Criminology - Charles Whitman

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

In 1966, Charles Whitman climbed the Tower at the University of Texas and began firing on the unsuspecting people below. This mass shooting on a college campus captivated and scared the nation. It would be discovered that Whitman had killed a number of people before he got to the tower, including his wife and his mother. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the life and crimes of Charles Whitman. This was a man with an extremely high IQ who had excelled in many different areas growing up. But as Charles became an adult, it seemed as though his life hadn't panned out the way he had hoped. But so many years later, people are still asking the question of what caused Charles Whitman to snap?  You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology      An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 109 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you? I'm doing good. How about you?

I'm doing pretty good. Man, I'm hanging in there. Hope you and your family are as well. That's all you can do right now is just wait it out and bide your time. And make the best of what you can. I mean, that's, I guess that's part of it too.

My family and I are, we're trying to do that. We've been playing cards, board games, watching movies, spending time together. Um, that's what we've been doing.

Yeah, I think if it, not that there's a bright side to all of this, but getting time to spend with your family that you might not normally have as a, some kind of, not a bonus. I think there's a bonus that comes out of this. But it's,

it's, it's something that you don't have as, as, as often, let's put that way. More if we've continued to have some amazing Patreon support. So we really appreciate that. We had Shonda Shepard, Luis Elizabeth Brathen, Diane McCowski, Chris Lang, Sally Hooker, and Deborah Smetana.

So, you know, once again, great support. It's much appreciated. Yeah, and I recognize some of the names of some of our big supporters on social media as well, so that in addition to the social media support doing Patreon is really big for us and that helps us out. So thank you. And anyone out there that's thinking about supporting criminology on Patreon, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy. So this episode is on a subject that I've wanted to cover for a long time.

This is a person that, you know, has fascinated me for a number of years. You know, really when you think about it, Long before the Columbine and the Virginia Tech killers, there was Charles Whitman who wreaked havoc on his campus in August of 1966. And unlike those campus killers who targeted victims up close, Charles Whitman was a trained U.S. Marine who killed most of his victims with a high-powered rifle, striking from distances of up to 500 yards. On August 1st, 1966, the 25-year-old brutally murdered his wife and mother before he made his way to the observation deck of the tower at the University of Texas at Austin, and he fired mercilessly down on the innocent people below, killing 16 and wounding almost three dozen others. One of his victims died from his injuries in 2001, 35 years. after he was shot. Whitman's deadly shooting led the way for stricter gun laws in Texas, and it also brought

a new awareness to safety at college campuses across the country. One of the big questions that still remains to this day is what caused Charles Whitman to snap? Charles Joseph Whitman was born in Lake Worth, Florida to Charles Adolphus and Margaret Whitman on June 24, 1941. He was the oldest of three sons. Charles was raised in a Catholic household, where his father ruled with an iron fist. Charles was highly intelligent, having scored a 138 on an IQ test at the age of six. He and his two brothers were ultra boys at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. Charles chose the confirmation named Joseph for himself. At the age of 12, Charles achieved the rank

of Eagle Scout, the youngest boy in the world at that time to hold such an honor. Growing up in the strict Whitman household was hard on Charles, and he was often physically abused by his father. On July 6, 1959, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines against his father's wishes. As he rode out of town on a train headed for Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Paris Island, the elder Whitman attempted to cancel Charles' enlistment by making calls to friends he had in the federal government. But his pleas were rejected. Charles told his scout leader Joseph Leduc that, he enlisted because his father had come home drunk a few weeks prior, hit him numerous times, and pushed him into the family's swimming pool. For Charles, joining the Marines was a welcome

escape from life with his father. On September 15, 1961, through a United States Marine Corps scholarship, Charles was accepted into the mechanical engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin. You know, as a young man, he enjoyed hunting, karate, and scuba diving. But one of his hobbies got him in trouble. While at the University of Texas, Charles was involved in a teenage prank in which he shot a deer, dragged it to his dorm, and skinned it in the shower. So I think more if maybe Charles thought this was a prank, but I don't know if everybody else did. I certainly wouldn't view that as a prank, but that and the low grades resulted in his scholarship being taken away in 1963. Charles seemed like he was distracted. And there's no doubt that he was

