CAMBRIDGE - Rejecting Michael "Mucko" McDermott's fantastic time-traveling tale of killing Nazis, a jury yesterday found the hulking gunman guilty of executing seven co-workers in the bloodiest mass murder in Bay State history.
Relatives of the seven victims burst into applause and hurled expletives as the mammoth killer was led from the courtroom in shackles to begin serving seven consecutive life sentences for the Dec. 26, 2000, Edgewater Technology rampage.
"Die in there," one relative shouted.
"Scumbag," yelled another.
The Middlesex Superior Court jury spent 14 hours deliberating the case over three days before dismissing McDermott's insanity defense and reaching their verdict just before 2 p.m.
Judge R. Malcolm Graham could have sentenced McDermott to one life sentence, but sided with prosecutors and handed down seven life terms - one for each victim.
"I feel that it's appropriate that each life should be recognized individually," Graham said, noting that the case leaves an "overwhelming sense of sadness."
More than 40 relatives of the victims sobbed, held hands and hugged as each guilty verdict was announced. Many nodded their heads with eyes closed as their loved ones' names were read aloud.
McDermott, 43, a computer tech at the Wakefield firm, stood motionless as the jury forewoman sealed his fate. After the verdicts were read, McDermott went back to reading his Bible - as he did during the entire 14-day trial - and never looked up as family members lashed out at him.
Scott Troy, whose sister Cheryl Troy was the first of the seven victims killed, called McDermott a "coward" who "buried his face" in the Bible to avoid confronting the horrific reality of his crimes.
"His life is insignificant. He will die in a silent hell he has created for himself," Troy said. "He has accomplished nothing."
Victim Janice Hagerty's husband, Daniel, blasted McDermott, calling him a "weak, cowardly, pathetic loser."
He recalled his wife and "best friend" of 22 years as the life of the party who loved to pull people onto the dance floor at weddings. She is now buried in the same cemetery where the couple taught their daughter to ride a bike.
"If he had had someone like Janice in his life, maybe all this never would have happened," Hagerty said. Glaring at McDermott, he added, "But right now I'm glad you're going to die in prison. ... I hope you're about to enter a life of hell, of constant cruelty and degradation."
CAMBRIDGE - Rejecting Michael "Mucko" McDermott's fantastic time-traveling tale of killing Nazis, a jury yesterday found the hulking gunman guilty of executing seven co-workers in the bloodiest mass murder in Bay State history.
Relatives of the seven victims burst into applause and hurled expletives as the mammoth killer was led from the courtroom in shackles to begin serving seven consecutive life sentences for the Dec. 26, 2000, Edgewater Technology rampage.
"Die in there," one relative shouted.
"Scumbag," yelled another.
The Middlesex Superior Court jury spent 14 hours deliberating the case over three days before dismissing McDermott's insanity defense and reaching their verdict just before 2 p.m.
Judge R. Malcolm Graham could have sentenced McDermott to one life sentence, but sided with prosecutors and handed down seven life terms - one for each victim.
"I feel that it's appropriate that each life should be recognized individually," Graham said, noting that the case leaves an "overwhelming sense of sadness."
More than 40 relatives of the victims sobbed, held hands and hugged as each guilty verdict was announced. Many nodded their heads with eyes closed as their loved ones' names were read aloud.
McDermott, 43, a computer tech at the Wakefield firm, stood motionless as the jury forewoman sealed his fate. After the verdicts were read, McDermott went back to reading his Bible - as he did during the entire 14-day trial - and never looked up as family members lashed out at him.
Scott Troy, whose sister Cheryl Troy was the first of the seven victims killed, called McDermott a "coward" who "buried his face" in the Bible to avoid confronting the horrific reality of his crimes.
"His life is insignificant. He will die in a silent hell he has created for himself," Troy said. "He has accomplished nothing."
Victim Janice Hagerty's husband, Daniel, blasted McDermott, calling him a "weak, cowardly, pathetic loser."
He recalled his wife and "best friend" of 22 years as the life of the party who loved to pull people onto the dance floor at weddings. She is now buried in the same cemetery where the couple taught their daughter to ride a bike.
