Charles Whitman

This article is about the criminal Charles J. Whitman. For the politician, please see Charles S. Whitman.

File:Whitman1963Yearbook.jpg

1963 yearbook photo of Charles Whitman.

Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 — August 1, 1966) was an Eagle Scout and former Marine who, on August 1, 1966, shot and killed 10 people from his perch at the top of the University of Texas at Austin's clock tower.

He killed three others inside, Edna Townsley (officially pronounced dead later at Seton Hospital), Mark Gabour, and his Aunt Marguerite Lamport, before exiting the tower building. During the 90-93 minute shooting spree, he also wounded 33 others. The night before, Whitman had killed his wife and mother at their homes. Whitman was an architectural engineering major at the University at the time of the shootings. The result of August 1, was 16 dead (including Whitman) and 33 wounded. Karen Griffith, a high school student who attended Lanier H.S. where Whitman's wife Kathleen taught, died a week later, bringing the total to 17.

The Report to the Governor - Medical Aspects - Charles J. Whitman Catastrophe - Austin, Texas - September 8, 1966

(Report to the Governor-Medical Aspects-Charles J. Whitman Catastrophe; Pg 6., Para. 2) The week-long examination necessarily was limited in depth and scope for five reasons. 1. The autopsy was not performed until approximately 24 hours after death. 2. The body had received arterial and trochar embalming before Dr. de Chenar's initial examination. 3. Many parts of the brain were damaged by the penetrating fragments of bone which had been created by the gunshot wounds. 4. All of the pieces of the brain were not recovered for the examination. 5. The brain had been sectioned at the time of the autopsy. (End)

As to the drug findings (Same Source. Pg8., Para. 1) Specialists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington D. C., reviewed formalin-fixed and embalmed specimens of tissue from the brain, kidney, stomach, and liver for toxicological analysis. The report indicated: Kidney, Stomach and brain--no finding of basic drugs (next line) Liver-- no finding of barbituates (next line) Kidney--no finding of neutral drugs (end of referencing) Gary Lavernge, in "A Sniper on The Tower" uses this and other references to dismiss Charles as being anything other than a monster. But what Lavergne doesn't do, is include a significant piece of information in the report: (Same Source, Pg 10., Para. 11 and Pg. 11,. continued) 11. 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. (Lavergne uses this and omits the following) HOWEVER (emphasis added), the highly malignant brain tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions;(end) So there is an abscense of urine and blood that has not been corrupted by the embalming process, the embalmer discards the urine and has to let blood out for the embalming. The autopsy is performed a day later. Re-examination is done a week later. LaVergne writes an intellectually appealing book 31 years later, omitting and editing to support his POV and the book is published by The University Press, who stands to garner public empathy and profits from a biased source (LaVernge now works for UT, was the book a factor to the job?)68.187.194.251 19:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)Subwayjack

Whitman's mental state and health problems

On March 29, 1966, just months before the shooting, Whitman met with a doctor to discuss his mental state.^[1] He told the doctor that he wanted to go to the top of the tower and "start shooting people with a deer rifle". The doctor interpreted the thought as a passing fantasy, but did note that he was "oozing with hostility" and asked Whitman to return for another session. Whitman did not.^[2]

On July 31, 1966, Whitman wrote "I am prepared to die. After my death, I wish an autopsy on me to be performed to see if there is any mental disorder." The same day, he stabbed his mother to death, leaving a note that 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."

Whitman returned home and stabbed his wife to death in her sleep, leaving another note:

"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."

A later autopsy revealed that Whitman had a cancerous Glioblastoma tumor in the hypothalamus region of the brain. Some believe these types of tumors can induce violent or irrational behavior, but very few physicians believe the tumor would have allowed Whitman to engage in such a long period of goal-oriented behavior.

Whitman abused the drugs that had been prescribed for him by a number of doctors, including physicians on staff at the University of Texas' health center. Some believe his drug abuse was a major factor in his actions, but after his death pathologists found no trace of these drugs in his blood. However, a urinalysis — the preferred method for detecting certain narcotics — was never performed. Douglas, in ANATOMY OF MOTIVE (pgs. 225-27), and Lavergne, in SNIPER IN THE TOWER (pg. 268) agree that Whitman could not have had enough drugs in his system to affect his motor skills — much less his judgment. Finally, subsequent and definitive tests on Whitman's kidney (which produces urine) and liver samples were negative for a long list of narcotics. His final notes reflected his resentment towards his father for mistreating his mother, as well as other disappointments in his life.

