Santa Clara County

‘We Are Heartbroken:' Apple Saddened After Employee Found Dead at Cupertino Headquarters

The Apple employee found dead inside the company's Cupertino headquarters Wednesday has been identified as Edward Thomas Mackowiak, the Santa Clara County Coroner said Thursday.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Andrea Urina said the coroner determined that the 25-year-old Mackowiak shot himself. She said the cause of death is being ruled as a suicide by gun.

Urina would not comment on whether he was depressed. Mackowiak's now-deleted LinkedIn profile states that he worked as a software engineer for Apple.

NBC Bay Area does not usually name those who commit suicide, but Mackowiak's death quickly became a national news story, as many feared there might be a case of possible workplace rampage at such a high-profile company.

Apple released a statement on Thursday saying how "heartbroken" the company was.

"We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of a young and talented coworker," the statement read. "Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his family and friends, including the many people he worked with here at Apple. We are working to support them however we can in this difficult time."

Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the campus after receiving a call about 8:35 a.m. about a person down at 1 Infinite Loop.

Dispatch recording obtained from Broadcastify.com indicates that a female employee on the Apple campus was escorted out of a building by security Wednesday morning, and had sustained an injury to the head, possibly from a gun. Two minutes later the dispatcher talks about a dead body found in one of the conference rooms, with a gun nearby. How the woman is related to the man's death is not clear.

On Tuesday, Apple announced its first revenue drop since 2003, sending the company's stock price down more than seven percent in extended trading.

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