Attorneys Debate Gunman’s Sanity

HONOLULU —  The man accused of gunning down seven Xerox Corp. employees “hated his co-workers because he thought they made him look bad” and believed the company “was messing with him,” a prosecutor argued as his trial began Monday.

Prosecutor Peter Carlisle also said Byran Uyesugi, 40, “deliberately, methodically and maliciously” killed the victims on Nov. 2 at the company’s downtown warehouse--an argument meant to rebut Uyesugi’s insanity defense.

“He did not want Xerox to fire him and he didn’t want those men in that room to have the satisfaction of seeing him lose his job,” Carlisle said during opening statements.

“So he pumped 25 bullets into unarmed men and deliberately, methodically and maliciously became a mass murderer,” he said.

Uyesugi’s attorney, Rodney Ching, said the former copier repairman had a “serious, long-standing and deeply ingrained” mental illness that manifested itself through “delusions and distorted thinking.”