San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe will seek the death penalty against the man accused of gunning down seven Half Moon Bay mushroom farmworkers in the county’s deadliest mass shooting on record.
The decision, announced at a court hearing Tuesday, ends months of debate within Wagstaffe’s office over whether 68-year-old Chunli Zhao should face the possibility of death at his still-to-be-scheduled murder trial.
Death penalty cases are increasingly rare in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially after Gov. Gavin Newsom implemented a moratorium on executions in 2019 and moved to dismantle San Quentin prison’s death row. In San Mateo, the case marks the first time in more than 15 years that prosecutors will ask a jury to consider capital punishment…