On a tragic evening in Warwick, Rhode Island, a violent outburst shattered the tranquil atmosphere of a local eatery, leaving several families irrevocably broken. It was June 17, 1978, when a disgruntled employee unleashed a hail of bullets inside Lee's Cathay Terrace, a Chinese restaurant on Post Road, ending the lives of four people and causing the death of a fifth.
Among the victims was a 48-year-old Asian man named Danny Linn.
The perpetrator, Gan Fong Chin, a 48-year-old cook at the restaurant, had concealed a rifle within a gift-wrapped box. He entered his workplace and opened fire on his colleagues. The sudden and brutal attack claimed the lives of the restaurant's co-owner, Robert Lee, who was 51, the maître d', John O'Dell, aged 40, and a pregnant cashier, 38-year-old Dorothy Johnston. Danny Linn, a coworker of Chin's, was also fatally wounded in the rampage. Amid the chaos, an elderly patron, Cecila G. Bagity, 66, suffered a fatal heart attack.
Following the horrific event, law enforcement swiftly identified and apprehended Gan Fong Chin. During the investigation, it was revealed that Chin had a history of mental illness and harbored paranoid delusions that his coworkers had been poisoning his food since January of that year. He was arraigned on five murder charges and held without bail. The senseless act of violence was attributed to his distorted belief, which tragically culminated in the deaths of his unsuspecting colleagues and a customer who was simply dining at the restaurant that fateful night.
