Mother of Worker Accused in Convair Shootings Testifies

Robert Earl Mack’s mother testified Monday that her son admitted that he had shot two men minutes after two shootings at General Dynamics Convair Division.

Helen Murphy Mack, the last witness called by her son’s attorneys during his murder trial, testified about a phone call the accused man made as police were surrounding an office where he had taken refuge at the aerospace firm’s Lindbergh Field facility.

“He said, ‘Momma, I shot two men, two men down,’ ” Helen Mack quoted her son as saying.

With slurred speech, Robert Mack threatened to kill himself throughout a 10- to 15-minute phone call, Helen Mack said, but she urged him not to subject his family to the pain he would cause by committing suicide.

Before admitting to the shootings, Robert Mack said: “One man had a vendetta against me, the other one fired me,” according to the testimony.

With several witnesses previously testifying that Mack shot and wounded 52-year-old James English and fatally shot 25-year-old Michael Konz, the defense has maintained that the fired Advanced Cruise Missile assembly line worker is not guilty because he had absolutely no consciousness of the attack.

Mack testified last week that he experienced bizarre hallucinations during the time of the shootings, visions that included a sensation of him riding a big, black cat.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Sickels called as his last witness a court-appointed psychiatrist who testified that Mack did not exhibit any signs of severe mental illness that normally lead to wild hallucinations.

In closing arguments set for today, prosecutors will try to convince the jury that Mack was merely a disgruntled worker who fabricated his story of blacking out during the attack.