Safeway store in Alameda 5 miles away, a security clerk called the police at 11:21 am. An Asian man, 5 feet 7 and 220 pounds, had walked into the store and told a clerk, “I just shot some people.”
It was One Goh.
He had taken the car keys of one of his victims, Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, the man found dead in the school parking lot. Police found the gun in a tributary less than a mile from Oikos University and along Goh’s escape route to Alameda.
When police arrived, the Alameda officers handed him over to Oakland police, where investigators said he confessed to the killings.
Judith Seymour, 53. Lydia Sim, 21. Sonam Choedon, 33. Grace Eunhea Kim, 23. Doris Chibuko, 40. Bhutia, 38. Katleen Ping, 24. Three other people were wounded (SFGate.com).