showing signs of someone that was underachieving, especially given what we know to have been his IQ. His time at UT wasn't all bad, because while Charles was there, he met fellow student, Kathleen Francis Leicener, and the pair were immediately drawn to one another. Kathleen, or Kathy, as most people called her, was born in Velasco, Texas, to Raymond and Francis Leicester on July 12, 1943. She was the oldest child and the only daughter of four children. Raymond was a cattle and rice farmer, and her mother, Francis, taught English. Kathy grew up in a loving and close-knit household in Needville, Texas, and she did her part to help her dad run the family farm. During high school, she played in the school band and acted in the senior play.

She also wrote for the school newspaper, among several other things. One year, she was the Needville Youth Fair Queen and a candidate for Fort Bend County Fair Queens. Kathy graduated high school in 1961 and enrolled at UT and Austin to study pharmacy. She was a beautiful, independent woman with hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, her romance with Charles Whitman would prove deadly. It was in early February 1962 that Kathy officially began dating Charles Whitman. Things moved along pretty quickly in the relationship, and the two became very serious. By spring, she had introduced him to her family, and in July they were engaged.

On August 17th, 1962, Charles Whitman married Kathleen Leisner at St. Michael's Parish in Needville. On the same day, her parents married back in 1939. The newlyweds honeymoon in New Orleans. Life for the newly married couple was stressful in the first few months of the marriage. After Charles lost his scholarship, he returned to Marine Corps active duty at Camp Lejeune. in North Carolina. Kathy dropped out of college to be with him. The couple lived in an apartment in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

During her time there, Kathy was homesick, but tried to keep busy. She wrote hundreds of letters to her mother and spent her days doing housework and chatting with other military wives. She eventually got a job at a pawn shop working 10 hours a day. Charles kept 80% of her paycheck and gave Kathleen the rest. She wanted to use the money to take classes in North Carolina. It was during this time when the couple was stationed in North Carolina that Charles got into an auto accident in which his Jeep rolled over an embankment. Charles single-handedly rescued a fellow Marine who was pinned in the vehicle.

Charles was sent to the hospital where he remained for several days, but he made a full recovery. After his hospital stay, he learned that he would be stationed in either Cuba or Haiti. So Kathy's family encouraged her to return to Texas instead of joining Charles. Charles, she initially said that, no, she would go with her husband. But then she changed her mind. Charles headed to Guantanamo Bay and Cuba, and Kathy went back to her home state of Texas. From July 1963 to December 1964, Charles and Kathy lived apart. And it was during this time that Kathy enrolled in a teaching program at the University of Texas. She lived with friends and had a job. While this was going on, Charles was court-martialed for gambling, lending money at outrageous

rates and possessing an unauthorized firearm. He was sentenced to hard labor. He was also demoted from the rank of Lance Corporal down to private. This was a further slide for Charles, a guy who had so much promise, but continually failed to live up to it. He didn't take the demotion well. After his discharge from the Marines in 1964, Charles returned to Austin to be with Kathy, who had graduated and secured a teaching job. Charles enrolled at UT in the Architectural Engineering program and worked as a bill collector and later a bank teller to pay tuition. In the fall of 1965, Kathy got a job teaching biology at Sydney Lanier High School, while Charles took a temporary job at Central Freight Lines of the traffic surveyor for the Texas Highway Department.

He also became scoutmaster for Austin Boy Scouts Troop 5. On the surface, life seemed to be going well for Charles in his post-military life, but things were beginning to come apart for him below the surface. By spring 1966, Charles' mother, Margaret, told him that she was leaving his father. Shortly after receiving the news, Charles drove down to Florida to help his mother move to Austin, where she got a job in a cafeteria. After Margaret moved to Austin, Charles' father kept calling him, trying to get him to convince his mother to return to Florida so that they could reconcile their marriage. But Charles wouldn't do it. He refused to persuade his mother to go home.

