D.A. Says Note Could Reveal Hate Motive

Charges Include Reckless Endangerment And Homicide

PITTSBURGH, Updated 4:27 p.m. EDT April 30, 2000 -- Authorities in Allegheny County say a suburban Pittsburgh man accused in a deadly shooting spree that killed five people may have left some clues about his motive in a two-page note.

Immigration lawyer Richard Scott Baumhammers, 34, of Mount Lebanon is accused of shooting six people, all of them minorities.

District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said authorities found the some papers at the suspects house that are relevant to determining whether the shootings were hate crimes.

Zappala did not disclose the contents of the papers.

The son of two dentists started a killing spree in their affluent suburb by shooting a neighbor and firing into two synagogues, then headed across the suburbs in his black Jeep and picked out five more victims, four of whom died, police said.

VIDEO

Mourners Gather At Synagogue. Women Killed A Valued Member Of Community.

Baumhammers remained jailed Sunday in Beaver County, where 22-year-old Garry Lee was killed at a karate studio in what police believe was the last stop on his spree. Baumhammers was charged with homicide and reckless endangerment in that shooting.

Outside Baumhammers' brief arraignment in Beaver Falls, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, a crowd jeered him and called for his execution. He smirked as police led him around in a bulletproof vest.

Baumhammers had not been charged in the other shootings, all within Allegheny County. Officials said Baumhammers likely would be moved to Allegheny County this week where he will face charges in the other four deaths.

Charges will be murder and possibly ethnic intimidation, officials told WTAE Action News.

VIDEO

Suspect Arraigned. Concered Beaver County residents see Richard Baumhammers head to court.

Also killed were: the neighbor, 63-year-old Anita Gordon; Thao Pham, 30, of Castle Shannon and Ji-Ye Sun, 34, of Wilkinsburg, both shot at a Chinese restaurant. Anil Thakur, 31, an Indian grocer died at Allegheny General Hospital Friday night about four hours after he was shot.

Lee was black. Gordon was Jewish and attended one of two synagogues that was damaged during the spree. Sun is of Chinese descent, and Pham is of Vietnamese descent. The other two victims are of Indian descent.

Sandip Patel, 25, remained in critical condition Sunday with gunshot wounds at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. Reports say that he was shot in the neck and was facing the possibility of permanent paralysis. The gun has been identified as a .357-caliber handgun.

VIDEO

Mass shootings. Hear what victim's kin say about shooting.

Police said Gordon was the first to die. Twelve minutes later police received reports of two men shot at an Indian grocery store and shots fired with no injuries at two nearby synagogues. Pham and Sun died next when shot at the restaurant where they worked, and Lee was shot last while practicing Karate at C.S. Kim’s Karate.

The FBI joined the investigation because bullets were fired two synagogues during the spree. A swastika was painted on one of the buildings, but no one was hurt at either. Special Agent Jeff Killeen said the federal investigation could be broadened to the killings if evidence pointed to a racial motivation.

Kent Kretzler, who owns a travel agency next to the grocery, said he saw Baumhammers walk out of the store wearing a sport coat and tucking his gun into a holster or his waistband.

"He very calm or collected walked another 40 yards or so to his car," Kretzler said. "He got in and sat for maybe five or ten seconds without doing anything, and just very calm and collectedly pulled out as if pulling out after buying a bag of groceries."

Baumhammers passed the Georgia bar exam in 1993 and belonged to the Georgia Bar Association. He was listed as a legal reference for immigration matters on a Web page for a Latvian attorney.

His parents, Inese and Andrejs, are both dentists and his father taught the science at the University of Pittsburgh.

"I was in complete shock, I still am. It's very quiet street, very affluent area. Nothing happens here," neighbor Lois Castello said.

Gordon's husband, Sanford, called Bauhammers family "pillars of the community." He said the younger Baumhammers had spent time in Latvia recently.

Gov. Tom Ridge reacted to the spree from Pebble Beach, Calif., where he was speaking to a Republican group.

"It was an attack against us all, because it sought in its violence to divide us by the color of our skin and the nations of our ancestors,'' Ridge said. “We all must respond to that attack, not with vengeance but with a renewed resolve to reject racism in its every manifestation."

Copyright 2000 by ThePittsburghChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.