Shooting in Half Moon Bay, California: this is how the suspect was arrested 0:34
(CNN) --
A dispute over a $100 repair bill may have contributed to a pair of shootings that left seven people dead and another wounded last week in Half Moon Bay, California, the California county district attorney said. San Mateo to a local news station.
Chunli Zhao, the farm worker who faces seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in connection with the attack "had a dispute with the first victim over a $100 bill" over the cost of repair of a piece of farm equipment involved in an accident at California's Terra Garden, the mushroom farm where Zhao worked, lived and allegedly killed his first four victims, Steve Wagstaffe told station KTVU.
"We believe that none of the conduct is justified," Wagstaffe said.
"But we have a lot to find out."
Wagstaffe's comments came shortly after Zhao, 66, allegedly admitted in an interview with NBC Bay Area News to carrying out the shootings, which rocked the coastal town of Half Moon Bay amid a spate of shootings. mass attacks in California that claimed 19 lives in about 44 hours.
Who is Chunli Zhao, the suspect in the shooting in Half Moon Bay, California?
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CNN has not been able to independently confirm what Zhao said in the interview and has contacted his lawyers for comment.
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The statements the suspect made to law enforcement "were consistent with what he told reporters," Wagstaffe told CNN Monday, referring to the NBC Bay Area News interview.
"But I'm not stating as a fact that (the dispute over the $100 bill) triggered the shooting," he said.
"There is still a lot to investigate. But it is certainly what Zhao says."
On Monday, officers went to the mushroom farm and found four people dead and one wounded, before finding another three dead at another location about 2 miles away, authorities said.
Zhao, a Chinese national, was a "co-worker or former co-worker" of the victims, and allegedly targeted specific people, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus told CNN, characterizing the attack as an "incident of violence in the workplace.
In a 15-minute interview conducted in Mandarin, Zhao told NBC Bay Area's Janelle Wang that he was not in his right mind and did not know "what was going on in his head" when the shots were fired, according to Wang. The suspect said remorse and said he regrets the attacks, adding in his remarks to the reporter that he believes he has some kind of mental illness that he has struggled with for some time.
Chunli Zhao appears in San Mateo Criminal Court in Redwood City, California on January 25, 2023. Credit: Shae Hammond/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
In a statement issued last week, a California Terra Garden spokesperson said all employees "had undergone background checks and there was nothing to indicate that such a thing was even a possibility," adding that the company knew nothing. Zhao's mobile.
The shooting ended the lives of Yetao Bing, 43;
Qizhong Cheng, 66;
Marciano Martínez Jiménez, 50;
Aixiang Zhang, 74;
Jingzhi Lu, 64;
and Zhishen Liu, 73, according to the San Mateo County Coroner's Office.
The seventh victim was provisionally identified, but the office did not release the name pending positive identification and notification of next of kin.
Among the dead were five Chinese nationals, according to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.
Zhao is scheduled to appear in court on February 16, when he is expected to plead guilty.
-- Kevin Flower contributed to this reporting.
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