He suffered from a troubled mental history and delusions about government agents. He got a gun. He opened fire. He left dead victims, grieving relatives and a community rocked by senseless violence.

He is not Adam Mau-Goffredo, charged with the triple slayings at a Tantalus lookout.

He's Byran Uyesugi, who sits in prison for murdering seven fellow Xerox workers in 1999.

The parallels are striking.

Although there are major differences between the two men, their mental histories and the circumstances of the shootings, Uyesugi's case provides a broad preview of the challenges facing both the prosecution and defense and a general road map for Mau-Goffredo's criminal proceedings.

Just as in the Uyesugi trial, it's almost certain that the Mau-Goffredo case will focus on the insanity defense. It will delve into his mental condition at the time of the Tantalus shootings.

The key, legal observers believe, will hinge largely on the findings of three court-appointed mental-health experts who would examine the 23-year-old man.

"It's really important," says William Jameson, a former deputy public defender who handled insanity defense cases. "They're appointed by the court. They're neutral. There's no implication that they were paid to come up with that opinion."

A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 13 before Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario on a request to appoint a panel for Mau-Goffredo, a prelude to raising the insanity defense. Once they are named, it will probably be weeks before they report their findings. In addition, the defense and prosecution are also expected to hire their own mental-health experts.

Essentially, just as in the Uyesugi case, the Mau-Goffredo trial will likely be a battle of experts.

TALE OF TWO SUSPECTS

Uyesugi was a 40-year-old Xerox copy machine repairman when he went to the company's offices on Nimitz Highway the morning of Nov. 2, 1999, and gunned down co-workers in the state's worst mass murder.

He had been hospitalized six years earlier suffering from a delusional disorder and paranoid thoughts, but permitted to return to his job.

At his trial, he was described as a disgruntled employee haunted by dark shadows and FBI and CIA agents targeting him.

Mau-Goffredo is accused of taking a taxi ride to Tantalus, fatally shooting the cab driver, Manh Nguyen, and Jason and Colleen Takamori, a Kapahulu couple taking photos of the city from the scenic lookout. He is also charged with committing a home-invasion robbery at a Round Top Drive home.

When he was arrested later that night, Mau-Goffredo was wearing a hat labeled "CIA."

Mau-Goffredo has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

The president of a private firm that cared for Mau-Goffredo in 2002 and 2003 told The Advertiser this month that at one point, he was found dabbling in devil worship, fascinated with "dark spirits" and under the belief that the CIA and FBI were conspiring to kill him.

But there are significant differences in the two cases.

Uyesugi got his 9 mm semiautomatic Glock from an arsenal of weapons he kept at his Nu'uanu home. He fired 28 times, hitting his victims 25 times. Mau-Goffredo is accused of firing a .45 Colt semiautomatic gun that he stole from his caretaker the same day as the shooting.

Uyesugi knew his victims. His troubled relationship with them provided the prosecution with a rationale that he murdered them despite his illness. In Mau-Goffredo's case, there is no indication at this point that he had a personal relationship with his victims.

There was no suggestion that Uyesugi took drugs. But with Mau-Goffredo, his mother sought a restraining order against him in 2002. The request said he had abused alcohol and crystal methamphetamine. That issue might complicate the insanity defense, which must establish it was Mau-Goffredo's illness, not drug use, that led to any delusions at the time of the slaying.

Although suffering from mental problems, Uyesugi was able to function well enough to keep a job.

But Mau-Goffredo's mental condition had reached a point where his mother, Lynnette Mau, and caretaker, William Roy Carroll Jr., asked that Mau-Goffredo be placed under their guardianship. In granting that request prior to the shooting, a state judge found Mau-Goffredo to be "incapacitated," essentially unable to care for himself.

PROSECUTOR REFLECTS

City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, who personally handled the Uyesugi prosecution, is also in charge of the Mau-Goffredo case. His team includes veteran prosecutors Kevin Takata and Christopher Van Marter, who also assisted in the Uyesugi trial.

This time, Carlisle will go up against a defense that includes prominent Honolulu criminal defense lawyer Brook Hart. His team includes Clifford Hunt and John Edmunds, another noted Honolulu defense attorney.

Carlisle said he could not talk about comparing the two cases because the Mau-Goffredo trial is still pending. But he commented on the Uyesugi case because it has been completed.

"The lesson to be learned from the Uyesugi case is that a mental disease, disorder and defect is not necessarily sufficient for the successful defense of insanity," he said.

The three court-appointed experts all concluded Uyesugi was not legally insane — that he could "appreciate" the difference between right from wrong and could conform his conduct to the law.

The defense hired its own experts, including Park Dietz, a nationally recognized California psychiatrist, who came up with what some called a "hair-splitting" conclusion that Uyesugi could tell right from wrong, but could not "appreciate" that what he did was wrong.

"That was a very hard sell," Carlisle recalled.

The jury took about an hour and 20 minutes of deliberations before rejecting the insanity defense and finding Uyesugi guilty of murdering the seven men.

Although Hart declined to compare the cases, he stressed the two cases present "obviously two different situations."

He also said it's premature to make any assessment.

"We're just trying to find out what happened and what happened before that happened," he said.

If a panel is appointed to evaluate Mau-Goffredo, the trial, originally scheduled for the week of Sept. 18, likely will have to be pushed back, perhaps until next year.

At that point, the experts will present what likely will be their conflicting findings of their view of Mau-Goffredo's mental condition, his life and whether he was legally insane.

The jury or judge would then decide whether Mau-Goffredo spends the rest of his life in prison along with Uyesugi or whether he's committed to the Hawai'i State Hospital, where other defendants acquitted of murder by reason of insanity have resided for decades.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.