Mental Disorder Defies Docs
by Azell Murphy Cavaan
Boston Herald
Friday, December 29, 2000
The seed that developed into a cold-blooded workplace massacre this week
was likely planted in the alleged killer's mind long before his financial
woes began, mental health experts said yesterday after learning Michael
M. McDermott had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Experts say there is slight indication that the illness may develop in
utero as a result of genetic abnormalities.
"People have been working on this for years," Isaacs said.
"We know it's not brought on by anything like traumatic childhood
experiences and we think it has to do with some kind of changes in brain
activity."
Sources close to the investigation said yesterday that McDermott, a 42-year-old
Marshfield native who had taken up a hermit's existence, suffered from
paranoid schizophrenia and depression and had been prescribed the antidepressants
Paxil, Prozac and Desyrel.
Investigators say McDermott, charged with the first-degree murder of
seven co-workers at Edgewater Technology Inc., used a semiautomatic rifle
and a 12-gauge shotgun in a post-Christmas Day mass killing that has
been labeled the worst in recent Massachusetts history.
Investigators are still trying to determine if McDermott let loose on
the rampage after an IRS dispute over owed taxes threatened to reduce
his living wage to $275 every two weeks.
"Paranoid Schizophrenia is a very strange disorder," said Harold
Bursztajn, a senior faculty member at Harvard Medical School and co-director
of the Psychiatry and the Law program. "These people commonly suffer
from delusions of persecution and it's a fixed, unshakable belief."
Symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia include a separation of emotion from
cognition, social isolation, and intense states of suspicion, weariness
and fear of others.
It is also common for schizophrenics to hear voices due to a static sound
that experts believe a schizophrenic mind may produce.
Isaacs described the illness as tormenting.
"It's very common for sufferers to think the Army, Navy, FBI or
aliens are after them," Isaacs said. "They often believe God,
aliens or the devil is sending them messages via the television."
Despite experts' belief that the illness could possibly stem from a pre-natal
genetic complication, psychotic symptoms routinely remain masked until
late adolescence or early adulthood. And some sufferers seem to have
had normal childhoods, while others have always seemed to be a bit odd,
experts say.
Schizophrenia affects the entire body but is most devastating to aspects
of organized thought, emotion and expression, Isaacs said, adding that
schizophrenics do not sweat or blink as much as those without the illness.
"It's a fascinating illness from the outside," he said. "It's
agonizing from the inside."
The most common of psychotic disorders, schizophrenia affects nearly
2.7 million Americans, according to industry figures. And there is no
known cure. But despite the mystery surrounding the illness, experts
say they know enough about it to treat the disorder in most cases. Antipsychotic
drugs such as neuroleptics are often prescribed, mental health experts
said yesterday.
"It's very rare for someone who is treated correctly to do anything
(like shoot up a place)," said Jeremy Kisch, senior director for
clinical education at the National Mental Health Association in Virginia.
"With the right medical treatment and therapy you can usually lead
a normal life."
Experts said doctors may have treated McDermott for depression with the
belief that the depression was feeding his paranoid schizophrenia.
Experts speculated that McDermott may have gone off his medication over
the holidays, but added that treatment of the mental illness always requires
close monitoring.
"People respond to medications in different ways," Isaacs said. "The
wrong combination or the wrong dosage can lead to cross effects that
give great power - but not in the direction it was prescribed."