SEATTLE -- The two young immigrants charged with a Chinatown gambling club massacre were both involved in the 1981 slaying of an elderly man walking along a Seattle lakeshore, a defense lawyer says.
The admission by attorney Jim Robinson came Tuesday in opening arguments at the trial of Kwan Fai 'Willie' Mak, 22, on 13 counts of premeditated murder for the Feb. 19 slayings of 12 men and one woman at a Chinatown gambling den.
In an effort to convince jurors that co-defendant Benjamin Ng, 20, did the shooting at the Wah Mee Club, Robinson said Mak and Ng were dumping a stolen safe into Lake Washington when Ng suddenly shot passerby Franklin Leach, 71.
'Mr. Mak will testify on a previous occasion he had seen Ben Ng shoot a man,' Robinson said, describing how Mak, Ng and third man were disposing of a stolen safe early one October morning in 1981.
'As this was happening a jogger happened by, and that Ben Ng, without warning, without any consultation, without saying anything, shot the man and killed him, shot him twice, in just a violent reaction to stress,' he said.
Seattle Police Department spokesman Dan Fordice said Tuesday the Leach case was still an unsolved murder.
Ng faces life in prison without parole following his conviction last month for the premeditated slayings at the Wah Mee.
Robinson said Ng's erratic behavior in the Leach incident convinced Mak to leave the gambling club before the shooting began.
'Mr. Mak will testify he was aware of that response, that way of covering up a crime and that's the reason he didn't interfere when he knew Ben was losing control, when he thought Ben was losing control in the Wah Mee club,' Robinson said.
Robinson told the six-man, six-woman jury Mak was at the Wah Mee with Ng and a still-at-large suspect, Wai Chiu 'Tony' Ng, to rough up a few people for a rival gambling tong. All three suspects are immigrants from Hong Kong.