While Charles was dealing with his family issues, Kathy returned to her hometown alone to visit her family. By this point, their marriage was not as good as it once was. And while Kathy's family suspected Charles had beaten her, she would never admit to it. But Kathy had told some good friends, John and Fran Morgan,

who lived in the same neighborhood, that Charles had hit her on at least, least three occasions. Over the summer of 1966, Kathy's brothers visited the couple and didn't notice anything amiss in the marriage. Everything seemed fine. But Charles became depressed and started getting severe headaches. He visited UT's Dr. Jan Cochran, who recommended Charles visit a psychiatrist named Dr. Maurice Dean Hately. Charles told Dr. Hietley of his parents' separation and his increasing stress at work and school. By summer, Charles was taking dexedrine, a drug used in the treatment of ADHD and narcolepsy. On Sunday, July 31st, 1966, Charles purchased binoculars

and a knife from Davis's hardware. He also bought some canned spam from a 7-11 convenience store. He then picked up Kathy from her summer job at Southwestern Bell in downtown. Austin, and the couple went to a matinee before meeting Charles' mother for lunch. At 4 p.m., Charles and Kathy visited John and Fran Morgan, and they stayed for about an hour and a half before Charles took Kathy to her 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift at work and picked her up afterwards. Kathy had no idea of the deadly chain of events that was about ready to unfold. At 6.45 p.m. while Kathy was at work, her husband sat down and typed the letter. The letter was a suicide note. The note read, I do not 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 don't really understand myself these days. I'm supposed to be an average, reasonable, and an intelligent young man. However, lately, I cannot recall when it started. I have been a victim of many unused and irrational thoughts. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks. In March, when my parents made a physical break, I noticed a great deal of stress. I consulted a Dr. Cochran at the University Health Center and asked him to recommend someone that I could consult with about some psychiatric disorders I felt I had. I talked with a doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears

that I felt were overwhelming violent impulses. After one session, I never saw the doctor again, and since then I've been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail. After my death, I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there is any visible physical disorder. I've had some tremendous headaches in the past, and have consumed two large bottles of Excedrin in the past three months.

It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife Kathy tonight, after I pick her up from work at the telephone company. I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason in my mind that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and are prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it. I intend to kill her as painlessly as possible. Similar reasons provoked me to take my mother's life also.

I don't think the poor woman has ever enjoyed life as she is entitled to. to. She was a simple young woman who married a very possessive and dominating man. All my life is a boy until I ran away from home to join the Marine Corps. At this point in the letter, Charles stopped writing and then finished it later that night. He wrote, Friends, Interrupted 8-1-66, Monday, 3 a.m., both dead. 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 see that all the worthless checks I wrote this weekend are made good. Please pay off my debts. I am 25 years old and have been financially independent. Donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent

further tragedies of this type. Charles J. Whitman. Give our dog to my in-laws, please. Tell them Kathy loved Shosi very much. If you can find it in yourself to grant my last wish, cremate me after the autopsy. Around midnight on August 1st, Charles Whitman drove to his mom. mother's apartment on West 13th in Guadalupe streets and stabbed her in the chest with a bayonet. He then shot her in the back of the head. At 1230 a.m. Charles wrote a note and left it near his mother's body. It read, 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. At around the time Charles murdered his mother, Marge Janacek, Kathy's best friend from high school, phone Kathy to coordinate outfits for their upcoming five-year reunion. But there was no answer. She tried two or three more times, but Kathy never picked up. After Charles killed his mother, he returned to their Joel Street home and stabbed Kathy to death as she slept. At 5.45 a.m., Charles called Kathy's work supervisor and said she was sick and couldn't make her shift that day. He did the same thing with his mother's employer. From there, he prepared for the next part of his heinous plan.

