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Engineer guns down 7 co-workers
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US prosecutors said on Wednesday that a 42-year-old software engineer who allegedly gunned down seven co-workers at an Internet company near Boston methodically targeted his victims in a premeditated killing spree.
Defence attorney Kevin Reddington said his client had been under psychiatric care and was taking medication.
Investigators said they believed the rampage, among the worst workplace mass murders in US history, may have been triggered by Michael McDermott's anger at plans by his employer, Edgewater Technology Inc, to comply with an Internal Revenue Service levy to collect back taxes from his wages.
Prosecutor Tom O'Reilly said that the killings on Tuesday ``perpetrated with extreme atrocity and cruelty''.
O'Reilly described in chilling detail how McDermott, a Navy veteran who served as an electrician on a nuclear attack submarine, allegedly executed seven of his co-workers, shooting each several times as they sat at their work stations, cowered under their desks, or tried to crawl or run away.
Before the rampage began about 11.15am on Tuesday, McDermott talked to co-workers about their holidays.
McDermott is accused of using a semiautomatic assault rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot each of his victims multiple times in the head, according to a Wakefield Police Department report. Before opening fire at the reception desk, McDermott reportedly said, ``I need to go see human resources.''
O'Reilly described how McDermott then used the pump shotgun and ``blew the door off and the door handle off'' a room where three people had taken refuge.
``He then went inside and he shot one individual three times in the chest. ... Another woman was shot twice in the legs and then shot in the head with a shotgun.''
Next to McDermott was a black tote bag with a minimum of four fully loaded 30-round magazines along with boxes of ammunition. Shotgun shells and ammunition for the semiautomatic revolver were also found in the bag, O'Reilly said.
Police counted 37 rounds fired from the semiautomatic rifle and numerous shotgun shells.
McDermott's work area also held arms and ammunition. Police found a large calibre hunting rifle, described as an ``elephant gun'', with a mounted scope and ammunition as well as shotgun shells in his desk and locker.
Inside his apartment in Haverhill, Massachusetts, they found bomb-making materials such as blasting caps, fuses and three gallons of nitric acid, a key ingredient in the explosive nitroglycerin, O'Reilly said.
In the weeks leading up to the shooting, McDermott was involved in heated exchanges with human resources and accounting officials because of the IRS demand for back taxes. An Edgewater Technology employee told police that the proposed garnishment would have left McDermott with as little as US$250 per pay period, police reported.
Shirley Singleton, Edgewater chief executive, said his motivations were personal and could not have been prevented. (SD-Agencies)
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