Sunday, July 30, 2006 - 12:00 AM

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ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Naveed Haq enters a King County Jail courtroom in Seattle for his bail hearing on Saturday. His bail was set at $50 million.

ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Naveed Haq's court-appointed attorney leads him from a King County Jail courtroom in Seattle after his bail hearing. His bail was set at $50 million.

DONNA LASATER / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Naveed Haq's family lives in an expansive home on the Columbia River in Pasco.

MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Recently Naveed Haq had lived in a cramped apartment in a house in Everett.

By David Postman and Michael Berens
Seattle Times staff reporters

For more than a decade Naveed Haq battled ever-worsening mental illness that kept him from holding a job, finding friends or being close to his family.

It's been a seesaw battle, though. At times Haq showed signs of a driven young man: He went off to dental school, applied for engineering jobs and pitched himself as a financial adviser to students he tutored.

And in the past two weeks he was clear enough of mind to find a target, arm himself, drive across the mountains and tell his victims at the Jewish Federation of Seattle in the most concise terms who he was and why he was there: "I am a Muslim American. I am angry at Israel."

"Sometimes he'd be normal, other times he'd be in different worlds," said Muhammad Kaleem Ullah, a longtime family friend whom Haq called Uncle. "I could see the mental illness in him. Anyone around him could tell something wasn't exactly right. But it was hard to describe."

Haq used almost the same phrase himself on a Classmates.com questionnaire: "Your friends would describe you as: Hard to figure out."

Haq, 30, grew up in the Tri-Cities. His parents live in Pasco, where his father is an engineer at the Hanford nuclear reservation. About five years ago, Haq traveled with his parents to Pakistan where he married a woman in a traditional, arranged marriage, Ullah said. But the Haqs returned without the bride — and with no explanation of what happened.

Recently Haq had been living in one of many small apartments — really just a room with a mattress and nothing else — packed into a house in Everett. He hadn't been seen there for about two weeks.

Saturday, at the Haqs' expansive home with a panoramic view of the Columbia River, his mother, Nahida, stood on the other side of a glass door and told a reporter to go away.

"It's too much for me right now," she said. "It's overwhelming."

Naveed Haq brought a series of problems home over the years.

Ullah said Haq's parents told him they have been dealing with their elder son's mental illness since his days at Richland High School. They didn't say much, Ullah said, and they were clearly embarrassed and frustrated by their son's problems.

They were, though, "desperately trying to help their son," who was on medication, Ullah said.

Larry Stephenson, a Kennewick attorney representing Haq on a pending misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct, said Haq has been getting psychiatric help for about 10 years.

"He's had real difficulty," said Stephenson.

He was a bright honor-roll student and won an award in high school for an essay he wrote about peace.

After graduation, Haq went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., to study biology, according to Stephenson. The college late Saturday could not confirm whether he attended or graduated, according to a spokeswoman.

After Rensselaer, Haq wanted to be a dentist. He studied at a school in Pennsylvania, but mental problems began to consume him and he left soon after arriving, said Stephenson.

He came back to Tri-Cities and attended the two-year Columbia Basin College. In 2004, he graduated from Washington State University's Tri-Cities campus with a degree in electrical engineering, according to university records.

Last year he was tutoring students at Columbia Basin. But he used tutoring sessions to solicit students for an investment firm he had started.

Derek Brandes, an assistant dean at the school, said he remembered a tutor named Naveed, but said until he reviewed records he couldn't be sure it was Haq. He said when students complained, he confronted the tutor and then told him he was letting him go.

"He was calm about it," Brandes said. "Almost unusually calm."

The calm side of Haq was nowhere to be found in March of this year. He was in a Kennewick mall and climbed up on a fountain, yelling at women at the makeup counter in Macy's. He then exposed himself to young women who walked by.

Haq was arrested and taken to jail. He phoned Ullah, and said: "I don't want to call my parents. I don't want you to tell my parents. I've been too much trouble to my parents. Uncle, please help me."

Ullah bailed out Haq, who was charged with lewd conduct and has yet to go to trial.

After that, Ullah said, he went months without seeing Haq. His father had helped start a local mosque, but between March and early July, Naveed never showed up.

At some point last spring, Haq moved to Everett. He reconnected with a friend from his WSU studies.

The friend, who talked on the condition he would not be named, said Haq surfed the Internet for foreign news, particularly about the Middle East. He said Haq made anti-Semitic comments.

"I thought it was more anti-Israel than anti-Jew, but he'd say things like, 'Jews run the media,' and 'The news is pro-Israel,' " the friend said.

Haq became increasingly isolated.

"He had absolutely no outlet," said Stephenson. "He told me that. He had only one friend. He was very isolated and lonely."

In the past few weeks, though, Haq reappeared in the Tri-Cities. Ullah said Haq reconnected with his parents, was staying at their home and was attending mosque.

Haq's father immigrated in the early 1970s from Pakistan, where he was a standout engineering student, ranked No. 1 in his college class. By the end of that decade, he had helped start the Islamic Center of Tri-Cities. The current mosque, built in 1996, is an understated, one-story building with a basketball court, a playground and a tower topped with a crescent.

At services this month Haq stayed in the back, seldom talked and showed no enthusiasm for the religion that was so important to his father, according to Ullah.

Ullah last saw Haq on July 21. Haq hadn't been seen at his Everett apartment since a bit before that, according to another tenant, Chris Richey, who said the landlady told him Haq was going to Pakistan.

Stephenson was scheduled to represent Haq in court Thursday on the lewd-conduct charge from March, but the trial was postponed. Ullah said Haq has never explained what happened in the mall that day — an incident that embarrassed his father terribly.

Saturday, Haq's parents were struggling with much worse.

They were praying for Pamela Waechter, the woman Haq killed, and the other women he injured. They cannot forget it was a Haq who blasted into the Jewish Federation.

"They are worried to death their name is bringing shame to their people," Stephenson said.

Seattle Times reporters Jonathan Martin, Susan Kelleher and Charlotte Hsu,

and researcher Gene Balk contributed

to this report.

David Postman: 360-236-8267 or dpostman@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company