Man Guilty of Hospital Killings

Jurors deliberated less than three hours Monday before convicting an Anaheim man of killing three hospital workers and wounding a fourth during a shooting rampage at West Anaheim Medical Center in 1999.

Santa Ana Superior Court jurors found Dung D. Trinh, 46, guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder, as well as the special circumstance of multiple murder. Trinh, who could face the death penalty, will return to court next week for the penalty phase.

Trinh’s lawyer did not dispute the fact that her client pulled the trigger during the Sept. 14 rampage.

However, Deputy Public Defender Sharon Petrosino said Trinh was suffering a mental and physical breakdown because of his mother’s death that morning. Trinh, she said, believed that the hospital had neglected his ailing mother and hastened her death.

That argument will play a key role in Trinh’s sentencing. Petrosino has argued that Trinh is not a cold-blooded killer and consequently does not deserve the death penalty.

But prosecutors told the seven-woman, five-man jury that Trinh acted willfully and deliberately, loading up on ammunition and packing two guns before security cameras recorded him walking through the hospital and firing at employees.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Bruce Moore told jurors that Trinh’s actions were not random. Instead, he said, Trinh coolly waited for targets before firing and initiated the slaughter without arguing or complaining.

Those killed were hospital maintenance director Ronald Robertson, 50; nurse’s aide Marlene Mustaffa, 60; and pharmacist Vincent Rosetti, 50.

Two days after the shooting, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas announced that he planned to seek the death penalty against Trinh--and would against anyone else who goes on a killing rampage. The defense had sought to remove the district attorney’s office from the case, alleging that Rackauckas had a conflict of interest because he had visited his ailing father at the same hospital two days before the shooting.

Petrosino told jurors that Trinh’s despair was heightened by the fact that the hospital could not offer Vietnamese translators to his 72-year-old mother.

Trinh’s mother had died at another hospital the morning of the shootings, but her hip had been replaced at West Anaheim Medical Center months earlier. Petrosino said it was then that the elderly woman’s health began to fail.

The trial began two weeks ago. After closing arguments, the jury began deliberating about 10:15 a.m. After an hour lunch, the panel announced its verdict at 2 p.m.