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On August 1, 1966, the Texas Tower Sniper shootings occurred.
Charles Whitman
Whitman in 1963
Details
Date: August 1, 1966
Family: c. 12:15 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.
Random: 11:48 a.m. – 1:24 p.m.
Location(s): University of Texas at Austin, Texas
Target(s): Mother, wife, random strangers
Killed: 17 (including an unborn child, a police officer and David Gunby, who died in 2001)
Injured: 31
Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) was an American mass murderer who became infamous as the "Texas Tower Sniper". On August 1, 1966, he used knives in the slayings of his mother and his wife in their respective homes and then went to the University of Texas in Austin with multiple firearms and began indiscriminately shooting at people. He fatally shot three people inside the university tower. He then went to the tower's 28th-floor observation deck, where he fired at random people for some 96 minutes, killing an additional 11 people, including an unborn child, and wounding 31 others before he was shot dead by Austin police officer Houston McCoy. Whitman killed a total of 17 people; the 17th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.
Early life and education
{snip}
Whitman joined the Boy Scouts at age 11. He became an Eagle Scout at 12 years three months, reportedly the youngest of any Eagle Scout up to that time. Whitman also became an accomplished pianist at the age of 12. At around the same time, he began an extensive newspaper route.
High school
Whitman around 1959 (age 18)
On September 1, 1955, Whitman entered St. Ann's High School in West Palm Beach, where he was regarded as a moderately popular student whose intelligence was noted by his teachers and peers. By the next month, he had saved enough money from his newspaper route to purchase a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he used on his route.
Whitman enlisted in the United States Marine Corps one month after his June 1959 graduation from high school, where he had graduated seventh in a class of 72 students. He had not told his father beforehand. Whitman told a family friend that the catalyst was an incident a month earlier, in which his father had beaten him and thrown him into the family swimming pool because Whitman had come home drunk. Whitman left home on July 6, having been assigned an 18-month tour of duty with the Marines at Guantánamo Bay. His father still did not know he had enlisted.
As Whitman traveled toward Parris Island, his father learned of his action and telephoned a branch of the federal government, trying to have his son's enlistment canceled.
U.S. Marine and college student
During Whitman's initial 18-month service in 1959 and 1960, he earned a sharpshooter's badge and the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal. He achieved 215 of 250 possible points on marksmanship tests, doing well when shooting rapidly over long distances as well as at moving targets. After completing his assignment, Whitman applied to a U.S. Navy and Marine Corps scholarship program, intending to complete college and become a commissioned officer.
Whitman earned high scores on the required examination, and the selection committee approved his enrollment at a preparatory school in Maryland, where he completed courses in mathematics and physics before being approved to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin to study mechanical engineering.
University life
On September 15, 1961, Whitman entered the mechanical engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin. He was initially a poor student. His hobbies included karate, scuba diving, gambling, and hunting. Shortly after his enrollment at the university, Whitman and two friends were observed poaching a deer, with a passer-by noting his license plate number and reporting them to the police. The trio were butchering the deer in the shower at Whitman's dormitory when they were arrested. Whitman was fined $100 ($800 in 2018) for the offense.
Whitman earned a reputation as a practical joker in his years as an engineering student, but his friends also noted he made some morbid and chilling statements. On one occasion in 1962, as Whitman and a fellow student named Francis Schuck Jr. browsed in the bookstore in the main building of the University of Texas, Whitman remarked, "A person could stand off an army from atop of it [the tower] before they got him."
{snip}
Events leading to the shooting
Main building of the University of Texas
at Austin. Whitman fired at people on
the ground from the observation deck.
On the day before the shootings, Whitman bought a pair of binoculars and a knife from a hardware store, and some Spam from a 7-Eleven convenience store. He picked up his wife from her summer job as a telephone operator before he met his mother for lunch at the Wyatt Cafeteria, which was close to the UT Austin campus.
At about 4:00 p.m. the same day, Whitman and his wife visited their close friends John and Frances Morgan. They left the Morgans' apartment at 5:50 p.m. so Kathy could get to her 6:00–10:00 p.m. shift.
At 6:45 p.m., Whitman began typing his suicide note, a portion of which read:
In his note, Whitman went on to request an autopsy be performed on his remains after he was dead to determine if there had been a biological cause for his actions and for his continuing and increasingly intense headaches. He also wrote that he had decided to kill both his mother and wife. Expressing uncertainty about his reasons, he nonetheless stated he did not believe his mother had "ever enjoyed life as she is entitled to", and that his wife had "been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have". Whitman further explained that he wanted to relieve both his wife and mother of the suffering of this world, and to save them the embarrassment of his actions. 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. How he murdered his mother is disputed, but officials believed he rendered her unconscious before stabbing her in the heart.
