Oakland shooting suspect One Goh charged with seven counts of murder

Former nursing student had recently sought tuition refund after leaving school for 'anger management issues,' police say

A former student at a private Christian college in California has been charged with murder in relation to a shooting spree that ended with the deaths of seven people and left three others wounded.

Prosecutors said that One Goh, 43, was due to be arrainged on Wednesday and will face seven charges of murder, plus further charges of attempted murder.

Police said he had been expelled from Oikos University for "anger management issues", although an administrator at the college said he had left of his own accord.

Six students and a receptionist were killed and three others were wounded when the gunman entered the college just after 10.30am on Monday morning.

A service had earlier been held to mark the deaths at Oikos University, which was founded to help Korean immigrants adjust to life in America and launch new careers.

In an interview on Wednesday, the college's nursing director said she thinks she was the suspect's intended target.

Ellen Cervellon said Goh dropped out of the nursing program at Oikos University last year but came back to ask her for a full refund on his tuition.

"In talking to several of the students and faculty who were there, I think he was looking for me. I have that weight on my shoulders and I don't know what to do with it," she told the Associated Press.

"Every single one of those students were going to be an excellent, excellent nurse. They're in my heart and they always will be," she said.

Cervellon said Goh also told her that he felt the other students were picking on him. She said he became angry when she said the school could not refund all of his money.

Oakland police chief Howard Jordan told reporters Tuesday that Goh was angry after being expelled from the school, but Cervellon said he was never expelled and decided to leave on his own.

"He was never forced out, he showed no behavioral programs, and he was never asked to leave the program," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "He decided on his own to leave the program."

Several hundred friends, family and community members gathered for a multicultural prayer vigil on Tuesday night to mourn the victims of the deadliest campus shooting in the US since a student killed 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007.

Speaking in Korean, Dr Woo Nam Soo, the university's vice-president, said: "Only God knows the meaning of the suffering we endure. In this unbearable tragedy and suffering. Only God can create something good out of it."

Since his arrest, emerging details of Goh's life suggest a troubled man who has been struggling to deal with personal and family difficulties over the past decade.

Romie John Delariman, an Oikos nursing instructor who knew the suspect and victims, said Goh got good grades, but he used to boast about violence and told a story about beating someone up who tried to mug him in San Francisco.

"I don't know if you could call it mentally unstable, but sometimes he would brag that he was capable of hurting people," Delariman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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