Charles rented a dolly from an Austin rental company and stopped at the bank to cash $250 worth of checks. He then went to Davis Hardware and bought an M1 carbine. When the clerk asked him what he needed it for, he said, he was going to shoot some pigs. Charles left the hardware store and went to Sears to purchase a 12-gauge shotgun as well as a green rifle case. While chatting with postman Chester Arrington, Charles sawed off the barrel of the shotgun. He packed it, the M1 carbine, a 6mmeter Remington rifle with a four-power scope, and a 357 magnum pistol. in his marine foot locker and a wooden crate.

He also packed food, a five-gallon plastic bottle of water, a towel, and another plastic bottle containing gasoline. Charles then put on khaki coveralls over his shirt and jeans and under a green jacket. He later put on a white headband. At 11.25 a.m., he drove to the ground floor entrance of the tower at UT. He pushed the dolly carrying his equipment and obtained a parking permit. from security guard Jack Rodman. He told Rodman, he had to unload equipment at the nearby experimental science building

and showed him his UT Research Assistance ID card. Charles entered the main building a little after 1130 a.m. And he struggled with the elevator. Vera Palmer, an employee, informed him that it was not powered. And she actually turned it on for him. He thanked Vera and rode the elevator to the 27th floor. just beneath the face of the clock. From there, he pushed a dolly to the 28th floor, just below the observation deck area where he encountered a receptionist named Edna Townsley.

He immediately bludgeoned her on the head with the butt of his rifle and then moved Edna's body behind a couch where he then shot her. A few minutes later, two visitors, a young couple named Don Walden and Cheryl Botz, who were. sightseeing on the deck, returned to the attendance area where they encountered Charles. He was holding a rifle in each hand and chatted briefly with them before they left the room. They didn't see Edna's body. But Cheryl said later, she thought the reddish-brown puddle on the floor was varnish. Charles then barricaded the stairway.

So my assumption morph is that this encounter would probably go down a little differently today than it did back then. I mean, today you see a guy walking around carrying two rifles, a rifle in each hand. People get freaked out. And, you know, the cops get called. There's all kinds of things that happen. I mean, it is Texas in the 60s. I don't know what else to say other than people didn't have the same type of fear that someone was about ready to go on a rampage as they do today.

We've seen it too much today. I think maybe it was a sign of that time in that area down there. Guns were big and people in Texas carried them. So today, if we see someone with a rifle, like you mentioned, it freaks us out unless they're wearing a New York City police uniform or something like that in their own patrol. In the suburbs of D.C. A woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Troll, because we're used to seeing Matt, but just a casual guy hanging out on a tower with a rifle would draw some serious attention today. Now, you can still ask the question. you know, what, what did this young couple think that this guy was up there doing? You know, on essentially the top of this tower holding rifles, she sees a puddle, she thinks it's varnish. I mean, you can definitely ask the question. How could they not have thought something a little

strange was going on? A short time after these witnesses saw Whitman with the rifle. A family was making their way up the tower stairs. When they ran into the barricade, Charles opened fire. And his first shot struck 19-year-old Michael Gabbauer, who was trying to look beyond the barricade. Charles continued shooting as the family members ran back down the stairs, killing Michael's brother, Mark, and his aunt, Marguerite Lamport. Michael's mother, Mary, was also hit.

Michael and Mary both were left permanently disabled from their wounds. Charles Whitman was far from ending his murderous rampage. At 11.45 a.m., he moved out onto the observation deck. Three minutes later, he took aim on the unsuspecting students moving about far below and then opened fire. A UT Coed ran for shelter and screamed, My God, he's shooting people. She didn't notice that her dress was spotted with blood.

Others who had taken shelter yelled out to those in harm's way, run or he'll blow your head off. People who hadn't seen any blood were joking about the shooting, thinking it was some sort of celebration. A senior math major named Don Bynum was one of them, until he looked up and saw the sniper on the tower. He soon stopped laughing. Students were pinned down or locked into wherever they happened to be.

