(4/15/99)

Police say the man responsible for the L.D.S. Family History Library shooting was mentally ill, and had stopped taking his medicine.

News Specialist Pamela Davis spoke with the son of the gunman.

According to his son, the shooter was a toolmaker who moved to the states from Russia in 1981.

He says his father had been in a doctor's care for schizophrenia for about two years.

The son says he begged the doctor to commit his father to some kind of mental hospital, but it never happened.

He shot at least six people at the Family History Library, but family members say he was a victim himself. A victim of mental illness.

Salt Lake Mayor DeeDee Corradini said, "He is apparently schizophrenic and has not been taking his medication lately."

Sergei Babarin's son tells Eyewitness News his father was a paranoid schizophrenic, who carried a gun to defend himself, he said, in case "something happened."

People who lived near him in a Salt Lake apartment building say they noticed Babarin was a little strange.

Neighbor Adelaide Fern Payne says, "He never said or did anything. But I was a bit leery of him."

Adelaide Fern Payne says she suspected Babarin "had problems."

Police say he was arrested at least once before.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Ruben Ortega said, "He was arrested in 1995 at the ZCMI store. It was in relationship to some fight. At that time he did have a weapon, it was a .22 semiautomatic pistol. We're trying to determine if we took that pistol from him and if it was returned at a later time."

Payne says, "I didn't know he had a gun. Of all people, he shouldn't have had one. And I feel very sorry for the people who lost their lives because of this."

The shooter's son feels the mental health system failed his father and is partly responsible for this tragedy.

He says his father was not a violent man by nature, but his illness made him that way.