Tragic...but I love this story. Thanks Chris
Wife and mother
The day before the shootings, Whitman bought a pair of binoculars and a knife from a hardware store, and Spam from a 7-Eleven convenience store. He picked up his wife from her summer job as a telephone operator, before meeting his mother for lunch at the Wyatt Cafeteria, located close to the university.
At approximately 4:00 p.m. on July 31, Charles and Kathy Whitman visited their close friends John and Fran Morgan. They left the Morgans' apartment at 5:50 so that Kathy could get to her 6:00–10:00 p.m. shift.
At 6:45, Whitman began typing his suicide note, a portion of which read:
I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.[38]
Whitman wrote that he requested an autopsy be conducted upon his body, to determine if there was a biological reason for his actions and increasing headaches. He also wrote that he had decided to kill both his mother and wife. Expressing uncertainty about his reasons, he stated he wanted to relieve his wife and mother from the suffering of this world and to save them the embarrassment of his actions.[39] He did not mention planning the attack at the university.
Just after midnight on August 1, Whitman drove to his mother's apartment at 1212 Guadalupe Street. After killing his mother, he placed her body on her bed and covered it with sheets.[40] His method of murder is disputed, but officials believed he rendered her unconscious before stabbing her in the heart.[41]
He left a handwritten note beside her body, which read in part:
To Whom It May Concern: I have just taken my mother's life. I am very upset over having done it. However, I feel that if there is a heaven she is definitely there now [...] I am truly sorry [...] Let there be no doubt in your mind that I loved this woman with all my heart.[42]
Whitman then returned to his home at 906 Jewell Street, where he killed his wife by stabbing her three times in the heart as she slept. He covered her body with sheets, then resumed the typewritten note he had begun the previous evening.[41] Using a ballpoint pen, he wrote at the side of the page:
Friends interrupted. 8-1-66 Mon. 3:00 A.M. BOTH DEAD.[40]
Whitman continued the note, finishing it by pen:
I imagine it appears that I brutally killed both of my loved ones. I was only trying to do a quick thorough job [...] If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts [...] donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type [...] Give our dog to my in-laws. Tell them Kathy loved "Schocie" very much [...] If you can find in yourselves to grant my last wish, cremate me after the autopsy.[38]
He also left instructions in the rented house requesting that two rolls of camera film be developed. Whitman also wrote personal notes to each of his brothers.
Whitman last wrote on an envelope labeled, 'Thoughts For the Day,' in which he stored a collection of written admonitions. He added on the outside of the envelope:
8-1-66. I never could quite make it. These thoughts are too much for me.[40]
At 5:45 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Whitman phoned his wife's supervisor at Bell System to explain that Kathy was ill and unable to work that day. He made a similar phone call to his mother's workplace five hours later.
The rifles and sawed-off shotgun used by Whitman in the massacre.
Preparations for tower shootings
On the morning of August 1, Whitman rented a hand truck from Austin Rental Company and cashed $250 ($1800 in 2013 dollars) of worthless checks at the bank before driving to a hardware store, where he purchased a Universal M1 carbine, two additional ammunition magazines and eight boxes of ammunition, explaining to the cashier that he planned to hunt wild hogs.[43] Whitman then drove to Chuck's Gun Shop, where he purchased four further carbine magazines, six additional boxes of ammunition, and a can of gun cleaning solvent.[44] He then drove to Sears, where he purchased a Sears Model 60 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun before returning with his purchases to his home.[45]
Inside his garage, Whitman sawed off the barrel of the 12-gauge shotgun, and packed the weapon, together with a Remington 700 6mm bolt-action hunting rifle, a .35 caliber pump rifle, a .30 caliber carbine, a 9mm Luger pistol, a Galesi-Brescia .25-caliber pistol and a Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolver, and over 700 rounds of ammunition into his footlocker. He had already packed in it food, coffee, vitamins, Dexedrine, Excedrin, earplugs, jugs of water, matches, lighter fluid, rope, binoculars, a machete, three knives, a transistor radio, toilet paper, a razor and a bottle of deodorant.[46] Before heading to the tower about 11:00 a.m., Whitman dressed in khaki coveralls over his shirt and jeans.
