MASSACHUSETTS DOESN'T SERVE...EVEN IF YOU KILL SEVEN

Man Found Guilty of Killing 7 Co-Workers NYTimes (free reg. required)

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 24 (AP) — A man who shot to death seven co-workers at a software company was convicted of murder today after failing to convince a jury that he was so delusional he thought he was killing Hitler and his henchmen to prevent the Holocaust.

The defendant, Michael McDermott, 43, stood impassively as he heard the verdict in a courtroom full of relatives of the victims. The convictions on seven counts of first-degree murder mean Mr. McDermott will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Massachusetts does not have a death penalty.

Prosecutors said Mr. McDermott went on his rampage because he was angry about the company's plan to comply with an order by the Internal Revenue Service to withhold a large part of his salary to pay back taxes.

Prosecutors also cited steps they said Mr. McDermott had taken to plan the killings, including test-firing his shotgun two days earlier and taking the guns to work on Christmas, the day before the killings, when no one was in the office.