Tower shootings

The tower of the University of Texas Main Building. Guadalupe Street (known as "The Drag") is just out of frame to the right. The Tower's observation deck is located immediately below the clock faces near the top of the tower.

(Dobie Center, the large building in the background, was not constructed until 1972.)

Disguised as a worker and pushing his Marine footlocker on a rented dolly packed with weapons and supplies, Whitman entered the Main Building of the University of Texas slightly after 11:30 a.m. Claiming to be delivering supplies, he had obtained a permit at a UT Police guard stand allowing him to enter a small road that runs past the foot of the tower. There Whitman parked and entered the building, riding as high as an elevator would take him up the 307-foot tower, which had an obervation deck at the top.

Upon reaching the highest floor accessible by elevator, Whitman lugged his trunk up three flights of stairs to the deck area. There he encountered a middle-aged attendant, Edna Townsley, at her desk in a small room guarding the passage to the four-sided deck. He bludgeoned her skull with the butt of his rifle. He then concealed her body behind a couch, leaving her for dead. At the time, she was filling in for a vacationing co-worker. At noon she would have been relieved by Vera Palmer, another co-worker. Palmer had helped Whitman get on the elevator minutes before Townsley was fatally attacked.

Cheryl Botts and Don Walden, a young couple who had been sightseeing on the deck, returned to the attendant's area moments after the crime and encountered Whitman holding a rifle in each hand. Botts observed a long red stain on the floor which she thought was paint. Botts and Walden greeted Whitman and exited the room. After the encounter, Walden remarked that the look in Whitman's eyes told them that they had better move along.

Some tourists, the Gabour and Lamport families, who were heading up the stairs moments later, were not so fortunate. The family encountered a table and chair barricading the stairway. Michael Gabour, the older son, went up to the barricade and as he was attempting to look around it Whitman shot at him with his sawed-off shotgun. Whitman then shot at the family twice through the grates on the railing leading to the observation deck greeting room. The gunfire sent them all tumbling back down the stairs to a landing. Of the four Mark Gabour and his aunt Marguerite Lamport died; the two others had permanent injuries. The two men in the group, who were at the foot of the stairs when the shots rang out, were not hit.

Unlike many criminals who act in a fit of passion, Whitman had planned carefully. His trunk contained a sniper rifle and numerous other weapons, including the sawed-off shotgun for close-up use, and other items intended for an extended stand-off. Over approximately the next ninety-six minutes, he shot down from the tower into the surrounding area, choosing his targets at random. The first shots from the tower came at 11:48 a.m.

Sniper fire commences

A history professor with an office overlooking the South Mall, a large grassy area underneath the tower where students lounge and study, saw the first victims fall. He immediately phoned the Austin Police Department. His call was followed by a flurry of phone messages from other employees clamoring for police help and medical assistance.

In 1966, before mass killings had become commonplace, students and university-area workers dismissed the "pops" they heard and kept strolling to classes and appointments. In those first minutes, Whitman had many targets and he took full advantage of the situation. Without return gunfire, he was able to aim, and as a result, most of the fatalities happened during that initial period.

The shootings sparked panic among residents in Austin as news spread to the local media and by word of mouth. When the magnitude of what was happening became apparent, every officer on duty was ordered to the campus area. Other off-duty officers threw on their uniforms and hurried to help.

Local Secret Service agents from the Johnson administration, sheriff's deputies, and Department of Public Safety officers arrived on campus to help the Austin police and unarmed campus security. But Whitman was barricaded on the deck he had turned into a fortress. In fact, as later observers (including Whitman) said, the deck was tailor-made for a stand-off. During the latter part of his rampage, he was using the drainspouts located on each side as turrets, making him virtually impossible to hit from the ground.