At approximately 11:35 a.m.,[46] Whitman arrived at the University of Texas. Showing a security guard, Jack Rodman, false identification as a research assistant, he obtained a 40-minute parking permit, saying he was delivering equipment.[46] Whitman wheeled a rented dolly carrying his equipment toward the Main Building of the University.
Entering the Main Building, Whitman tried to activate the elevator. Vera Palmer, an employee, said it had not been powered and turned it on for him. Whitman thanked her, saying: "You don't know how happy that makes me [...] how happy that makes me."[43] He then ascended to the 27th floor of the tower (the highest floor the elevator reached); just one floor beneath the clock face.[48]
Main building of the University of Texas at Austin from where Whitman fired upon those below from the observation deck.
Whitman lugged the dolly and equipment up the final flight of stairs to the hallway that led to a dog-legged stairway ascending to the rooms within the observation deck area.[49] In the reception area, Whitman encountered 51-year-old receptionist Edna Townsley. Whitman knocked her to the floor and hit her in the head with his rifle butt, splitting the back of her skull. He then struck Townsley above the left eye, causing a second fracture, before dragging her body behind a couch.[50]
Moments later, an Austin couple named Cheryl Botts and Don Walden returned to the reception area; having been observing the view upon the observation deck. The couple encountered Whitman leaning across the couch,[51] holding a rifle in each hand. Botts observed a dark stain on the floor beside the reception desk, and later said she believed it to be varnish. Walden himself thought Whitman was there to shoot pigeons. Whitman and the couple exchanged brief pleasantries before the couple left.[52] Whitman then barricaded the stairway.
As he prepared to enter the observation deck, he saw two families: M. J. Gabour, his wife Mary and their teenage sons Mike and Mark and the boys' aunt and uncle, Marguerite and William Lamport, ascending the stairs toward his makeshift barricade. Mary Gabour later recollected that she and her sons had thought the barricade was in place for cleaning the reception area and that Whitman—still donned in khaki overalls—was the janitor. As 16-year-old Mark Gabour and his 18-year-old brother Mike tried to look beyond the barricade and open the door, Whitman fired his shotgun at them, instantly killing Mark with shots to the head and neck. He shot Mike in the head, shoulder and left leg, knocking him unconscious. Both brothers fell down the staircase in front of their family. Whitman fired the sawed-off shotgun three more times through grates, hitting and wounding Mary Gabour in the head and killing 56-year-old Marguerite Lamport with a shot to the chest.
Whitman closed and barricaded the door to the reception area. He then shot Edna Townsley in the left side of her head before walking onto the observation deck.[54] The Tower has a vantage point 231 feet (70 m) above ground level.[55]
Shooting from the tower
Following the sniper tradition of "one shot, one kill", Whitman never shot twice anyone who had fallen to the ground.[52] The first shots fired by Whitman from the tower's outer deck came at approximately 11:48 a.m. He first hit Claire Wilson, an 18-year-old anthropology student who was eight months pregnant. Whitman shot Wilson in the abdomen, killing her unborn child. The shot dropped Wilson to the concrete on the mall as her fiancé, 18-year-old Thomas Eckman, asked her, "What's wrong?"[56] Whitman shot and killed Eckman as he tried to help Wilson. He next shot Robert Boyer, a 33-year-old mathematician, who was killed instantly by a single shot to the lower back.[57] After shooting Boyer, Whitman shot a 31-year old student named Devereau Huffman in the right arm; Huffman fell wounded beside a hedge.[58] When Charlotte Darehshori, a young secretary, ran to help Boyer and Huffman, she came under fire. She crouched beneath the concrete base of a flagpole for an hour and a half, shielding herself from Whitman's view.[59] Nearby, Whitman shot David Gunby, a 23-year-old electrical engineering student walking in the courtyard.[60] Whitman fatally shot Thomas Ashton, a 22-year-old, in the chest.[61] Next he shot Adrian and Brenda Littlefield as they walked onto the South Mall. Two young women, Nancy Harvey and Ellen Evganides, were wounded as they walked down the West Mall. Whitman shot Harvey, who was five months pregnant, in the hip, and Evganides in the leg and thigh.[62] Both Harvey and her unborn child survived.
Karen Griffith, aged 17.