He left a handwritten note beside her body, which read in part:
Whitman then returned to his home at 906 Jewell Street, where he killed his wife by stabbing her five times in the chest as she slept. He covered her body with sheets, then resumed the typewritten note he had begun the previous evening. Using a ballpoint pen, he wrote at the side of the page:
Whitman continued the note, finishing it by pen:
Whitman also left instructions in the rented house requesting that two rolls of camera film be developed and wrote personal notes to each of his brothers. He 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:
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.
Whitman's final journal entries were written in the past tense, suggesting that he had already killed his wife and mother.
University of Texas Tower shooting
Main article: University of Texas tower shooting
The tower observation deck
At approximately 11:35 a.m., Whitman arrived on the UT Austin campus. He falsely identified himself as a research assistant and told a security guard he was there to deliver equipment.[48] He then climbed to the 28th floor of the Main Building's clock tower, killing three people within the tower, and opened fire from the observation deck with a hunting rifle and other weapons.
Whitman killed 15 people and wounded 31 in the 96 minutes before he was shot and killed. Patrolman Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez of the Austin Police Department had raced to the top of the tower and a combination of shots from both men killed Whitman.
{snip}
Connally Commission
Texas Governor John Connally commissioned a task force to examine the autopsy findings and material related to Whitman's actions and motives. The commission was composed of neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, pathologists, psychologists, and the University of Texas Health Center Directors, John White and Maurice Heatly. The Commission's toxicology tests revealed nothing significant. They examined Chenar's paraffin blocks of the tumor, stained specimens of it and Whitman's other brain tissue, in addition to the remainder of the autopsy specimens available.
Following a three-hour hearing on August 5, the Commission concluded that Chenar's finding had been in error. They found that the tumor had features of a glioblastoma multiforme, with widespread areas of necrosis, palisading[a] of cells, and a "remarkable vascular component" described as having "the nature of a small congenital vascular malformation". Psychiatric contributors to the report concluded that "the relationship between the brain tumor and [...] Whitman's actions [...] cannot be established with clarity. However, the [...] tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions", while the neurologists and neuropathologists concluded: "The application of existing knowledge of organic brain function does not enable us to explain the actions of Whitman on August first."
Forensic investigators have theorized that the tumor pressed against Whitman's amygdala, a part of the brain related to anxiety and fight-or-flight responses.
{snip}
Whitman in 1963
Details
Date: August 1, 1966
Family: c. 12:15 a.m. – 3:00 a.m.
Random: 11:48 a.m. – 1:24 p.m.
Location(s): University of Texas at Austin, Texas
Target(s): Mother, wife, random strangers
Killed: 17 (including an unborn child, a police officer and David Gunby, who died in 2001)
Injured: 31
Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) was an American mass murderer who became infamous as the "Texas Tower Sniper". On August 1, 1966, he used knives in the slayings of his mother and his wife in their respective homes and then went to the University of Texas in Austin with multiple firearms and began indiscriminately shooting at people. He fatally shot three people inside the university tower. He then went to the tower's 28th-floor observation deck, where he fired at random people for some 96 minutes, killing an additional 11 people, including an unborn child, and wounding 31 others before he was shot dead by Austin police officer Houston McCoy. Whitman killed a total of 17 people; the 17th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.
Early life and education
{snip}
Whitman joined the Boy Scouts at age 11. He became an Eagle Scout at 12 years three months, reportedly the youngest of any Eagle Scout up to that time. Whitman also became an accomplished pianist at the age of 12. At around the same time, he began an extensive newspaper route.
High school
Whitman around 1959 (age 18)
On September 1, 1955, Whitman entered St. Ann's High School in West Palm Beach, where he was regarded as a moderately popular student whose intelligence was noted by his teachers and peers. By the next month, he had saved enough money from his newspaper route to purchase a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he used on his route.
Whitman enlisted in the United States Marine Corps one month after his June 1959 graduation from high school, where he had graduated seventh in a class of 72 students. He had not told his father beforehand. Whitman told a family friend that the catalyst was an incident a month earlier, in which his father had beaten him and thrown him into the family swimming pool because Whitman had come home drunk. Whitman left home on July 6, having been assigned an 18-month tour of duty with the Marines at Guantánamo Bay. His father still did not know he had enlisted.
As Whitman traveled toward Parris Island, his father learned of his action and telephoned a branch of the federal government, trying to have his son's enlistment canceled.
U.S. Marine and college student
During Whitman's initial 18-month service in 1959 and 1960, he earned a sharpshooter's badge and the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal. He achieved 215 of 250 possible points on marksmanship tests, doing well when shooting rapidly over long distances as well as at moving targets. After completing his assignment, Whitman applied to a U.S. Navy and Marine Corps scholarship program, intending to complete college and become a commissioned officer.
Whitman earned high scores on the required examination, and the selection committee approved his enrollment at a preparatory school in Maryland, where he completed courses in mathematics and physics before being approved to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin to study mechanical engineering.
