Charles Joseph Whitman was born on June 24th, 1941. His childhood was spent participating in the Boy Scouts and hunting with his dad, among other things. His skill with a gun earned him a sharpshooting badge and he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he earned 215 of the 250 possible points on marksmanship tests and ultimately got a scholarship intend for enlisted servicemen to earn degrees in engineering. However, Whitman also had been struggling with violent impulses for much of his adult life after having grown up with an abusive father who was also abusive towards his mother. Some of Whitman's friends were unnerved by morbid and chilling statements he'd made, one of which was "A person could stand off an army from atop of \[the Main Building's clock tower\] before they got him." However, Whitman didn't just keep these feelings to himself; he was concerned enough that he might snap and hurt somebody that he sought out psychiatric help from five different doctors but was not taken seriously enough. He also was frequently dealing with anxiety along with increasingly violent and irrational thoughts. He even went to the University psychiatrist and flat-out confessed that he was considering going to the top of the University Tower and picking people off but the psychiatrist simply said there was nothing he could do. The day before his rampage, Whitman murdered his mother and wife. He wrote that he knew he had no good reason to kill them but theorized it may have been to save them the shame of his actions.

Several hours after his wife and mother, the next victim of Whitman was receptionist Edna Townsley, whom Whitman violently beat unconscious with the butt of his rifle when he encountered her after gaining access to the upper floors of the tower while posing as a deliveryman. This didn't kill her outright but she would later die of her injuries two hours after Whitman's own death. The next people killed were a woman and her high school-aged nephew, who attempted to gain access to the clocktower's observation deck while Whitman was getting set up. Whitman heard the door open, turned, and blasted it with his shotgun, striking 16 year-old Mark Garbour and his aunt, 56-year-old Marguerite Lamport. Garbour was hit in the head and kill\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`\`ed instantly. Lamport survived the initial shooting but was pronounced dead upon arrival at Brackenridge Hospital. Two other members of the Garbour family survived, but were left with life-altering injuries; Mary Garbour (41) was hit in the head and spine, leaving her paralyzed and legally blind. Mike Garbour Jr. was left with injuries that meant he was not able to complete his training for the US Army.

After reinforcing his barricade, Whitman took aim at the crowd below and at 11:48 am, the first shots rang out. The first people shot at this point in Whitman's rampage were Claire Wilson and her fiance, Thomas Frederick Eckman. Claire was eight months pregnant with their child when she took the first bullet Whitman fired from the tower. Tragically, their unborn son was the first fatality of this sequence of Whitman's rampage. Thomas Eckman was shot next and died on the ground seconds later. Claire ultimately survived, though the damage left by the bullet rendered her infertile.

At first, people in the crowded campus below didn't know what was going on. They heard distant bangs and saw people falling over. A witness interviewed later stated he believed it was some form of a protest or a peace demonstration (keep in mind, the Vietnam War was happening at the time). But as the bangs continued and people kept getting hit, it soon dawned what was happening and chaos ensued. Motorists who happened to be in the area found their cars being hit with gunfire and people were further frightened by storefront windows being shot out as others fled for safety.

Claudia Marilyn Rutt, Carla Sue Wheeler, and Paul Bolton Sonntag (both 18) took cover behind a construction barricade on a nearby street. When Paul stood up to see if the coast was clear, Whitman immediately shot him through the mouth, killing him instantly. Claudia Rutt, his girlfriend, immediately went to Paul's aide but was immediately shot in the chest by Whitman and died hours later. The third of them, Carla Sue Wheeler, was shot in the hand while desperately attempting to restrain Claudia from breaking cover to assist Paul, but survived.

At this point, the police had been alerted and were rushing to the scene. 23-year-old patrolman Billy Speed was first on scene and took cover behind decorative masonry, but was shot and killed by Whitman through a hole in the masonry. Most of the people shot by Whitman were hit during the first 15 minutes. After this point, Whitman had to contend with civilians who had armed themselves with rifles and were shooting up at the tower both in a bid to try and pick Whitman off but also to provide covering fire for the many ambulances that had showed up, as well as an armored truck which was being used as a makeshift ambulance. A biplane with a sharpshooter as a passenger even took to the air and flew by the tower several times in a bid to pick Whitman off in a fly-by shooting. However, eddying thermals bounced the plane around a bit which made aiming difficult and after Whitman fired off a few shots which had actually hit the plane, it was forced to retreat to a safe distance but remained nearby to distract Whitman.

Eventually, two police officers along with a deputized civilian, Allen Crum, snuck into the tower and made their way up to where Whitman was hiding, McCoy with a shotgun, Martinez and Crum with revolvers. When they emerged, Whitman and the three men were on opposite sides of the tower. One of them, thinking they heard footsteps, fired off a shot, which alerted Whitman. He was not able to do anything before the three men rounded a corner and came face to face with Charles Whitman. Martinez immediately opened fire on him. Most of his shots missed but one bullet did hit the rifle Whitman was holding. Before Whitman could react, McCoy's shotgun blast hit him square in the face. Though he likely died instantly, Martinez wasn't taking any chances and grabbed the shotgun from McCoy, let out a wild scream and then blasted Whitman's prone body. It was over. The Texas Tower sniper was dead.

While not the first mass shooting to have occurred in the U.S., this was the first one to be extensively covered nationwide as it took place. While 15 people were killed that day, one of the wounded, 17-year-old Karen Joan Griffith had been struck in her right lung and died the next week from her injuries and a 17th victim, David Hubert Gunby, suffered severe damage to his only kidney and died 35 years later in November 2001 a week after discontinuing dialysis treatments due to kidney disease and chronic pain he'd been suffering since that day. His death was ruled a homicide.

The Texas Tower shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. until the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre in 1984 and the deadliest school shooting until the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. The image of a crazed clocktower gunman entered pop culture and several movies and TV shows in the following decades alluded to Whitman's rampage, such as Parenthood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 9 years later in 1975, a made-for-television re-enactment entitled "The Deadly Tower" aired on NBC with Kurt Russell as Charles Whitman. The film did alright with critics, though some questioned whether such a gruesome point of history should have been recreated.

One final note, in a letter written before his rampage, Whitman wrote that he wished to have an autopsy performed on him to hopefully find a plausible explanation for his actions. An autopsy was performed and they did find a plausible explanation; a brain tumor the size of a small walnut pressing hard up against his amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear and anxiety. While it is likely this contributed to Whitman's actions that day, whether or not for certain if it had anything to do will never be known.

Rest in peace to all the victims of Whitman's insanity, and condolences to the families left behind.

The University of Texas clocktower visible through a bullet hole in a store window after Charles Whitman shot and killed 15 people before being killed himself by two policemen (Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy) and a deputized civilian (Allen Crum) 60 years ago. August 1st, 1966 [640X640]