Whitman began to fire upon people walking on Guadalupe Street; he shot and wounded 17-year-old newspaper delivery boy Alex Hernandez, before fatally wounding 17-year-old Karen Griffith[63] with a shot to the shoulder and lung. The next victim was a 24-year-old senior named Thomas Karr, whom Whitman fatally shot in the back as he walked to his residence after completing an exam. On the third block, Whitman shot and wounded 35-year-old basketball coach Billy Snowden from a distance of over 1,500 feet (460 m). Nearby, he shot 21-year-old Sandra Wilson in the chest.
On the corner of 24th and Guadalupe, Whitman shot and wounded two students, Abdul Khashab and his fiancee Janet Paulos, outside a dress shop. Khashab, a 26-year-old chemistry student from Iraq, was shot in the elbow and Paulos in the chest.[64] The next to be shot was a 21-year-old named Lana Phillips, whom Whitman wounded in the shoulder.[65] Phillips' sister ran from cover to drag Lana to safety.
Three Peace Corps trainees, Tom Herman, Roland Ehlke and David Mattson, were Whitman's next targets. The trio were shot at as they walked toward a luncheon for volunteers. Mattson had part of his wrist blown off.[52] Ehlke subsequently recalled that he heard Mattson scream as the bullet hit him in the wrist; the youth saw shrapnel from the shot had embedded into his own left arm. Ehlke was shot in the left biceps before he dove for cover. Ehlke emerged from cover to drag his friend to safety and was shot again in the leg.[66] A 64-year-old local shopkeeper named Homer Kelly helped drag the wounded duo—plus Herman—into his shop, before he was shot and wounded in the leg.
To the rear of the intersection of 24th and Guadalupe Street, Whitman targeted two 21-year-olds, Oscar Royvela and Irma Garcia, as the pair walked toward the university's biology laboratory. Shot first, Garcia later said the bullet spun her "completely around" and she fell to the ground. Royvela tried to help Garcia when he was shot through the shoulder blade; the bullet exited through his left arm.[67] Students Jack Stephens and Jack Pennington ran from cover and dragged the pair to safety. Whitman targeted a 26-year-old carpenter named Avelino Esparza and seriously wounded him in the left shoulder.
Directly in front of the entrance to the West Mall on Guadalupe Street, two 18-year-old students named Paul Sonntag and Claudia Rutt had taken refuge behind a construction barricade alongside teenager Carla Sue Wheeler. Whitman started shooting in that direction and hit Sonntag in the mouth, killing him instantly. Sonntag's body fell against a parking meter and knocked the barricade slightly open.[68] Rutt tried to reach Sonntag while Wheeler restrained her; Whitman shot a bullet that took three fingers of Wheeler's left hand, and hit Rutt in the chest. Rutt died later in hospital;[63] Wheeler survived.
A block north of where Sonntag and Rutt were killed, Whitman shot and killed Harry Walchuk, a 38-year-old doctoral student and father of six. He next shot the 36-year-old press reporter Robert Heard in the arm as Heard ran toward two highway patrolmen coming on the scene. Slightly north, 18-year-old freshman John Allen was wounded in the forearm as he and acquaintances looked toward the tower from the University of Texas Union.
Having seen several students shot in the South Mall, a history professor was the first to telephone the Austin Police Department at 11:52 a.m.;[69] four minutes after Whitman had first fired from the tower. Austin patrolman Billy Speed was one of the first police officers to arrive at the University. He and a colleague took refuge behind a columned stone wall but Whitman shot through a space and killed Speed. At a distance of approximately 1,500 feet (460 m), Whitman shot and killed 29-year-old electrical repairman Roy Schmidt as he tried to hide behind a parked car.
Charlotte Darehshori takes refuge behind the concrete base of a flagpole as a wounded student lies beside a hedge.
Students and university staff worked to assist and move the wounded to safety, risking their lives. One student later recalled, "That was the moment that separated the brave people from the scared people ... I realized I was a coward." Medical personnel used an armored car and provisioned ambulances from local funeral homes to reach the wounded.[52] A 30-year-old ambulance driver named Morris Hohmann was shot in the leg on West 23rd Street as he tried to evacuate the numerous wounded. The wound severed a major artery. A fellow ambulance driver gave him first aid before he was taken to Brackenridge Hospital, the only one with a local emergency room. The Brackenridge Hospital administrator declared a state of emergency. Medical staff raced there to reinforce the on-duty shifts. Numerous volunteers donated blood at both Brackenridge Hospital and the Travis County Blood Bank.