Whitman's choice of victims was indiscriminate and his accuracy was impressive; two hits found their mark more than 450 yards away from the tower. The worst killing zone, as far as numbers of people hit, was Guadalupe Street (known as "The Drag"), a major shopping, food service, and business district across from the west side of the campus.

As word went out, many students and area residents with high-powered deer rifles loaded their weapons and ran to campus to return fire. Students, bystanders and campus area employees performed heroic acts to rescue wounded victims. An armored car company also served as a rescue vehicle.

In 1966, Austin's funeral homes provided ambulance service. Morris Hohmann, one of the drivers, was responding to the victims on West 23rd Street, when he was shot in a leg artery. Another ambulance driver quickly attended to Hohmann, who had used his belt as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding, and took him to Brackenridge Hospital with the other victims.

Austin only had one full-scale emergency room at that time, in Brackenridge Hospital, a public hospital about ten blocks south of the UT area. Doctors, nurses, and medical technicians raced there to reinforce the on-duty staff. The lines at the county blood center on I-35 and at Brackenridge itself stretched for blocks as concerned citizens hurried to donate blood.

The two Austin police switchboard operators were overwhelmed with calls. Requests for help for victims received priority. A policeman tried to distract Whitman by circling the tower in a small airplane flown by a local pilot. Whitman fired upon the plane, but the officer decided not to return fire because he might hit innocent bystanders in the tower's upper offices and classrooms. The officer ordered the plane to keep circling the tower and was thus able to provide information about Whitman's movements.

Whitman killed

The sniping continued until four men reached the observation deck. The group was composed of two armed Austin police officers, a temporarily deputized private citizen and retired military officer, and another officer. Two policemen made their way to the northeast corner of the deck and spotted Whitman seated on the floor of the northwest corner. There they killed him. Word spread rapidly that the shootings were over, and hundreds of people who had been holed up in classrooms and stores emerged and headed towards the Main Mall.

List of deaths

• Margaret Whitman, Whitman's mother — killed in her fifth floor apartment in the Penthouse Towers
• Kathy Whitman, Whitman's wife — killed at their home on 906 Jewel Street
• Edna Townsley, Tower receptionist — killed in reception area
• Marguerite Lamport, visitor — killed by shotgun blast on stairs leading to reception room
• Mark Gabour, nephew of Lamport — killed by shotgun blast on stairs leading to reception room
• Thomas Frederick Eckman — shot in the left shoulder, just below the neck, he bent down when Claire Wilson was shot
• Robert Hamilton Boyer, visiting physics professor — shot in lower back
• Thomas Ashton, Peace Corps trainee —
• Karen Griffith, 17-year old — died in hospital a week after the shootings-shot through lungs
• Thomas Karr — shot in back, walking near Griffith
• Billy Paul Speed, Austin Police officer — shot through a gap between two ballisters
• Harry Walchuk, doctoral student and father of six
• Paul Bolton Sonntag, high school student — hiding behind a road construction barricade, shot in mouth;
• Claudia Rutt, high school student — shot while trying to help Sonntag, died in hospital
• Roy Dell Schmidt, city electrician — shot on the street, near his truck
• Charles Whitman — killed by officers McCoy and Martinez
• David Gunby — died in 2001 of complications from being shot in kidney

• • In 1966, all victims lists included an eight-month fetus carried by a pregnant student named Claire Wilson. Some consider the fetus a victim because it was viable and involuntarily removed from its mother.

After effects

The Watts Riot in the early '60s prompted the Los Angeles Police Department to consider forming a task force to deal with situations that were beyond normal police procedures. The necessity to contain violent situations that were not routine set up a think tank with tactical specialty units equipped to bring any situation under control that required more than a few officers. During the planning, Whitman showed what a determined individual could do to render a city helpless. Austin was not prepared for what happened and LA took note. The Whitman murders contributed to the impetus to establish SWAT teams in cities across the United States.

After the tragedy, the Tower's observation deck was closed to the public for two years. It was re-opened in 1968, but after a few suicides, it was closed again in 1975. The observation deck remained closed until 1998. Today, metal detectors and other security measures are in place during tours. Although student tour guides do not mention the shootings in their prepared remarks, guides will answer frequently-asked questions. Repaired scars from bullets are still visible on the limestone walls.

