Xerox murders

The Xerox murders was an incident of mass murder that occurred on November 2, 1999, in a Xerox building in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, in which service technician Byran Koji Uyesugi of the employer shot at eight people; seven people fatally (six co-workers and his supervisor), and another being fired upon during escape. This was the worst mass murder case in the history of Hawaii. The case also heightened awareness of workplace violence in Hawaii and elsewhere.

The shooting

During the morning, Byran Koji Uyesugi, a service technician of Xerox, opened fire inside the building with a 9mm Glock, killing his supervisor and six co-workers, and firing in the direction of another co-worker who fled the building, leaving without any injuries. After the shooting, Uyesugi fled in a company van, and by mid-morning, he was found cornered in the mountains above downtown Honolulu. He then held a standoff with police that lasted for five hours, until approximately 3 p.m. HST, he surrendered to police.

Victims

* Christopher Balatico, 33
* Ford Kanehira, 41
* Ronald Kataoka, 50
* Ronald Kawamae, 54
* Melvin Lee, 58
* Peter Mark, 46
* John Sakamoto, 36

Uyesugi's early life

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Uyesugi lived in the Nuuanu neighborhood of Honolulu. While attending Roosevelt High School, Uyesugi was a member of the school's Army JROTC chapter and was a member of the school's riflery team. Classmates remembered him as a quiet student who never got into trouble. According to his brother Dennis, Uyesugi crashed their father's car and hit his head on the windshield shortly after graduating high school in 1977 coming home from a graduation party and was never the same [http://starbulletin.com/1999/11/09/news/story1.html] . He also had a daughter born in 1996 [age 3 at the time of the shooting] , who attended Queen Emma Preschool in Pali.

Uyesugi had been employed by Xerox as a technician since 1984. Among his hobbies was raising and breeding goldfish and "koi", which he would sell to local pet stores. He also had an extensive collection of firearms, and at the time of the murder had as many as 25 guns registered in his name dating back to 1982. Police also recovered 11 handguns, 5 rifles and 2 shotguns from Uyesugi's father.

Troubles with his employer

According to testimony from Uyesugi's father, Hiroyuki, Uyesugi was normal until he started working for Xerox in 1984. Then when Hiroyuki's wife (Byran's mother) died in 1988, Byran started to complain that he had a poking sensation in his head [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2000/May/26/localnews14.html] .

Uyesugi's troubles apparently began soon after he was transferred to another workgroup. He began making unfounded accusations of harassment and product tampering against fellow repairmen, who had great difficulty placating his anger. Former co-workers who knew him reported the other members of his team allegedly ostracized him, making him feel isolated and withdrawn. His anger was such that he reportedly made threats against other co-workers' lives. In 1993, he was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation and anger management courses after he kicked in and damaged an elevator door for which he was arrested. Uyesugi was arrested for third degree criminal property damage. [ [http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/welner/5.html Crime Library article on Byran Uyesugi] ] [http://starbulletin.com/1999/11/09/news/story1.html] . Coworkers told Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Uyesugi prior to trial, that as early as 1995, Uyesugi was openly speaking of carrying out a mass shooting at the workplace were he ever to be fired.

The psychiatrist who examined him at the time of this arrest found that Uyesugi suffered from a delusional disorder and paranoia, but found him not to be dangerous. Byran Uyesugi reported experiencing auditory (voices in his head) and visual (a black shadow following him) hallucinations. Byran alleged that there was a conspiracy, and that his home was bugged with listening devices. He felt that his co-workers were engaged in patterns of harassment, back stabbing behavior, and spreading of rumors. In 1993, Uyesugi told his brother that a shadow pinned him down. The family had their house blessed by a Shingon priest in 1997 hoping to help him, but even the minister suspected Uyesugi had a mental illness. Later that year, Uyesugi's father suggested that he see a psychiatrist. [http://starbulletin.com/1999/11/09/news/story1.html] Uyesugi did not.

In the period leading up to the shooting, Xerox management increasingly committed to phasing out the copier that Uyesugi had been servicing. He resisted learning the new machine, fearing that he could not keep up with its technical demands. After working around his refusal to train on the new machine, Uyesugi’s manager insisted on November 1, 1999 that he would begin training the next day. In his interview with forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, M.D., who examined Uyesugi when the defendant brought an insanity defense, Uyesugi reasoned that because he would refuse to undertake the training, management would then fire him. As he told Dr. Michael Welner, “I decided to give them a reason to fire me.” [ [http://www.forensicpanel.com/Courtroom_Summary.ppt Trial testimony of Dr. Michael Welner] ]

Trial and incarceration

Forty-year-old Byran Uyesugi's month long trial began on May 15, 2000. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and claimed that he felt like an outcast at work and that he feared his colleagues were conspiring to have him fired. Dr. Park Dietz and Dr. Daryl Matthews testified for the defense that he was insane, citing the delusions about how others were tampering with his fish. Dr. Michael Welner testified for the prosecution that although Mr. Uyesugi was in his opinion a schizophrenic, he carried out the shooting because he was angry that he would be fired for insubordination, and that his own account of concealment before the crime demonstrated that he knew what he had done was wrong. [ [http://starbulletin.com/2000/06/02/news/story2.html Expert witness testimony in the trial of Bryan Uyesugi] ]

The jury found him sane and guilty of seven murders and one attempted murder. He received a sentence of life without chance of parole. Hawaii does not have the death penalty.

He appealed his conviction [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Jul/01/ln/ln04a.html] . In 2002, the State of Hawaii Supreme Court upheld Uyesugi's conviction [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Dec/27/ln/ln05a.html] . In 2004 Uyesugi was considering fighting his conviction based on Rule 40, inadequate representation by his lawyers in his first trial [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Aug/21/ln/ln03a.html] .

In 2005, Xerox and the hospital that examined Uyesugi settled a lawsuit brought by the families of the shooting victims, who felt that both had ignored clear signs of Uyesugi's mental instability.

Uyesugi is now being held in Tallahatchie County Correctional facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. This is due to overcrowding and inadequate facilities to house a prisoner in isolation at Halawa Correctional Facility. [http://starbulletin.com/2004/05/08/news/story5.html]

Aftermath

Xerox vacated the premises at 1200 N. Nimitz Highway after the shooting, and they stood idle until 2004, when the producers of the TV show "Lost" built a sound stage there to film indoor scenes [cite news|last=Veitch|first=Kristin|title=Lost Secrets Found!|url=http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Kristin/Archive2004/041016.html|publisher=E! Online|date=Oct. 16, 2004] .

References

External links

* [http://starbulletin.com/1999/11/02/news/story1.html Local coverage of the shooting] in the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin"
* [http://starbulletin.com/2000/05/16/news/story1.html Local coverage of the trial] with pictures of victims in the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin"
* [http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Nov/01/ln/ln20p.html 2004 article looking back on incident five years later] in the "Honolulu Advertiser"
* [http://starbulletin.com/2000/06/02/news/story2.html Expert witness testimony in the trial of Bryan Uyesugi]