By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Timother Robertson
Newsday
Related: 2 N.Y. teens arrested in plot to destroy school
BOHEMIA, N.Y. — Two troubled teenagers — one angry and the other depressed — wanted to shoot and kill people at the McDonald’s restaurant in Bohemia where they worked in addition to planning what Suffolk police said could have been a massive attack on Connetquot High, according to copies of their statements to a detective that are filed in court records.
One of the teens — Michael McDonough, 17, of Holbrook — said that at a June 30 sleepover, he and his 15-year-old friend made a video talking about using pipe bombs to destroy the McDonald’s on Veterans Highway, according to McDonough’s statement. At about midnight, they headed to the restaurant carrying three eggs, which they threw at the building as a “rehearsal” for what would happen next, he told the Suffolk detective.
In a written waiver of rights that accompanies each statement, the teens declined legal counsel before providing the statements last Tuesday to the detective, who wrote down their accounts. The mother of the 15-year-old was present when he gave his account.
The younger of the two, a 15-year-old Connetquot High School student whom police would not identify because he is charged as a juvenile, said he “had angry thoughts about killing people at Connetquot High School because I don’t feel they’ve done right by me.” People taunted him for living in a trailer park, the statement said.
The 15-year-old said he shared his plan to attack McDonald’s with McDonough, but said he didn’t remember telling his friend about the school plot: “I mention killing people and shooting up the school quite a bit in my journal, but I don’t remember saying it to Mike.”
In McDonough’s statement, he says that depression and suicidal thoughts led him to go along with the 15-year-old. He said the two hatched the plot against Connetquot High in February while they were on a school break.
McDonough told the detective he “didn’t care where life was going to leave me next. I told [the 15-year-old] that I was on board and would help him shoot up the Connetquot High School.” He said the 15-year-old talked about “killing his whole school, hundreds of people.”
McDonough, a student at Sachem High School North, eventually distanced himself from the violent endeavors when he got a girlfriend and his family life improved, the 15-year-old wrote.
At the end of his statement, the younger boy expressed reservations, saying his journal entries were just a way to vent and that he “never had any intention of carrying out these thoughts.”
Both the 15-year-old and McDonough describe how the younger teen searched the Internet for an Uzi submachine gun.
McDonough said his friend had saved $1,000 to buy weapons, and at one point called a company to inquire about whether a $350 Uzi and silencer he had seen advertised on the Internet was in stock.
The 15-year-old, in his account, said the phone message left with the submachine gun company was never returned.
The two aimed for a date for the school attack — calling it J-Day, short for judgment day — April 20, 2008, the ninth anniversary of the Columbine High School killings. The younger teen seemed to model his plan after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who carried out the Colorado attack, McDonough said.
If for some reason the attack couldn’t be carried out then, they planned to try for June 11, the younger boy’s birthday.
The 15-year-old referred to himself as “Dark,” from a video game, and “Dante,” a character in the movie “Clerks,” McDonough said. He had a name for McDonough, “Randal,” which also is from the movie.
A spokesman for the McDonald’s restaurant in Bohemia did not return calls seeking comment Monday.