SAN DIEGO : Mack ‘Trauma’ Described to Jurors

A psychiatrist in the San Diego murder trial of Robert Earl Mack testified Friday that the fired General Dynamics employee suffered from “job-loss trauma” that led to suicidal feelings.

“He felt it was all over, and the thing for him to do was make a statement with his suicide,” Dr. Gary L. Shepherd said.

Mack, 43, whose trial is nearing a close in Superior Court, testified earlier this week that he had planned to commit suicide at the Lindbergh Field manufacturing plant operated by General Dynamics Convair Division because his life had ended when he lost his job there.

But something went wrong, according to Mack, when he blacked out and later realized that he had shot and killed Michael Konz, a 25-year-old labor negotiator, and had severely wounded his former supervisor, 52-year-old James English. English is recovering from a gunshot wound in the head.

Shepherd, the only witness who testified Friday, also said that Mack partly believes that his legal troubles will soon end and he will regain his job on the assembly line of the advanced cruise missile project.

“What I found was a significant degree of a lack of contact with reality,” Shepherd said.