They were ordered away from the windows. One of the most iconic photos taken that day was of a secretary named Charlotte Derichore. Sheltering behind a flagpole base, Charlotte worked in UT's graduate dean's office and was getting ready to go to lunch. She paused to look out the window on the east side of the old library building and peered across the broad terrace, which ran the width of the main building. The loud air conditioning kept her from hearing noises outside, but she noticed several people walking across the terrace. As she looked out the window, she watched three people fall to the pavement, one right after another. She had no idea what was going on, but quickly ran down the hall and headed for the door leading to the outdoor terrace. All Charlotte could think was that she needed to help those three people and find out what happened to them.

As she made her way to the nearest person on the ground, a rifle shot rang out from above, and she immediately looked up and saw the sniper on the tower. Horrified, Charlotte frantically looked around and spotted the round concrete base of a flagpole flying the American flag. She ran to it seeking shelter. Charlotte crouched behind the flagpole base for an hour and a half, a shot rained down around her. The flagpole base was about five feet in diameter and two feet high. It shielded her and saved her life.

The picture taken of her that day shows Charlotte hiding behind the flagpole base. Her head pressed firmly against the side of the structure, and her legs folded underneath her. She later told a reporter, quote, I was in no danger. I'm so small and the base of the flagpole is so large. While people like Charlotte tried to take cover, Charles Whitman was shooting from all sides of the tower. But his main line of fire was the spacious open mall to the south. He poured out as much as one well-armed bullet every 30 seconds, according to the Austin American statesman. Students who missed Charles' initial blast came out from shelter thinking that he had stopped shooting.

And when they did, he fired again, forcing the students to die for cover. Some were wounded by bullets and others were wounded from bullet fragments. Every Austin area law enforcement officer on duty, as well as many off-duty officers, swarmed the campus to return fire on the sniper. But because of the height and width of the observation deck ledge, Charles was shielded from their bullets. One of the first officers on the scene was patrolman Billy P. Speed. He died instantly when Charles fired on him on Inter-Campus Drive. Many of the victims laid on scorching sidewalks from the 98-degree heat for more than an hour,

until an armor-plated vehicle from armored motor service was used as an ambulance to pick up the wounded and the dead from the mall. A helicopter from the aviation training center at Thames Air Park flew City Police Lieutenant Marion Lee above the tower. But Charles's precise aim threatened the helicopter before Lee could fire down on the observation deck. While Whitman was distracted fending off this threat from the air and looking for VIII. victims moving on the ground, a team of officers accompanied by an armed civilian, made their way up to the observation deck in an effort to stop the sniper. Patrolman Ramiro Martinez led a team of officers into the tower through an underground tunnel. Martinez, along with fellow officers George Shepard, Houston McCoy, and Milton Showquist found Alan Crum, a UT co-op salesman,

in the tunnel armed with a rifle. After entering the main building, the men rode a service elevator to the 27th floor and then climbed the stairs to the office of the observation deck. Crum and Martinez went out a door on the south side. Crum crawled towards the southeast corner while Martinez crawled along the east wall in the direction of the northeast corner. Martinez peered around the corner and he saw Charles Whitman. in the northwest corner, looking south and taking aim on crumb. Martinez fired his revolver once at Charles and the bullet hit the target. Charles whirled around and fired at Martinez but missed.

Martinez then emptied his revolver at Charles. Officer Houston McCoy stepped out of the door and fired two rounds from his shotgun and then fired again, hitting the sniper in the head. Charles Whitman fell dead to the floor. As he did, bullets from law enforcement officers on the ground continued to spray the tower. So Crum picked up and waved the blue tail Charles had brought to the tower with him. The body of Charles Whitman was brought down from the tower around 2 p.m. Minutes after the body was identified through papers found at the scene, Austin Police Detective Donald Kidd received the call from Kathy's father.

He had heard that the sniper killer was his son-in-law and asked Kidd to check on Kathy. Kid found Kathy's body in Charles's note when he entered the Whitman home. They soon found the body of Charles's mom in her apartment. By the time the last shot was fired, 16 people were dead and almost three dozen wounded. The total number of people who ultimately lost their lives would be 17, including Charles Whitman's own mother and wife. Here's a list of the additional victims that didn't survive the attack. 22-year-old Thomas Ashton was from California. he was studying the Persian language at UT because the Peace Corps had assigned him to Iran as an English instructor.

