So Mucko thinks he died, eh?

[Larry_Mudd]

According to his lawyer, Michael M. McDermott, who shot seven of his co-workers last December, thought that he was attacking Hitler and six of his generals. “Mucko” is also convinced that he died that day, and everything that is happening around him is unreal, ala Jacob’s Ladder.

This is not some lawyer trick. This man is insane. As he sits here in front of you now, he is insane,'' Reddington told the jurors. I will put him on that witness stand and I will ask him questions and you will hear him say that you don’t exist, that I don’t exist, the judge doesn’t exist and the people in this courtroom don’t exist.’’

Thanks to Google’s newsgroup archives, we have the unique opportunity to sort through his posts from the last eight years and try to judge for ourselves. It’s clear that some sort of degeneration was taking place, as he initially posted mainly to humour and gaming groups. (To say that his sense of humour left a little to be desired is a bit of an understatement, and most of his contributions are pretty damned sick.) Later he gravitated more to discussions about weapons and explosives.

I hope that the sort of people who get hysterical about role-playing games don’t get wind of his '97 post to rec.games.frp.dnd, in which he badly misquotes Yoda:

“Bah! Treasure! Superior weapons! Surprise attacks! A true warrior these things craves not! To fight and die with honor for any warrior more than enough is.”

I’m a little suspicious of his supposed insanity. In this post to alt.eng.explosives just five days before the murders, he sounds quite rational. This was, mind you, supposedly after the Archangel Michael gave him his ‘holy mission’.

What, if anything, happened to create such a turn-about in a man who less than a year-and-a-half before had responded to an islamaphobic nut by saying:

It would seem that some “Christians” have forgotten the Sixth Commandment. It is hard to imagine Jesus resorting to land mines.

Maybe it’s morbid (and fundamentally pointless) to dig through all this, but what the hell happened there?

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Am I going crazy too? Is it just me or does a lot of stuff seem like an IMHO thread today?

[breaknrun]

Hmm. Well, IANAD but my experience with 2 people with mental disorders has taught me that bouts of perfect lucidity can be interspered with insanity rather well. The Yoda style quoting isn’t all that bizarre esp. wrt a gaming environment.
Since the man is fairly intelligent and also has done some study of psychological disorders, I believe that it wouldn’t be difficult for him to fool most if not all shrinks. Some people are better actors than you will ever find on the silver screen. I wouldn’t worry too much. Even if an insanity defense succeeds, they will still lock him up since he is obviously dangerous. He’ll just get locked up in a state institution that isn’t called prison.