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  • From: "David R. Matusiak" <matusiak AT hotmail.com>
  • Subject: programmer goes berzerko
  • Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 19:53:21 -0500


http://www.msnbc.com/msn/507989.asp?cp1=1

7 dead in Boston-area office shooting
Suspect, 42, was co-worker at Internet
consulting firm

MSNBC staff and wire reports
WAKEFIELD, Mass., Dec 26 - Seven
people were killed Tuesday when a heavily
armed man opened fire on co-workers at
an Internet consulting firm in suburban
Boston. Police burst into the building and
seized the man as he sat in the lobby.

MICHAEL McDERMOTT, 42, would be charged with
seven counts of murder in the shootings at
Edgewater Technology, said John McEvoy, a
Middlesex County prosecutor.

The names of the victims were withheld pending
notification of their families.

McEvoy would not discuss a motive other than
to say it was "work-related." Co-workers said
McDermott was a software tester, about
6-foot-2 with a long, flowing beard. He was
friendly but "a little strange," said Mike
Stanley, a project leader.

McDermott recently had been coming in late and
his performance wasn't as good as it could
have been, Stanley said. He declined to
elaborate.

None of the victims was among McDermott's
supervisors, he said. "It seems like a random
ridiculous thing," Stanley said. "It makes no
sense to me."

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington had no
immediate comment.

SUSPECT HEAVILY ARMED
McDermott had an AK-47 rifle, a shotgun and a
semi-automatic handgun when police burst into
the building and found him sitting in the
lobby with his weapons.

"The Wakefield police were able to subdue Mr.
McDermott, wrestle him to the ground, place
him in custody," McEvoy said.

Authorities said McDermott, an employee with
Edgewater Technology since March, came to work
as usual Tuesday morning. Around 11 a.m.,
however, he walked through the company's
offices in a converted factory building and
methodically killed seven people, McEvoy said.

"I thought I was going to die," said a
29-year-old Edgewater worker, who declined to
give his name.

Frank Harrington, a contract consultant for
the company, said he was in the building at
the time of the shooting and heard eight to 10
shots.

Mike Brownson, who works across the street
from the office complex, watched as police
arrived and surrounded the building.

"When police are ducking behind their own
vehicles, it's not something you see every
day," said Brownson.

Darren Emery,the manager of a store
across the street, told MSNBC Cable that 14
employees took cover in his store.

One witness said McDermott had "gone postal."

Jonathan Oldham, a 35-year-old carpenter, said
McDermott moved out of a six-unit apartment
complex in Weymouth, south of Boston, at the
end of October. Oldham was surprised to learn
the man he said was quiet and kept to himself
was accused of the rampage.

"I freaked," he said. "You never know if
someone has problems with their life. It could
have happened here."

COMPANY IN STATE OF FLUX
Started as a private Internet commerce
software firm outside Boston in 1992,
Edgewater Technologies was purchased by a
large publicly traded temporary staffing
company, StaffMark Inc. of Fayetteville, Ark.,
in May 1999.

The company has been in a state of flux
lately. In the past 18 months, StaffMark began
shedding its staffing units to focus solely on
high-tech consulting at Edgewater.

StaffMark changed its name to Edgewater last
summer, just as it completed the sales of its
largest staffing units.

MSNBC.com has learned the company may have
been in the process of removing its shares
from public markets.

In a Dec. 21 filing with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, Edgewater issued a stock
buyback plan that may have been a precursor to
taking the company private. Such a move would
end any employee's near-term hopes of striking
it rich with stock options.


Edgewater buyback plan may hint at
motive


John Cooley, director of investor relations,
confirmed that the company has undergone
changes in the past few months, including its
business focus, but said there hadn't been any
layoffs and none was planned that he knew of.

EMPLOYEES 'SHOCKED AND DEVASTATED'
Shirley Singleton, Edgewater's chief
executive, released a statement of sympathy.

"Everyone at Edgewater
Technology is shocked
and devastated by the
loss of our friends,"
the statement said in
part and added, "We
extend our deepest sympathies to the victims'
families at this tragic time."

Survivors of the attack were in shock, said
the Rev. Tom Powers, who helped with grief
counseling at St. Joseph's Church, where about
100 employees, family members and friends
gathered after the shooting. They left
sporadically, their faces stained by tears and
holding each other for support.

"There's nothing you can do to take the grief
away," Powers said.

Nancy Pecjo, a software developer with the
company who is on maternity leave, was not at
work at the time of the shootings but went to
the building after hearing the news.

She said 30 to 40 employees worked at the
Wakefield office. She did not know who had
been shot.

"It's a great company, a wonderful company,"
she said, adding that she didn't know of
anyone who'd been fired recently or was
disgruntled.

"It's a small company, you get to know
everybody there," she said. "When something
like this happens it's very distressing."

Edgewater also has offices in Alabama,
Arkansas, Minnesota and New Hampshire.

Edgewater's Massachusetts offices are in the
Harvard Mills office complex, a three-story,
red brick former factory that houses several
companies in Wakefield, which is 10 miles
north of downtown Boston. The suburb is part
of the high-tech corridor that rings the city.

The shooting was the latest in a string of
shootings in recent years in U.S. workplaces,
schools and churches.

A shooting rampage in Honolulu in November
1999 also left seven dead. Others include July
1999 shootings that left nine dead at two
Atlanta brokerages, and August 1999 shootings
that left three people dead at two office
buildings in Pelham, Ala.


The Associated Press and Reuters contributed
to this report.

---
this year i resolve to get pissing drunk everyday
and make faces at people in line at the teeter.
oh shit, you're sposda make a *different* resolution
every year, aren't you??
---

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