Man convicted of 2013 slayings at jewelry store

An Antioch man was convicted Thursday in the 2013 slayings of two clerks at a jewelry shop in the South of Market area of San Francisco and trying to kill the owner of the business over the disputed price of a gold chain.

A San Francisco Superior Court jury convicted Barry White Jr., 27, on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder stemming from the violence that erupted July 12, 2013, inside the San Francisco Gift Center and Jewelry Mart on Brannan Street.

White killed 51-yearold Lina Lim and 35year-old Khin Min by cutting both their throats with a knife and shooting Lim with a revolver inside the small jewelry shop. He also shot the shop’s owner, Vic Hung, who survived.

White was also convicted of six other counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault on a peace officer for opening fire on San Francisco police who responded to the jewelry store killings. The jury also found him guilty of possession of an assault weapon.

The conviction carries a special-circumstance designation because White committed multiple murders, making him eligible for life in prison without parole.

During the trial, White’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof, argued for manslaughter, saying White suffered from an untreated mental disorder after he was shot in the head in 2009 in a confrontation with Antioch police.

“This is a young man that was shot at the age of 19,” Maloof said. “He had issues ever since then.”

Juror David Zensius, 71, said the jury had to carefully “consider the mental issues within the case,” and whether White’s actions were planned in advance. They decided they were.

“The specific acts that were committed were pretty simple to decide,” said Zensius, a retired electrical engineer who lives in the Sunset District. “Yes, they happened, and he did them.”

Inside the secondfloor courtroom at the Hall of Justice on Thursday afternoon, White, dressed in a wrinkled red sweatshirt, placed his left hand on his temple as the court clerk began to read the jury’s findings. His hand, slightly shaking, dropped to his lap as the clerk methodically read through all 16 findings of guilt.

A woman who knows White, who would not give her name, knitted one finger over another in the third row of the courtroom, closing her eyes and leaning slightly forward. When the clerk finished reading the jury’s findings, the woman’s eyes shot open wide, and for a moment, the shuffling of papers was the only sound.

Assistant District Attorney Diane Knoles said that especially with the four-year anniversary of the killings coming up next week, she hoped the verdict would bring some measure of closure to the families of the victims.

“I feel good for the families, because they’ve been through so much for the last four years,” Knoles said. “To finally get a little measure of justice is what they wanted.”

Security camera footage played for the jury during the trial that started in early June showed a calm and collected White speaking with Hung before the killings.

White waited until the last customer left the store before challenging Hung over the $5,500 he paid for a gold chain he had purchased weeks earlier, claiming it weighed less than it should have.

White then reached into his pocket and drew a five-shot revolver, firing three times at the owner and once at Lim.

As they fled to a back room, White approached Min, firing his last shot. When he missed, White pulled out a knife and slit her throat. Lim was found almost decapitated.

Covered in blood, White left the store and reloaded his revolver. He fired at responding police officers, ducking into a nearby taqueria, surrendering only when he ran out of ammunition.