10 August 2023
DULUTH A man who threatened to shoot several people at the Duluth International Airport and “blow the place up” has been found not guilty by reason of mental illness.
Judge Dale Harris issued the finding in late July after a stipulated-facts trial in which Vincent Muccio, 53, of Virginia, acknowledged the allegations of the January incident.
Muccio, according to the stipulation, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was experiencing a “severe manic episode” with paranoia and delusions that “rendered him incapable of knowing the wrongness of his actions.”
Muccio had been charged with three felony counts of making threats of violence.
Documents state that he arrived at the airport around 4:45 a.m. Jan. 31 and inquired about purchasing airfare. He later bought a ticket to Hawaii with an 11 a.m. departure.
Muccio then began walking around the airport and eventually talked with several employees in the car rental area. He went on to tell an Avis employee that he was waiting for a woman who was arriving on a 10 a.m. flight, and “if she doesn’t come off, I’m going to kill you and her,” gesturing toward an employee at the Budget Rent a Car counter.
He then walked to the Budget counter and told the worker and a Transportation Security Administration agent that if the woman was not on the plane he would “kill everyone on the second floor” and work his way down to the first floor.
He also stated several times that he would “blow the place up,” according to the Budget employee and TSA agent.
The Avis employee later recalled that Muccio had gone from “joking to not joking to joking in a matter of a moment.” The Budget employee stated that she had occasionally heard threats in 29 years of working at the airport, but the severity of his statements “placed her on high alert.”
A 911 call was placed and several Duluth police officers and FBI agents began arriving on scene at 8:29 a.m., but Muccio had already left the scene. Meanwhile, officers stopped a pickup truck nearby with guns drawn and handcuffed the driver before discovering he was not the suspect.
Muccio eventually returned to the airport shortly before 10 a.m. and was arrested without incident. He was unarmed.
Court documents indicate Muccio had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had at least three prior severe manic episodes in Minnesota, including one in 2014 that involved him running naked through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
He was placed under a six-month civil commitment following that incident, and he also has been psychiatrically hospitalized in North Dakota and New York, most recently in 2018.
“Defendant’s manic episodes are characterized by highly impulsive decision making, impulsive and risky behaviors related to financial expenditures and sexual encounters, and he has been consistently noted to experience delusions, paranoia, and auditory hallucinations as his mania increases in severity,” according to the stipulation.
“His behaviors become more bizarre as symptoms increase and appear to have patterns related to spending money, undressing in public, becoming distressed about his children and family, and engaging with the public in an irrational or inappropriate manner.”
Documents indicate he had been prescribed lithium as a mood stabilizer, but had not been taking it prior to the airport incident. His symptoms reportedly improved when his medication was resumed at the St. Louis County Jail.
In issuing the verdict, Judge Harris ordered the commencement of new civil commitment proceedings.
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