Michael Morgan McDermott – December 26, 2000 Workplace Mass Murder
Overview
On December 26, 2000, Michael Morgan McDermott, a 42-year-old application support employee at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Massachusetts, carried out a brutal mass shooting at his workplace. Armed with an AK-47 variant rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a .32-caliber pistol, he fatally shot seven of his co-workers. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in Massachusetts history .
Crime Details
McDermott began his rampage just after 11 a.m., firing a total of 37 rounds, executing victims repeatedly—often with shots to the back of the head . After the killings, he calmly remained in the reception area, where police later found and arrested him without resistance .
Motive and Psychotic Claims
Investigators determined that McDermott was enraged over an IRS garnishment order that had resulted in a portion of his wages being withheld by Edgewater to pay back taxes—estimated at about $5,600 . However, during his trial, McDermott presented a bizarre delusional narrative: he claimed that St. Michael the Archangel instructed him to travel back in time and assassinate Adolf Hitler and six Nazi generals in order to earn a soul . Prosecutors countered that these fantastical claims were concocted to support an insanity defense, citing evidence that McDermott had researched how to fake mental illness and even purchased a textbook entitled *Clinical Assessment of Malingering and Deception* .
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