The shootings and news of the sniper caused panic in and around the University. All active police officers in Austin were ordered to the campus. Off-duty officers, Travis County Sheriff's deputies, and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers also converged on the area.
Approximately 20 minutes after first shooting from the observation deck, Whitman began to encounter return fire from both the police and other armed citizens. One Texas Ranger used a student as spotter to help locate the sniper. At this point, Whitman chose to fire through waterspouts located on each side of the tower walls. This action largely protected him from gunfire below, but limited his range of targets.[52] Police sharpshooter Marion Lee reported from a small airplane that he had observed a single sniper firing from the observation deck. Lee tried to shoot Whitman from the plane, but the turbulence proved too great. Whitman shot at the plane, and it moved off to circle from a greater distance.
Entering the tower
Three officers who responded to reports of the sniper were Ramiro Martinez, Houston McCoy and Jerry Day.[69] Prior to advancing upon the tower, McCoy had seen his colleague Billy Speed killed.[69] Both Martinez and Day had driven to the University of Texas after listening to radio reports.[70]
Accompanied by 40-year-old civilian Allen Crum—whom the trio encountered as they ran toward the tower—they were the first to reach the tower's observation deck. After reaching the 26th floor by elevator, they encountered M. J. Gabour. Gabour—clutching his wife's shoes[7]— screamed that his family had been shot and tried to wrestle the rifle from Day to shoot Whitman himself. Day consoled Gabour and led him to safety before joining McCoy, Crum and Martinez as they walked up to the 27th floor.[7]
Beneath the stairwell leading to the reception area, Officer Martinez saw the body of a teenage boy, Mark Gabour. Next to him lay a middle-aged woman, Marguerite Lamport.[71] Nearby, Mike Gabour lay slumped against the wall, with his mother lying face down in a pool of blood. The officers turned Mary Gabour onto her side to prevent her from drowning in her own blood. Mike Gabour gestured to the observation deck and said, "He's out there."[71]
The body of Charles Whitman lies upon the observation deck.
End of the massacre
Stepping outside the south door at approximately 1:24 p.m., Martinez, closely followed by McCoy, proceeded north on the east deck, while Day, followed by Crum, proceeded west on the south deck, with the intention of encircling Whitman. Several feet before he reached the southwest corner, Crum accidentally discharged the borrowed rifle.[70] As Whitman sat crouched with his back positioned on the north wall, and looking in the northwest corner area of the observation deck where Crum's shot was heard, Martinez jumped around the corner into the northeast area and rapidly fired all six rounds from his .38 police revolver from a distance of approximately 50 feet (15 m) at Whitman - all of which missed. As Martinez fired, McCoy jumped to the right of Martinez and fired two fatal shots of 00-buckshot with his 12-gauge shotgun, hitting Whitman in the head, neck and left side.
Whitman was apparently initially unaware of Martinez and McCoy on the observation deck. He was partially shielded by the deck tower lights and in a position to defend against assaults from either corner, as his attention was drawn to where Crum had accidentally discharged his rifle.[70] Martinez threw down his now-empty revolver and grabbed McCoy's shotgun, running to Whitman's prone body and firing point blank into his upper left arm. Martinez threw the shotgun onto the deck and hurriedly left the scene, repeatedly shouting the words, "I got him."[2] After tending to the wounded in the stairwell, Austin Police Department (APD) Officers Milton Shoquist, Harold Moe and George Shepard ascended the stairs to join APD Officer Phillip Conner and Texas Department of Public Safety Agent W.A. Cowan, arriving on the 28th floor. Moe heard Martinez as he ran past shouting, "I got him," and relayed his words to the APD radio dispatcher's hand-held radio.[2]
Ramiro Martinez was initially—and incorrectly—credited by the media as being the officer who killed Whitman.[72] Houston McCoy was the only officer who appeared before the Travis County Grand Jury on August 5, 1966, where he was cleared of Whitman's death as a justifiable homicide.
Martinez later credited the numerous civilian shooters for saving "many lives" by forcing Whitman to take cover; limiting his range of targets.[75]
