OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - The nursing director at a California college where seven people were killed said Wednesday she believes the gunman was targeting her over a financial dispute, but she was teaching elsewhere when he opened fire on others at the campus.
"In talking to several of the students and faculty who were there, I think he was looking for me. I have that weight on my shoulders and I don't know what to do with it," Ellen Cervellon, director of the nursing program at Oikos University, told the Associated Press, her voice quavering.
"Every single one of those students were going to be an excellent, excellent nurse. They're in my heart, and they always will be," she said.
A portrait of suspect One Goh, 43, as an angry, unstable man at the school emerged Wednesday as he made his first appearance in court. He was charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder, plus a special circumstance allegation of committing multiple murders that could make him eligible for the death penalty.
Shackled and showing little emotion, Goh said nothing during the brief appearance other than a soft "yes" when the judge asked if he understood the charges. He did not enter a plea.
In a police affidavit, Officer Robert Trevino said Goh acknowledged going to Oikos on Monday with a .45-caliber handgun and four magazines of ammunition.
"He admitted to kidnapping a woman and forcing her from her office into a classroom at gunpoint," Trevino said in the statement. "He admitted to shooting and killing several people inside the classroom, before taking one of the victim's car keys and fleeing the scene in the victim's car."
Police arrested Goh about an hour after the shooting spree at a supermarket a few miles from campus.
Cervellon said Goh dropped out of the nursing program at the tiny private school around November but returned numerous times to ask her for a full tuition refund.
Goh got angry when she told him the school could not refund all his money because he had been enrolled for nearly half of the program, she said.
Police have said Goh was seeking a female administrator when he went to the campus Monday. When he was told she wasn't there, they said, he began shooting in classrooms, killing six students and a receptionist and wounding three others.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan previously said Goh was angry after being expelled from the school, but Cervellon said he was never expelled and decided to leave on his own.
Jordan confirmed Cervellon was the gunman's intended target. He said investigators plan to interview her soon, and many details were still unclear.