Mental health experts analyze note from MSU shooter

MID-MICHIGAN (WNEM) – On Friday, March 10, Michigan State University police released more information about the note found on last month’s shooter. Mental health experts who analyzed the note gave their take on what it says about the shooter.

The hand-written note found on the MSU shooter released on Friday, March 10 by investigators is helping explain why the 43-year-old went on a shooting spree on the East Lansing campus, killing three students and critically injuring five.

“I can see clearly that he is struggling and that he is actually very angry with the world and hurt by the world and rejected by the world,” said Karen Gallagher, a therapist and founder of the Wellness Institute of Michigan.

In the note, McRae expressed how he felt like an outcast and loner and that he was tired of being rejected, a sentiment that some mental health professionals say is consistent with the profile of a mass shooter.

“These kinds of feelings, these kinds of cycles of rejection, resentment, revenge, more anger, more drastic revenge. That’s not uncommon in mass shooters. So, if there is a profile, this part of it does fit the profile very well,” said Dr. Gerald Shiener, the chief of psychiatry at Sinai Grace Hospital.

McRae also expressed hatred toward multiple locations and schools in Lansing, Colorado, and New Jersey, which are places he said hurt him. In the note, he also wonders why people “hate him.”

“There are a number of targets and focuses of resentment; this isn’t just something he encountered in one situation. It seems to be repetitive and recurrent,” Shiener said.

While experts believe he was dealing with a lot of emotional distress, they said it does not excuse the events that occurred on Feb. 13 when the lives of Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser, and Alexandria Verner were taken.

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