SILICON VALLEY: A 'fired' Silicon Valley engineer of Chinese origin has been formally charged with killing his three colleagues, including the Indian boss. Jing Hua Wu, 47, former test engineer with SiPort, was formally charged yesterday with three counts of murder in the gunshot slayings of colleagues -- Sid Agrawal, 56, Marilyn Lewis, 67 and Brian Pugh, 47 -- who met him after he was fired for "poor performance" on November 14.
Police say the three senior executives met in a conference room with Wu on the same day, where he allegedly shot them dead with a 9mm gun. Judge Jerome Nadler agreed to Wu's attorneys' request to continue the case until December 18. No motive for the killings has been disclosed. The engineer also owned over a dozen investment properties whose value apparently has diminished in the real estate crisis, San Jose Mercury News reported.
The victims' families did not show up at the hearing. Agrawal was the Chief Executive and co-founder of SiPort, a maker of mobile chips. The charges filed against Wu carry "special circumstances" - for the killing of multiple human beings, which makes Wu eligible either for life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, the report said.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office will weigh whether to seek the death penalty in the coming months. Wu has been housed in the mental health ward of a jail since he was arrested on Saturday, 19 hours after the crime. Rosen said a 9mm gun that police say was used in the shootings was found in the trunk of Wu's rental car.
On Wednesday, a huge crowd of mourners gathered to pay their respects to Agrawal. His two sons returned from Harvard University to join their mother and extended family at the service.
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