This photo released by the Alameda County Sheriff's Department shows One Goh, 43, who is suspected of killing seven people at Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. (AP/Alameda County Sheriff's Dept.)
OAKLAND, Calif. – A picture began to emerge late Tuesday of accused Oakland gunman One L. Goh as a "troubled" and "angry" man who fled a failed marriage and business in Virginia to begin a new life in California, only to find new personal and professional hardship in the Golden State.
Goh, a 43-year-old divorced father-of-one, left Virginia in 2009 after his marriage crumbled and his construction company failed, the Oakland Tribune reported, citing a former boss. The unnamed Asian grocery store owner said of Goh, "Something inside went wrong. He was very angry all these years."
He was also saddled with debts, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, including unpaid rent and taxes totaling almost $25,000.
Goh lost both his brother -- Iraq War special forces hero Su Wan Ko -- and mother Oak Chul Kim in 2011 as well as having lost his job with the grocery store after arguing with customers. He worked at another store with his father -- Young Ko -- before again being sacked, the Los Angeles Times said.
Unemployed and being funded by his father, he enrolled in Oikos University to pursue his new dream of studying nursing, another shot at a new life.
His former boss said Goh was "upbeat" when he saw him in 2011 and had told him he wanted to become a nurse to help the elderly.
But at Oikos, a small Christian university in Oakland's south, Goh was teased, he told police. One witness to Monday's massacre, in which seven people were shot dead and another three were wounded, said the gunman "seemed kind of weird ... and people would pick on him."
The former boss said, "Not many people go back to school at that age. He was trying something new and it wasn't working."
The details of his departure from Oikos late in 2011 remain blurry, with some reports he was expelled and others that he feuded with school bosses and dropped out -- but all accounts describe Goh as being dissatisfied with his experiences at the school.
Goh -- who has no criminal record -- bought a semiautomatic pistol in February, police sources said. He is reported to have confessed to police that he arrived at the university Monday intent on killing a particular female administrator, but -- when he failed to locate her -- killed six innocent students and a receptionist instead, before fleeing to a nearby Safeway grocery store, where he was arrested.
While cooperative, police described Goh as remorseless during questioning. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail without charge ahead of his arraignment Wednesday.
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