Countywide : FULLERTON : Freedom Denied to Killer of 7

A Cal State Fullerton janitor who went on a shooting rampage in 1976, killing seven in Orange County’s worst mass slaying, must remain institutionalized, a judge ruled Friday.

Edward Charles Allaway, who was found not guilty of the killings by reason of insanity, lost his petition for release when Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore ruled that he did not prove he no longer poses a threat to the community.

Allaway’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender John Bovee, said in a three-day hearing this week that prosecutors’ psychiatric experts who testified that Allaway remains a danger to society had unfairly targeted him.

But Moore wrote in her three-page ruling, “The court was not able to conclude any such bias exists.”

“The petitioner is different,” the judge continued. “He shot nine people and killed seven of them. He has been institutionalized in a high-security facility for almost 19 years without experiencing the normal stresses of everyday life.”

Allaway, 56, who has been at Atascadero State Hospital for much of the time, will be transferred to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County, where he will continue to receive treatment.

In arguing that Allaway continues to pose a danger to the public, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas A. Glazier said the former janitor was not ready for outpatient treatment.

“He is still very guarded and very paranoid,” Glazier said Friday.

Bovee could not be reached for comment.

Allaway entered the university library on July 12, 1976, and shot nine people at close range with a .22-caliber rifle. He later said he went crazy because employees teased him and because he was upset by graffiti and homosexual activity in a men’s room where he worked.

The shooting victims were library patrons and workers.