University life
On September 15, 1961, Whitman entered the mechanical engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin. He was initially a poor student. His hobbies included karate, scuba diving, gambling, and hunting. Shortly after his enrollment at the university, Whitman and two friends were observed poaching a deer, with a passer-by noting his license plate number and reporting them to the police. The trio were butchering the deer in the shower at Whitman's dormitory when they were arrested. Whitman was fined $100 ($800 in 2018) for the offense.
Whitman earned a reputation as a practical joker in his years as an engineering student, but his friends also noted he made some morbid and chilling statements. On one occasion in 1962, as Whitman and a fellow student named Francis Schuck Jr. browsed in the bookstore in the main building of the University of Texas, Whitman remarked, "A person could stand off an army from atop of it [the tower] before they got him."
{snip}
Events leading to the shooting
Main building of the University of Texas
at Austin. Whitman fired at people on
the ground from the observation deck.
On the day before the shootings, Whitman bought a pair of binoculars and a knife from a hardware store, and some Spam from a 7-Eleven convenience store. He picked up his wife from her summer job as a telephone operator before he met his mother for lunch at the Wyatt Cafeteria, which was close to the UT Austin campus.
At about 4:00 p.m. the same day, Whitman and his wife visited their close friends John and Frances Morgan. They left the Morgans' apartment at 5:50 p.m. so Kathy could get to her 6:00–10:00 p.m. shift.
At 6:45 p.m., Whitman began typing his suicide note, a portion of which read:
I don't 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 don't 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. These thoughts constantly recur, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and progressive tasks.
In his note, Whitman went on to request an autopsy be performed on his remains after he was dead to determine if there had been a biological cause for his actions and for his continuing and increasingly intense headaches. He also wrote that he had decided to kill both his mother and wife. Expressing uncertainty about his reasons, he nonetheless stated he did not believe his mother had "ever enjoyed life as she is entitled to", and that his wife had "been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have". Whitman further explained that he wanted to relieve both his wife and mother of the suffering of this world, and to save them the embarrassment of his actions. 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. How he murdered his mother is disputed, but officials believed he rendered her unconscious before stabbing her in the heart.
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.
Whitman then returned to his home at 906 Jewell Street, where he killed his wife by stabbing her five times in the chest as she slept. He covered her body with sheets, then resumed the typewritten note he had begun the previous evening. Using a ballpoint pen, he wrote at the side of the page:
Friends interrupted. 8-1-66 Mon. 3:00 A.M. BOTH DEAD.
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.
Whitman also left instructions in the rented house requesting that two rolls of camera film be developed and wrote personal notes to each of his brothers. He 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.
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.
Whitman's final journal entries were written in the past tense, suggesting that he had already killed his wife and mother.
University of Texas Tower shooting
Main article: University of Texas tower shooting
The tower observation deck
At approximately 11:35 a.m., Whitman arrived on the UT Austin campus. He falsely identified himself as a research assistant and told a security guard he was there to deliver equipment.[48] He then climbed to the 28th floor of the Main Building's clock tower, killing three people within the tower, and opened fire from the observation deck with a hunting rifle and other weapons.
Whitman killed 15 people and wounded 31 in the 96 minutes before he was shot and killed. Patrolman Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez of the Austin Police Department had raced to the top of the tower and a combination of shots from both men killed Whitman.
{snip}
Connally Commission
Texas Governor John Connally commissioned a task force to examine the autopsy findings and material related to Whitman's actions and motives. The commission was composed of neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, pathologists, psychologists, and the University of Texas Health Center Directors, John White and Maurice Heatly. The Commission's toxicology tests revealed nothing significant. They examined Chenar's paraffin blocks of the tumor, stained specimens of it and Whitman's other brain tissue, in addition to the remainder of the autopsy specimens available.
Following a three-hour hearing on August 5, the Commission concluded that Chenar's finding had been in error. They found that the tumor had features of a glioblastoma multiforme, with widespread areas of necrosis, palisading[a] of cells, and a "remarkable vascular component" described as having "the nature of a small congenital vascular malformation". Psychiatric contributors to the report concluded that "the relationship between the brain tumor and [...] Whitman's actions [...] cannot be established with clarity. However, the [...] tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions", while the neurologists and neuropathologists concluded: "The application of existing knowledge of organic brain function does not enable us to explain the actions of Whitman on August first."
Forensic investigators have theorized that the tumor pressed against Whitman's amygdala, a part of the brain related to anxiety and fight-or-flight responses.
{snip}
Wed Jul 30, 2025: On the night of July 13-14, 1966, Richard Speck killed eight student nurses in their Chicago residence.
Thu Aug 1, 2024: On this day, August 1, 1966, the Texas Tower Sniper shootings occurred.
Tue Aug 1, 2023: On this day, August 1, 1966, the Texas Tower Sniper shootings occurred.
Thu Aug 1, 2019: August 1, 1966: Charles Whitman gains infamy as the Texas Tower Sniper
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