BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
A possible Russian mob hit. The robbery of an innocent man out for a walk. A family fight over money. A dispute with a building manager. A bullet seemingly shot into a crowd at random. Those are some of the facts behind murders in Palo Alto over the last three decades. Here’s a look back at those cases.
June 12, 1997 — Six members of a Samoan gang from East Palo Alto known as the True Blue Crips beat to death NASA engineer Bert Kay, 38, on Gilman Street, across from the parking lot for the Saturday Farmers Market. The six were drunk and they killed Kay in a robbery attempt. The murder in the normally quiet downtown area outraged residents. The six were convicted and received sentences ranging up to 25-years-to-life. Kay left behind his wife Meg and twin dangers, Nina and Sonia, who were only 2 years old.
Sept. 22, 1998 — Vladimir Pokhilko slit his own throat and somehow held onto the knife when he stabbed his wife Ellen Fedotova and 12-year-old son Peter Pokhilko, then bludgeoned them with two hammers in their south Palo Alto home. Police originally ruled the case a murder-suicide, but rumors have persisted that they were killed by the Russian mob. In fact the Discovery+ network released a documentary in 2022 exploring the possibility of a mob hit.
May 5, 2000 — Music teacher Kristine Fitzhugh was murdered in her home by her husband, Ken Fitzhugh, who was convicted following a high-profile trial and sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison. He claimed she fell down a set of stairs due to unsteady shoes, but police forensics determined she was hit on the head seven times, strangled and then placed at the bottom of the stairs. It came out during the trial that one of Fitzhugh’s sons was fathered by a family friend, and that Fitzhugh was angry Kristine was going to reveal that fact to the son. Fitzhugh was paroled because he had an advanced case of Parkinson’s Disease and died on Oct. 27, 2012 at age 69.
June 10, 2001 — Maria Hsiao, 21, of San Leandro, was shot outside the now-defunct Q Cafe nightclub at 529 Alma St. She was saying goodbye to friends when a shot rang out and she was hit in the head. Death was immediate. The shooter has never been found despite a $100,000 reward.
Oct. 15, 2009 — Bulos “Paul” Zumot, then 35, was arrested and convicted in the murder of his girlfriend, Jennifer Schipsi, a 29-year-old real estate agent. She was burned to death in a fire he started in their cottage on Addison Avenue. Zumot was convicted previously of domestic violence and he was returning from a court-ordered anger management class when he set the fatal fire. He’s appealing his conviction.
July 7, 2016 — Jenny Shi, 65, was found stabbed 41 times in her home on the 300 block of Creekside Drive in south Palo Alto. On Oct. 6, 2016, police arrested the victim’s sister-in-law, Jingyan Jin, who later accepted a plea bargain and was freed from jail in 2021. Jin, who was married to Shi’s brother, thought Shi had hid a large amount of money in anticipation of Jin’s divorce from Shi’s brother, James, according to prosecutors. Jin felt she was entitled to some of that money.
March 20, 2015 — Marc Miller, a resident of the Alta Torre low-income senior apartment complex at 3895 Fabian Way, took his own life after murdering Vincent Collins, the manager of apartment building. Residents said the dispute likely involved parking.