MERIDIAN, Miss. — A Mississippi man who had spoken openly about his hatred of blacks and his capacity for killing went on a rampage Tuesday morning at the defense plant where he worked, fatally shooting five and wounding nine before taking his own life with a shotgun, authorities and area residents said.
Investigators identified the gunman as Doug Williams, 48, a production assemblyman for the past 19 years at a Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. plant three miles outside this eastern Mississippi industrial city of about 45,000. It was the nation's worst workplace shooting in nearly three years.
Several theories emerged about the motive behind the shootings. Williams had recently gone through a bitter divorce, said Bobby R. Smith, a member of the Meridian City Council. Williams was also reportedly upset about a malfunctioning time-card system at the plant, one investigator said. More than anything, however, witnesses and victims' relatives said that Williams' declared bigotry was to blame.
Four of the five co-workers he killed were black, including Lanette McCall, 47, of nearby Cuba, Ala., an aircraft mechanic at the plant for 15 years and the mother of two daughters. McCall had told her family and her supervisors that Williams had threatened to kill blacks for more than a year, her husband, Bobby, said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening.
Lockheed Martin had placed Williams in anger-management and threat-assessment counseling but had recently returned him to the assembly floor, Bobby McCall said.
"She was real concerned about this guy and his threats and the way he acted at work," McCall said of his wife of 21 years. "He said he was going to do what he did today, and then kill himself. He used the word 'nigger.' That's who he referred to when he was talking about it. She knew he was going to do something. She just kept telling me: 'Don't worry about me. I'm watching him. I'm keeping my eyes on him. And I'm trying to steer clear of him.' "
Williams came to work two weeks ago carrying a white Ku Klux Klan hood, said Terri Collier, an area resident whose 47-year-old husband, Alvin, was shot three times but was expected to survive. Williams was sent home after that incident, Terri Collier said. Alvin Collier told his wife that Williams began his shooting spree in a trailer on the Lockheed Martin plant site, where four black employees were taking an ethics class Tuesday morning.