"If he had had someone like Janice in his life, maybe all this never would have happened," Hagerty said. Glaring at McDermott, he added, "But right now I'm glad you're going to die in prison. ... I hope you're about to enter a life of hell, of constant cruelty and degradation."
Prosecutor Thomas O'Reilly said McDermott deserved the "ultimate punishment," but called for the consecutive life sentences because Massachusetts doesn't have the death penalty.
"Michael McDermott is owed no mercy by the court, by the families, by anyone," O'Reilly said. "He viciously used a high-powered rifle ... and executed seven wonderful people."
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington praised the jury for their diligence and told Graham, "You have given this man one of the fairest trials I've seen in my 27 years of trying cases."
Reddington, reached outside the Cambridge courthouse, was humble and had no dispute with the verdict.
"I think I served my purpose," he said. "But it's a very strange feeling. I didn't want to say too much. This is the time for the families of those seven victims."
McDermott's parents, Richard and Rosemary Martinez, declined comment.
Jurors said they were anxious to reach a timely verdict for the victims' families. They were convinced of McDermott's guilt but took nearly three days to satisfy themselves that while obviously unbalanced he was still criminally responsible.
"Some people, because of their own personal experience with their families, really needed a lot of convincing that someone who had done something like this ... well, they had to be insane, right?" said one juror, speaking on condition of anonymity. During the trial, some jurors were visibly upset as they heard disturbing eyewitness accounts and saw graphic autopsy photos and crime scene footage.
Edgewater CEO Shirley Singleton said the verdict is "another step in the process of healing."
"While we will never be able to forget what happened on that tragic day, today's verdict will help us bring some level of closure," Singleton said.
The trial was marked by two days of chilling testimony from McDermott, who said he believed he was gunning down Hitler and six Nazis - not his terrified co-workers. Emotionless and matter-of-fact, he told the shocked courtroom he believed St. Michael the Archangel ordered him to go back in time to kill Nazis and stop the Holocaust to save his own soul.
He said he swallowed painkillers and drank vodka before going to the lobby and saying, "I need to go to H.R."
The "trigger phrase" opened a portal that transported him back to 1940 Berlin, where he described executing six "Nazi generals" wearing swastika armbands, and then Hitler. After completing his "mission," he said he believes he died at a "German police station" and is now in purgatory.
When he was arrested in the Edgewater foyer after the shootings, his only words to the police were, "I don't speak German."
In the end, the jury apparently didn't buy McDermott's supernatural, time-traveling tale.
Instead, the panel sided with prosecutors who painted him as a methodical, "cold-blooded killer" who carried out the murders to avenge Edgewater officials' decision to dock his pay to satisfy a $5,600 IRS debt. McDermott disputed he owed the money and admitted during testimony that he "drew a line in the sand" so the IRS "wouldn't get a penny."
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, who poked holes in the testimony of defense experts who said McDermott was insane, said she thinks he simply made up the Nazi-killing tale. She called McDermott a "master gamesman" who "manipulated the mental health system for his own reasons."
"I believe he was depressed and had a personality disorder, but I do not believe he was psychotic. I believe (the tale) was fabricated by him as a psychic alibi," Coakley said after the verdict.
Prosecutors say he test-fired the weapons and made a will in the days before the bloodbath and carefully chose his victims.
Troy, 50, of Beverly Farms, and Rose Manfredi, 48, of Lexington, were targeted because they arranged to garnish McDermott's wages and told him the company had to comply with the IRS order.
McDermott told them they were "no better than Nazis" during a meeting days before the murders.
Louis Javelle, 58, of Nashua, N.H., is also believed to have been targeted because he was one of McDermott's supervisors and once reprimanded him for using his nickname, "Mucko," in company e-mails. The other victims - Hagerty, 46, of Stoneham; Craig Wood, 29, of Haverhill; Jennifer Capobianco, 29, of Brighton; and Paul Marceau, 36, of Melrose - may have just been caught in the gunman's sights.
"If you look at the act, it's clear it was deliberate," Coakley said. "He killed the people he wanted to kill and a couple who got in the way."
(Doug Hanchett, Tom Farmer, Jessica Heslam, Laurel J. Sweet and Franci Richardson contributed to this report.)
