Employees of Software Firm Recall Office Shooting

As Mikhail Khaimchayev awaited surgery for a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a Ventura County sheriff’s detective arrested him on suspicion of murdering his former boss. Then he wished him luck.

“Wish me death,” Khaimchayev replied.

A disgruntled computer programmer, Khaimchayev, 31, is on trial for first-degree murder after shooting the co-owner of a computer software company where he worked briefly. He walked into the Camarillo office of Postal Innovations on Jan. 13, 1999, and shot Sheldon Snyder nine times before turning the gun on himself.

Employees remembered that afternoon during emotional testimony Thursday morning in Ventura County Superior Court.

Rick Woodman said he jumped out of his chair when he heard the first shot. Then he heard screams and more gunfire. He said he rushed downstairs, where he held Snyder as he twitched and made gurgling sounds.

“I told him to hang on, help was coming,” Woodman said.

Woodman wrapped the gun in paper towels and took it upstairs to save it for police. When he returned to Snyder’s side, his boss wasn’t breathing.

Just outside the office, Khaimchayev was lying on his back with his arm outstretched and shouting in a foreign language. Employee John Carroll clutched his hand and asked him why he had started shooting.

“He said he shot Sheldon because he wouldn’t give him work,” Carroll testified Thursday.

Khaimchayev was airlifted to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, where he was treated for a bullet wound to the stomach. He spent several weeks in the hospital recovering.

An immigrant from Uzbekistan who lived in Hollywood, Khaimchayev was dismissed by Postal Innovations in June 1998 after just two months. Though supervisors praised his attitude, they said he lacked basic computer skills and couldn’t understand English well.

So they decided not to keep him through the three-month probationary period.

Khaimchayev tried again and again to get rehired, but his bosses told him there wasn’t a place for him. In a letter found in his pants pocket the day of the shooting, Khaimchayev accused Snyder of lying to him and unfairly breaking his contract. He blamed the software development company for ruining his life.

“All around me are liars and promises,” Khaimchayev wrote in the letter, which was admitted as evidence. “After all, I came to America to build my future. With my zero luck, this will never happen.”

Khaimchayev wrote that he had been sending out resumes and trying to get a job, but that he was in a vicious circle because nobody would hire him without U.S. work experience.

“This is an ultimate step, but I have no way out,” he wrote.

A detective testified Thursday that he found receipts in Khaimchayev’s car that showed he bought a 9-millimeter gun in August 1998--two months after he was fired and five months before the shooting.

Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher conceded in opening statements this week that his client shot Snyder, but suggested severe psychological problems prevented him from developing the intent required for a first-degree murder conviction. Asher asked jurors to consider a lesser charge of second-degree murder.

Khaimchayev was diagnosed as psychotic and found incompetent to stand trial in 1999. But after a year of psychiatric treatment, doctors determined that he was able to participate in his own defense.

On Thursday, Patricia Snyder, the mother of the slain man, said she was frustrated by how long it has taken for her son’s killer to be tried and she doesn’t believe Khaimchayev should get a break because of his emotional problems.

“How can anyone say he was too mentally deranged to know right from wrong?” she said outside the courtroom. “He had enough wits about him to buy a gun. He had enough wits about him to drive here. And he had enough wits about him to call ahead.”

Snyder said she still doesn’t understand why Khaimchayev picked her son. Sheldon Snyder, 36, was not in charge of hiring and firing, and did not directly supervise Khaimchayev’s work while he was an employee.

If Khaimchayev is convicted of first-degree murder, he could face a term of 50 years to life in prison. Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday.