MARSHFIELD, Mass. — The parents of Michael McDermott, accused of one of the worst workplace massacres in Massachusetts history, say their son suffered a mental breakdown while working at a nuclear power plant during the 1980s and had subsequent, lingering bouts of depression — an illness that ran in the family and landed him in the hospital at least three times.
"Everyone is looking for me to say something that is dramatic to explain why he did this," said Richard Martinez, 72, a retired teacher. "But I cannot. I cannot comprehend that my son did this. I think of the seven families who have been so horribly destroyed, We're devastated for these seven families."
"Those horrible pictures of him — the face of evil," said his mother, Rosemary Martinez, referring to a newspaper headline just after McDermott was arrested last week. "He's not a fiend. It's the face of mental illness, not evil."
Martinez and his wife, Rosemary, agreed to a three-hour interview in their century-old farmhouse here 10 days after their son was charged with killing seven colleagues at Edgewater Technology Inc.'s Wakefield headquarters. Though seemingly inconsolable, they agreed to speak to a reporter hoping to explain that McDermott's alleged rampage was spurred by mental illness, not rage.
"It's just awful," Richard Martinez said. "It just can't be. We're going to wake up and this is not going to be."
Inside their home Thursday morning, the Martinezes are proud parents, flipping through scrapbooks detailing the milestones in their son Michael's life: his bravura performance in a production of "The Music Man" at Marshfield High School, his decorated career as a Navy submariner and his wedding to a hometown girl. The walls of their home are lined with happy family photos and portraits.
The couple describes their middle child as outgoing and friendly — the antithesis of violent, right up to the day before his arrest.
"He was never violent. That's why this is incomprehensible," said his mother Rosemary Martinez, 71, also a retired teacher.
The day before the Wakefield shooting, McDermott brought his new girlfriend to his family's house to celebrate Christmas, his parents said. He gave books as gifts to his relatives, including Websters Quotations for his mother and a book on antiques for his father.
By his parent's account, McDermott seemed happy and normal.
"We had the most wonderful Christmas with him," his mother said. "I don't know a time when he was in better spirits. From start to finish it was a great day."
Richard Martinez added, "He was ebullient as he always was."
The next day — 45 minutes before the shooting began — Rosemary Martinez called her son at work. She reminded him to bring some Christmas gift certificates he'd forgotten the day before.
"He said he wished (Christmas day) hadn't ended," she said. "I talked with him and laughed with him at 10."
She sighed. "That was an hour before all this broke loose."
Described by his parents as a "brilliant" child, McDermott was a self-taught computer whiz and a mechanical genius who could fix anything.
The job, which paid about $55,000 a year, was the latest in a string of technical positions McDermott held since high school, where he excelled in everything but the humanities. He had a beautiful voice, they said, and loved performing in the theater.
Though his college entrance exam scores were "spectacular," his father said, his son's grades weren't good enough for him to enroll in a four-year school. After graduation, McDermott signed up for a six-year hitch in the US Navy, where he joined the submarine corps and became an electrician.
Court records indicate McDermott filed for a legal name change in 1982 because he wanted to more closely identify with his Irish heritage, but Richard Martinez said his son simply wanted to avoid confusion with another sailor on the Narwhal named Martinez.
After leaving the Navy, his parents said, McDermott wanted to experience life a bit more before attending college. He took a job at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscassett, Maine and worked as an a electrician.
While working in Maine in the late 1980s, however, McDermott suffered the first of several mental breakdown — triggered, his parents believe, by a breakup with his girlfriend at the time.
"He wanted me to go up and find him. He was suicidal," said his father. "I drove all night and I got him home between 4 and 5 a.m."
McDermott returned to Massachusetts, where a psychiatrist sent him to Pembroke Hospital, his parents said. He remained there for a month, undergoing treatment for severe depression — an unfortunate family trait.
"We have a very bad genetic family history of depression," he said.
With the help of a psychiatrist and antidepressants, McDermott eventually returned to Maine and went back to his old job. But the depression returned, so McDermott came back to Massachusetts and moved to Rockland, not far from Marshfield.
Another bout of depression sent him back to Pembroke Hospital for another month, his parents said. He moved to Quincy and was hospitalized for another month in Boston.
But when he married Monica Sheehan — his high school sweetheart — his mental state improved, he said.
"She was a very vivacious girl," Rosemarie Martinez said. "They shared a love of movies. They'd spend hours watching movies."
But the depression returned and his marriage failed, his father said.
Though he'd been a tall, handsome child, his mother said, McDermott had gained more than 150 pounds by the 1990s, around the time he took a job with Duracell. There, his parents said, McDermott developed three patents for batteries. But when the company moved to Connecticut, McDermott didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay close to his family.
After his marriage dissolved, McDermott indulged his love of computers, spending more and more time on line, his father said. That computer expertise, he added, led a friend to recommend McDermott for a job at Edgewater Technology.
Though interviews and documents suggest that McDermott's life was slowly unraveling by this point — he owed around $5,000 in back taxes, his car was near repossession and he had developed a taste for weapons and explosives — his parents said their son seemed on the rebound; he was on medication and was seeing a psychiatrist once a week.
"They gave him a clean bill of health," Richard Martinez said. "They said with medication he'd be fine."
McDermott had hobbies as well, his parents said. He loved books and the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, where he met his new girlfriend.
Though they knew their son kept guns, his father insisted "there was nothing sinister about it.
"All but one were licensed. He'd go and do target shooting," Richard Diaz said. "He learned it in the Navy. It was machinery again. There was never a gun in this house. I'm violently opposed to guns in the house."
If their son had financial problems, they knew nothing about it. He was generous to a fault and indulged his friends and family.
"He would pay for everybody when they did things. He gave marvelous gifts," Richard Martinez said. "If there was something new in the electronics business, he had it.
"I read in the papers that he owed something like $5,000 in all" in back taxes, he said. "That's chicken feed. You don't go out and kill someone for $5,000."
When news of the shooting broke — and they found out their son was the suspected gunman — "I don't think you could put into words how we felt," Rosemary Martinez said.
"It was the beginning of the horror," her husband added. "This is the antithesis of my his normal behavior. I can't comprehend that my son did this.
They've seen their son once in jail, but didn't discuss the visit.
"We just wanted to let him know how much we loved him. We knew that he knew that we had been through hell," Richard Martinez said. "We knew he had been through hell."
And they grieved for the victims — particularly Jennifer Bragg Capobianco, 24, a new mother who had just returned to work.
"She had a two-month-old baby," Richard Martinez said. "The child is going to grow up without a mother."