I hate to say it guys, but this is why you should never rely on a hot wallet alone.
" 1. About a week ago I installed MS Office Pro Plus 2016 from 1337x and used KMSauto to activate. This required I turn off virus protection. Malware may have gotten me here. I have since rolled back Windows to a restore point prior to installation and will wipe computer clean and start fresh before I work with any sensitive info going forward. No one has mentioned KMSauto/Office not being legit lately but, it’s pirated software so who knows."
This is the culprit. Your machine was compromised by a keylogger and remote desktop allowed someone to drain your funds. No private key is required and this is an extremely common attack vector that has been around for decades.
Metamask is fine for play money, but if you are doing anything significant I highly recommend using a hardware wallet like the nano ledger.
;tldr Don’t torrent pirated software on the machine you trade on, use a hardware wallet, and honestly don’t trust metamask with more than play money.