Allegheny County prosecutors said Thursday they have evidence that Richard Baumhammers, charged with killing five people, once burned a cross on a black family's lawn, punched a woman because he thought she was Jewish and intimidated two Pakistani doctors.
The disclosure came in a motion Deputy District Attorney Edward Borkowski filed seeking permission to use those prior actions when Baumhammers, a Mt. Lebanon attorney, goes on trial next month.
Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning sealed the details of the prior incidents from public view at the request of prosecutors.
Twice in 1985, a black family living on Cochran Road had a 5-foot-high cross burned in their front yard in the early morning hours, according to police. Both times - once in May and again in July - a white hood was left at the scene.
A note left on the lawn in the May cross burning threatened that unless the family left Mt. Lebanon the home would be fire-bombed. Police at the time dismissed the notion that the Ku Klux Klan could be responsible for the cross burnings because other blacks in the area were not harassed.
George Ann Bower remembers the cross burnings and the impact they had on the family that was victimized and on the community of Mt. Lebanon.
'I think the whole community felt bad about it, and there were even less black people in Mt. Lebanon then than there are now,' said Bower, a former neighbor of the family.
Bower described the victims as 'a nice Jamaican family' that had three teen-agers in local schools and was well-known in the area.
'The family was very upset about it, and they were a lovely family. They were nice people. They were good people. They moved to another home in Mt. Lebanon for a while, but I haven't seen any of the family in quite a few years.'
Borkowski wants Manning's permission to use the evidence to show Baumhammers' state of mind at the time of the April 28 shootings, which left five people dead and a sixth paralyzed. The victims were Jewish, Asian, Indian and black.
Prosecutors want to call two witnesses from Paris and one each from New Jersey and Michigan to testify about the earlier incidents, court documents state.
Manning is expected to rule on the request April 9. Jury selection is scheduled to begin two days later.
According to prosecutors, Baumhammers also:
Baumhammers, 35, of Elm Spring Road, is charged with criminal homicide in the five deaths. Other charges against him include ethnic intimidation.
Authorities said racial, ethnic and religious minorities were targeted in the shootings. During the killing spree, shots were fired at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Carnegie and the Beth El Synagogue in Scott Township, where swastikas had been painted outside, police said.
Killed in the attack were Anita Gordon, 63, of Mt. Lebanon; Thao Pham, 27, of Castle Shannon; Ji-Ye Sun, 34, of Churchill; Anil Thakur, 31, of Bihar, India; and Garry Lee, 22, of Aliquippa, Beaver County.
A sixth victim, Sandeep Patel, 25, of Plum Borough, was critically wounded at the India Grocers in Scott Township.
Prosecutors are seeking first-degree murder verdicts and the death penalty against Baumhammers.
Defense attorney William Difenderfer has said he will present an insanity defense. He has said that Baumhammers suffered from 'a delusional disorder of a persecutory type' for nine years.
Delusional disorder is rare, occurring in three of every 10,000 people, mental health experts estimate. Typically, sufferers have delusions or believe that something is going on in their lives that is not truly occurring.
Robert Baird can be reached at (412) 391-8650. Staff writer Gregor McGavin contributed to this report.
