Wixom Assembly Plant shooting

On November 14, 1996, U.S. Army veteran Gerald M. Atkins opened fire inside the Wixom Assembly Plant, a Ford Motor Company manufacturing facility in Wixom, Michigan, after being denied entry to propose to a woman with whom he was infatuated.

One person was killed by Atkins, while three others were injured, including two responding police officers. Atkins was charged with first-degree murder and 25 counts of felonies. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury rejected his insanity defense of erotomania in April 1998.

Background Atkins was born on November 3, 1967, in Farmington Hills, Michigan. He was arrested in Farmington Hills in 1986 for shooting at cars and buildings. A short time before the attack, Atkins met Debra Myers at a bar near her job at Wixom Assembly Plant. According to Myers, who testified during Atkins's trial in 1998, she did not share the feelings that he allegedly felt for her and rejected his advances several times, ultimately calling him "a pest" upon his insistence. Atkins was nonetheless undeterred and believed that third parties were disrupting a potential relationship between them.

Police arrested Atkins five hours later, while he was hiding in the drain tunnels under the Wixom plant, at around 4:15 pm. He was taken to the Oakland County Jail, where he remained awaiting charges.

Aftermath Police initially reported that Myers was Atkins's estranged girlfriend and confirmed that Izzard had not been an intended target. A long-time friend described Atkins as having a "big heart", but admitted that he was also "intense", saying that something "must have made him snap." The murder victim, Darrell Izzard, was the second manager in command of the plant and a native of Brighton, Michigan. A Ford spokesman said that Izzard, who was married and had three adult children, had worked there for 18 years. Plant worker Jim Maher testified that they heard gunshots, and that Izzard went to investigate when he encountered Atkins. Maher said that Izzard pleaded for his life before being shot and killed by Atkins.

Trial and incarceration In April 1998, Atkins was tried on 26 counts, including the murder of Izzard. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, alleging that he would "not let anybody infringe on [Myers] rights."

Meloy agreed to travel from California and became a defense witness for Atkins, testifying in court in Pontiac, Michigan. He compared Atkins's obsession with that of Hinckley's with Foster and said that Atkins believed that Ford Motor Company was "somehow preventing him from proposing to Myers", despite they both barely knew each other and that Myers had rejected his advances.

On April 21, 1998, the jury rejected Atkins's insanity plea and found him guilty on all counts. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Atkins is incarcerated at the Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, Michigan.

In popular culture Atkins was taken as an example of delusional erotomania by one of his defense witnesses (Meloy), who wrote about his case in a 1999 publication about stalking and in his 2000 book Clinical Assessment of Dangerousness, where Meloy explains Atkins's actions and their relation with triangulation in cases of erotomania.

The case is also featured in the Investigation Discovery show Most Evil, where forensic psychiatrist Michael H. Stone put Atkins at level 16 of his 22-level scale of evil.