On November 12, 2001, David Gunby died from long-term kidney complications stemming from a wound he received while on sidewalk of the South Mall. Tragically, Gunby was born with only one functioning kidney, which was nearly destroyed by Whitman's shot. After three decades of suffering, including the prospect of losing his eyesight, he refused further treatment. The Tarrant County Coroner's report listed the cause of death as "homicide."

References in popular culture

References to Whitman's tower-spree have abounded in the decades since it initially happened, remaining at the forefront of public consciousness though many are unaware of the exact details surrounding the event.

1960s

File:WhitmanTimeCover.jpg

Time

File:WhitmanLifeTexasSniper.jpg

Life

A photograph of Whitman appeared on the August 12, 1966 cover of Time, highlighting an article titled The Psychotic & Society. The article credits Martinez with being the only officer to confront Whitman and as the killer of Whitman.

He also appeared the same day on the cover of Life, for an article titled The Texas Sniper.

1970s

In 1972, Harry Chapin recorded an album entitled Sniper and Other Love Songs. Sniper, the album's title song, recorded from both first and third-person narratives, referenced Whitman's issues with his mother and highlighted his isolation.

In 1975 the incident was depicted in the movie The Deadly Tower which starred Kurt Russell as Whitman. After the movie came out, Ramiro Martinez sued the film company for its portrayal of him and his wife. Houston McCoy, the officer who fired the shotgun rounds that actually killed Whitman (but whose role is often discounted or even ignored in some stories about the event) also sued. Martinez settled out of court for an unknown amount, but McCoy received no settlement.

The 1976 movie God Told Me To opened with a sequence of a sniper climbing a New York City watertower, before throwing himself over the edge.

1980s

The 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket contains a scene in which a Marine Corps drill instructor, tells his recruits that Whitman's phenomenal accuracy was a result of his training as a rifleman in the Marines.

1990s

The 1991 movie Slacker, filmed on location in Austin, where the anarchist Professor proclaims, "Now Charles Whitman, there was a man!......"

The 1993 movie True Romance references Whitman in the hotel scene with the drug collector and Alabama Worley (maiden name Whitman) by way of the line, "You know that guy in Texas..."

The 1994 movie Natural Born Killers, Detective Scagnetti tells Warden McClusky that he hunts serial killers because, as a boy in Texas, he was holding his mother's hand when "some wacko climbed up a clock tower and started shooting," and one of the bullets fatally wounded his mother.

The 1994 movie Higher Learning portrays a Whitman-like clock tower shooting commited by a white supremacist member. After convincing his "brothers" that he is going to prove himself to the Aryans, he climbs the clock tower at Columbia University and shoots at bystanders.

In 1994, The Simpsons referenced the shooting in the episode 'Homer loves Flanders.' Ned Flanders climbs up a clock tower and then begins shooting random bystanders with a high-powered sniper rifle.

The 1996 movie Don't Be a Menace satires a scene from Higher Learning with a comical outlook on the Whitman clock tower shootings.

Macabre made a song about Charles Whitman on the album Sinister Slaughter called "Sniper in the Sky".

Texas singer Kinky Friedman recorded "The Ballad of Charles Whitman."

Episode 2x03 of The X-Files ends with Mulder apprehending a sniper in a college clock tower.

Notes

1. ^ Spree Killers: Charles Whitman Rotten. Accessed 7 December 2005.
2. ^ MacLeod, Marlee. Charles Whitman: The Texas Tower Sniper Court TV Crime Library. Accessed 7 December 2005.

References

• Lavergne, Gary M., "A Sniper in the Tower" Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1997.
• Douglas, John and Olshaker, Mark, "The Anatomy of Motive" New York: Scribner, 1999. Pages 215-250.
• Levin, Jack and Fox, James Alan, "Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace" New York: Plenum Press, 1985.
• New York Times column by Frank Rich dated September 29, 1999--"[3]

See also

• Suicide note found lying next to Kathy Whitman's body

External links

• Forrest Preece's personal recount of events
• Charles Whitman from the Handbook of Texas Online