He was leaving class to meet up with other Peace Corps trainees. As Thomas was walking to the student union, he started to see people fall to the ground. He didn't have a chance to find shelter from the bullets. He was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at 1.35 p.m. at Brackenridge Hospital. Robert Hamilton Boyer was a 33-year-old mathematician from Pennsylvania, and the third person shot by Charles Whitman. He was visiting friends in Austin at the time. He had planned to head to England afterwards to teach applied mathematics at the University of Liverpool, and had hoped to reunite with his pregnant wife, Lindsay, and his two children, Lauren Matthew.

At a little after 11.30 a.m., Robert was heading to the main building under the tower when a single shot struck him in the left lower side of his back, hitting the area near his kidneys. Another victim, Devereuxman, fell wounded nearby. Charlotte Derichore ran to help Robert and Devereaux, but had to hide behind the flagpole base. Robert later died from his injuries at 12.12 p.m. 18-year-old Thomas Eckman was on campus with his girlfriend, Claire Wilson. Thomas met Claire, who was six months pregnant at a student. for a Democratic Society meeting.

He was an active participant in the organization. It opposed racial discrimination in the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. He and Claire quickly became a cup. On the day of the shooting, Thomas huddled with Claire outside Benedict Hall after the shooting started, most likely trying to shield her. At 1147 a.m., Claire was shot in the abdomen. Killing her unborn baby. Thomas asked her what was wrong and seconds later. He was shot in the chest and killed instantly. Claire survived the shooting and years later said, quote, I thought I was electrocuted.

Tom reached out to try to help me. He saw something was wrong because I was falling. And then he started falling too. I remember he said the word baby and then he didn't speak anything else. Martin Gabbauer, who was 16, and his aunt, Margaret Lamport, who was 45, were killed in the tower, as we mentioned earlier. Mark's brother Mike, who was then 19, Margaret's husband, William, her brother M.J. Gabower, and his wife, Mary, survived the attack. Karen Griffith was only 17 years old and a student at Lanier High School. The same high school were Charles Whitman's wife, Kathy, taught biology. Karen was shot in the shoulder and chest. The bullet pierced her right lung, and she died a week later on August 9th, 1966. 23-year-old David Gunby left the library around 11.50 a.m.

But he turned back because he forgot to pick up a book. Five minutes later, he was walking under the UT Tower back to the library when he was shot. The bullet tore through his upper left arm and entered. his abdominal cavity, severing his small intestine. He lay injured on the scorching sidewalk and still in view of Charles Whitman for about an hour, often playing dead. Other times, he waved others to stay away from the open area where the shooting was taking place.

He was finally rescued at 1230 p.m. But David struggled with immense pain from his injuries for the remainder of his life. He died in 2001, and his death was ruled a homicide, making him the 17th victim of Charles Whitman. 24-year-old Thomas Ray Carr was walking on the sidewalk on the west side of Guadalupe Street in front of a dress shop. He was heading towards his dorm in Batts Hall. He was just a few feet north of where Karen Griffith was shot. As Thomas rushed to help Karen, Charles Whitman fired a shot and the bullet pierced through the left side of Thomas' spying, causing him the four. fall down on the hot sidewalk. He laid there for about an hour before being rescued and taken to

Brackenridge Hospital, where he died on the operating table at 110 p.m. 18-year-old's Claudia Rutt and Paul Sontag were a couple who had gone to high school together. Both had just graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School, and we're planning on attending different universities. Claudia was about to leave for Texas Christian, while Paul was headed to Colorado University in the fall. On that fateful morning, Claudia and Paul ran into a friend named Carol Sue Wheeler. When Charles Whitman began shooting from above, the trio took shelter behind a construction barrier, but Paul was shot and killed instantly. When Claudia tried to reach him, Carla held her back. Both women were shot by the same bullet. Carla in the hand and Claudia in the chest.

