Apple employee died of self-inflicted gunshot wound: police

[April 29, 2016]  By Dan Whitcomb
 
 (Reuters) - The Apple Inc <AAPL.O> employee found dead at the company's California headquarters committed suicide, dying of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, police said on Thursday.

The victim, who was found on Wednesday deceased in a conference room at Apple's campus in Silicon Valley, was identified as 25-year-old Edward Thomas Mackowiak of Santa Clara, California.

"The Medical Examiner determined the manner of death was suicide and the cause was a gunshot to the head," the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office said in a written statement.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on Thursday or say what Mackowiak did for the company, but a LinkedIn profile that has since been taken down listed him as a software engineer.

There was no immediate word on what might have led Mackowiack to take his own life.

"We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of a young and talented coworker," the company said in a statement issued late on Wednesday. "Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his family and friends, including the many people he worked with here at Apple."

Apple's so-called Infinite Loop campus is the hub for the company's workforce in Cupertino, which numbers 16,000 employees, according to a 2013 report on the company's economic impact. The company is constructing another campus in the city, a massive loop of glass often likened to a spaceship.

Apple on Tuesday reported its first-ever decline in iPhone sales and its first revenue drop in 13 years.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Julia Love and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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