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XEROX SHOOTINGS
Father and brother
testify ‘poking’
tormented Uyesugi
They were so concerned,
By Debra Barayuga
they sought help from a
psychic, kahuna and priests
and Suzanne Tswei
Star-BulletinByran Uyesugi was tormented by something poking him in the head and black shadows, his father and brother said today as the defense in the multiple murder trial began its case.
It came to a point he stayed home one day from work because of the "poking in his head," his brother Dennis testified today. Byran was pounding his head with his fists saying "Make the f-----s stop, make the f-----s stop," his older brother said.
Both he and his father Hiroyuki were so concerned for him they sought help from a psychic, a kahuna, and Buddhist and Shinto priests, they said.
The defense contends Uyesugi was so impaired by a mental disorder that, because of insanity, either he is not guilty or should be found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Just after the prosecution rested its case this morning, Judge Marie Milks denied a motion by defense attorney Jerel Fonseca to acquit Uyesugi of two charges alleging that he shot and killed one co-worker and then tried to kill another on Nov. 2.
Fonseca said there was no evidence to show that Uyesugi shot and killed Ron Kawamae. Police ballistic expert Curtis Kubo had testified that he could not match up the bullet that killed Kawamae to the murder weapon, a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. Randall Shin, who was sitting next to Kawamae only "saw a figure that appeared to be Mr. Uyesugi," Fonseca said.
Fonseca also argued that evidence was lacking in the state's charge that Uyesugi tried to kill Steve Matsuda as he fled down a flight of stairs. "There is no evidence that anyone saw Mr. Uyesugi fire a shot at Mr. Matsuda," Fonseca said.
Prosecutor Kevin Naketa argued against the motion, saying that all the evidence indicate "there's only one shooter." Witnesses did not recall everything they saw in their initial statements to police but were able to remember more later.
Milks agreed with Naketa's argument, noting that failed memory was not a reason to acquit the charges.
The prosecution's last witness was Dr. Kanthi vonGuenthner, First Deputy Medical Examiner, who performed autopsies on victims Melvin Lee, Jason Balatico, Ron Kawamae and Peter Mark and told the jury how they died.
Yesterday, court appointed mental health experts pointed to Uyesugi's calm behavior leading up to the shooting and afterward to show that he understood right and wrong and could control his actions -- the legal test of insanity.
The shootings did not appear to be "random" but "specific" with the victims shot several times, psychiatrist Leonard Jacobs noted. He described Uyesugi's actions as "quite deliberate, quite intentional, quite specific."
All three mental health experts agreed Uyesugi suffered from delusions. But the experts said the delusions were not the main reason why he gunned down his co-workers.
Instead, they blamed his anger.
"People he had delusional beliefs about were the focus of his anger," said psychologist James Tom Greene.
During cross examination, Uyesugi's attorney, Rodney Ching, asked about Uyesugi's black shadow delusions. He questioned the doctors about whether they knew about Uyesugi poking back with a screwdriver or knife so much so that there were stab marks gracing the door frame of his bedroom, his bedding and the living room floor.
Uyesugi's brother, Dennis, once placed a magazine on the living room carpet to prevent Byran from doing further damage with the knife, Ching said.
Steve Matsuda, a member of Uyesugi's work team, testified Uyesugi and everyone else in the group knew that a meeting scheduled for Nov. 2 was to resolve an uneven workload among team members. Uyesugi also had been notified the day before that after the meeting he was going to be trained on the more sophisticated machines.
Matsuda said he was late for the meeting because he was in another room on a phone call to engineers in Rochester, N.Y.
While on the phone, he said he heard four or five popping sounds that, "sounded like fireworks." When a few seconds passed and he heard more popping sounds, he realized something was wrong.
As he walked out of the room, he saw co-worker Jason Balatico lying on the ground just down the hallway. Matsuda ran "as fast as my legs could take me."
As he reached the bottom of a staircase that led to the front door of the building, Matsuda said he heard a loud explosion. He didn't know what caused it or where it came from.
He said he learned later from George Moad, whose company is contracted by Xerox to handle distribution at the Nimitz warehouse, that the explosion was likely from a bullet that had hit an electrical conduit located next to the door Matsuda had fled through.
Uyesugi's attorneys questioned why he didn't report the explosion when he gave a statement to police shortly after the shootings.
He he only remembered a few days later when he learned a bullet was found embedded in the conduit.
"It was brought up and I was trying to recall, and that's when I remembered the loud explosion," Matsuda said.
Matsuda testified Uyesugi once blamed co-workers for deliberately putting chemicals on his machine parts, causing them to freeze up. Matsuda, at supervisor Melvin Lee's request, brought up the incident at a work meeting and advised whoever was tampering with Uyesugi's parts to cease.
In another incident, Uyesugi became upset because he believed a co-worker was gluing parts together instead of replacing the part entirely, Matsuda said.
Uyesugi showed him the part, which was glued but not difficult to repair, said Matsuda, who again warned the team members not to do what apparently was upsetting Uyesugi.
During further cross-examination by Uyesugi's attorneys, Matsuda said he rated Uyesugi "very favorably" during a performance appraisal in 1991-92.
Xerox killings