Carlos survived, but Claudia later died from internal bleeding during surgery at Bracken Ridge Hospital. Roy Del Schmidt was a 29-year-old electrician for the city of Austin. On that morning, he and co-worker Solon McCown drove to the UT campus on a service call. They stopped and parked their vehicle near the Littlefield Fountain, about 500 yards from the tower, and saw police barricades. They crouched behind their car for shelter. Roy told another bystander that, they were safely out of range of the gunfire right before being shot to death. Solon survived without injury. Billy Speed was the Austin police officer killed in the line of duty that we talked about

earlier. He was shot at 12.08 p.m. and taken to Bracken Ridge Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 1230. He was 24 years old. Billy was planning to resign from the police department so he could attend college. Edna Townsley, who was 51 years old, was the receptionist on duty at the observation deck when Charles Whitman brutally killed her in the tower, before hiding her body behind a couch. Edna had been at UT since 1954. Normally she would have been off that day, but she was covering for a friend who was on vacation. 38-year-old Harry Walchak was married with six children.

He graduated from the University of Texas in 1954 and returned in 1954 and returned in 19. 1966 to complete his doctorate degree. Harry was doing some research in the university library and preparing for his 7 p.m. class. Around 12 p.m. He left to grab a bite to eat for lunch and walked along Guadalupe Street. Along the way, he briefly stopped at a magazine store and then continued on towards his destination. As he walked south near a barbershop, he was fatally shot in the chest.

On August 2nd, 1966, an autopsy showed that Charles Whitman had a small brain tumor close to his brain stem. The pathologist who did the postmortem said the tumor did not affect directly the frontal lobe, which controls the thinking of an individual. But pathologist Dr. Coleman de Cheneer did say it may have caused an indirect effect because of the intense pain. that it may have caused Charles Whitman. But he didn't believe it had any direct effect in triggering the shootings. At the time of the shootings, John Conley was the governor of Texas. Conley himself had been shot in 1963 and seriously wounded while riding in President Kennedy's motorcade when the president was assassinated.

Governor Conley commissioned a task force soon after the mass shootings at UT. The Conley Commission later reported, quote, It is the opinion of the task force that the relationship between the brain tumor and Charles J. Whitman's actions on the last day of his life cannot be established with clarity. A correlation between the brain tumor and the shootings has been under debate since 1966 and studied numerous times by scientists. Another issue under debate has been whether drugs may have played a part in the shootings. Charles Whitman carried three bottles of drugs in his briefcase.

One was dexedron to help him stay awake. It's commonly used today in the treatment of ADHD, but back then it was used for a lot of different things, from depression to obesity, even to morning sickness and pregnant women. Another was a tranquilizer for nerves, and the third was aspirin for his headaches. Toxicology reports and tissue sample analysis showed no evidence of acute or chronic drug toxicity. A joint funeral from Margaret Whitman and her son Charles

had over 400 people in attendance. Because he had served in the Marines, Charles was buried with full military honors and the American flag was draped over his casket. His wife Kathy was laid to rest in Davis Greenlawn Cemetery in Rosenberg, Texas. Since the horrific 1966 UT

campus shootings, gun laws in Texas and throughout the United States have changed. The gun control Act of 1968 instituted gun licensing and interstate tracking of ammunition and firearms. The Brady Act passed in 1993, required background checks, and a five-day waiting period on all firearms purchases. In 2016, on the 50th anniversary of the killings, the campus carry law went into effect in Texas, allowing concealed carry on public university campuses. Immediately after the shootings, the UT Tower was closed until 1968.

