Killer of 7 Tells Judge He’s Cured

A quarter-century after he killed seven people in a shooting rampage at Cal State Fullerton, Edward Charles Allaway told a judge Tuesday that he’s cured of mental illness and should be released from a state mental hospital.

“I’m not a danger to myself or others,” said Allaway, the janitor who committed Orange County’s deadliest act of violence on a July morning in 1976. “The last thing I want to do is hurt anybody.”

Dressed in a blue blazer and white button-down shirt, the trim and tanned Allaway appeared more like a businessman than an institutionalized mass murderer. He spoke softly and answered his attorney’s questions in a thoughtful manner.

He told Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel that he’s managed to cure himself of paranoid schizophrenia without medication.

“I know it seems funny to say, but I wasn’t a violent person,” Allaway said.

Allaway, 62, told Fasel that he has learned to recognize symptoms of his mental illness, which some of his doctors say is in remission, and would quickly seek help if the symptoms recurred while he was free.

“I would because it’s the right thing. I wish I had the skills and the tools to have done it years ago,” he said.

A judge found Allaway not guilty by reason of insanity in 1977, and he has spent the last 25 years in state mental hospitals. This is the third time Allaway has asked a judge to grant him freedom.

He said he has tried hard to improve himself, working with therapists on anger management and reading Shakespeare to better his speech skills. He has taken a class to help him deal with modern life: using an ATM, opening a checking account and buying groceries.

The prospect of releasing a mass murderer has galvanized opposition from community leaders and relatives of Allaway’s seven victims. Patricia Almazan, whose father died in the rampage, said she was not impressed by Allaway’s testimony, and believes he should remain in state custody at Patton State Hospital.

“It’s so unbelievable. It’s so rehearsed,” Almazan said. “I see him as still severely mentally ill. . . . The gravity of his crimes should stay at the forefront. He still killed seven people and wounded two others.”

Allaway’s testimony is scheduled to resume today. Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Daniel Wagner, who opposes any release, declined to discuss Allaway’s testimony but said he’s looking forward to cross examination.

Allaway became emotional Tuesday while discussing the delusions he blamed for the killings. In the months before the shootings, Allaway said, he lived in fear that homosexual men who he said used the library’s restrooms for sexual liaisons were plotting to kill him.

The fear led him to spend all his free time in his Anaheim apartment, where he searched for signs of his imagined assailants, unable to eat or sleep.

Allaway said he has learned to accept and to live with homosexuals during more than two decades of treatment.

“It took a long, long time for me to build my trust and come to the conclusion I can be with [gays],” Allaway said.

Five clinicians have testified that Allaway is fit for release.

After testimony concludes next month, Fasel will decide whether to release Allaway. Defense attorney John Bovee, a deputy public defender, has suggested that the judge approve a modified release program in which Allaway would be free for a few hours at first under strict supervision, progressing to weekends and longer over a period of years.

Allaway said he would work closely with state mental health officials and seek treatment if he felt he was having a relapse.

“I would be good with them,” Allaway said. “I would have no problem explaining, telling them how I felt.”