But after a string of suicides, it closed again in 1975. It reopened 25 years later in 1999 and remains open today. Self-guided tours are available. A few positive things happened after the UT killings. Two survivors seriously wounded in the attack, Abdul Kashab and Janet Palos were less than a month from getting married. when they were both shot. While the wedding had to be postponed,

the couple was married only one week later than originally planned. Police officers Romero Martinez and Houston McCoy were awarded medals of valor by the city of Austin. Martinez is now 83 years old. He left the Austin PD in 1968 and later joined the Texas Rangers, retiring in 1991. He then became a private investigator and served four years as Justice of the Peace, in Comal County. McCoy retired from the police department in 1968 and became a civilian flight instructor in the Air Force. He died on December 27, 2012. He never got over the events of that tragic day. His daughter Monica McCoy became an Austin police officer after her children were grown.

In 2006, the Tower Garden was dedicated to the victims of the shooting 10 years later on the 50th anniversary, A monument listing the names of each victim was added. Before the anniversary ceremony, the tower clock stopped at 1148 a.m. The time when the shooting began, 50 years before, the clock remained stopped for 24 hours. At dusk on August 1st, the university darkened the tower. Although these kinds of mass shootings are much more common today, we still don't fully understand. What drives people to commit these types of horrible crimes were as dumbfounded now, Morph, as the residents of Austin, Texas were back in 1966 when Charles Whitman made his way to the top of

the tower intent on carrying out his deadly mission. I mean, with a lot of these mass shootings that have occurred over the last, you know, however many years, there are clues, I think, that come out after the, fact to give us some insight as to, you know, why some of these people thought they needed to do or felt like they needed to do what they did. But to truly understand it, I think it's really hard for most of us. We just can't fathom how someone can take so many innocent lot. I think as a nation, unfortunately, it happens a lot and many of us become desensitized to it, to an extent. But back in

1966, this was just the beginning of these kinds of attacks. This was something that was almost unheard of back then. And it shocked Texas and eventually the nation. Well, and it's a little different, right, than some of the attacks that we have seen recently. This

is a guy shooting people from as far away as 500 yards. That's a very long way. Especially when you're talking about an M1 or, you know, a rifle back then with a four power scope. That's a very long shot. And I think what underscores that morph is the victim who was hiding behind a car thinking, we're safe.

We're, we've got to be 500 yards away from the tower where this shooting is going on. And that person ends up dead. Yeah, I think his marine training, no doubt played a role in his. skill in shooting, and especially being perched up in that tower, he probably had the best view of everyone in that area. So people far away that thought they were safe, if he could see them, he was able to shoot many of them. And I think if we go back to the beginning of the episode, when we talked a little bit about Charles Whitman, you know, this was a guy who really had a lot going for him, should have had a lot going for him. He was very bright.

accomplished things at an early age. We mentioned it earlier than anybody had ever done. I mean, heck, at the age of six, he almost had an IQ of 140. He should have gone on to do incredible things, amazing things. The problem is, he did. They were just horrible, incredible things instead of, you know, they were life changing, but in the wrong way. Not only was his murder spree a waste of his potential, but who knows what great things

all the victims he killed that day might have gone on to do with their lives. And I think that's a good point, right? We don't know. And we talk about this in a lot of cases, you know, especially when victims are young, what could they have gone on to do? What would they have gone on to do? Maybe change life as we know it. maybe cure cancer. I don't know. Nobody knows. That's one of the really sad things about it.

Not only are they taken away from their family, their friends, but their life is snuffed out and the world will never know what they could have become. For anyone that's interested in it, there was a movie made about this case. It's called The Deadly Tower, and it's from the 1970s, and it stars Kurt Russell. It was pretty good. Did you see that, Mike? No, I don't, I've never seen that. And I actually like Kurt Russell a lot. So I'm kind of surprised I've never seen the movie. Yeah, it was, it was pretty well done. And it was a young Kurt Russell. So before most people knew them. But if anyone wants to sort of see how things unfolded the way we've described here, the movie seemed to cover it pretty well. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode.

If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, continue to tell your friends who are into true crime about the podcast. That word of mouth goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media or on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod, you can also find us on Facebook by searching for a criminology podcast or by joining our podcast discussion group, criminology podcast discussion in fans. All right, Morph, that is it for our episode on Charles Whitman and for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.