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AUSTIN, TEXAS - Monday, August 1st, 1966 began like any other summer day in Austin with expected day time high temperatures rising to the uppers 90's to near 100 degrees. At 906 Jewel Street a 24-year-old man has already killed his wife while she slept and earlier that morning he murdered his Mother.
Both people the young man confessed that he
loved in a letter that he meticulous typed on his typewriter
address to the authorities who would find their bodies.
The letter read: Sunday 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
can't 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 March when my parents made a
physical break I noticed a great deal of stress. I consulted a
Dr. Cochrum 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 come overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I
never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have 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 have 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 for doing this. I don't
know whether it is selfishness, or if I don't want her to have
to face the embarrassment my actions would surely cause her. At
this time, though, the prominent reason in my mind is that I
truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am
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. She was a simple young woman
who married a very possessive and dominating man. All my life as
a boy until I ran away from home to join the Marine Corps Whitman stopped typing his letter here and later
continue by handwriting the following words: |
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The above letter was found lying next to Kathy Whitman's body by the Austin Police department. She had been stabbed five times in her chest with a hunting knife while she slept. At 11:25 AM, Whitman drove to the ground floor entrance of the Tower. He told a security guard that he needed to unload equipment at the Experimental Science Building, and obtained a parking permit.
Found lying around Whitman's body: A .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, a Galesi-Brescia pistol, a .35 Remington, a Sears 12-gauge shotgun which he sawed-off, a 6mm Remington bolt-action rifle with a 4-power Leupold scope, and a .30 caliber M-1 Carbine. He also had over 700 rounds of ammunition. (Later Police found three rifles and two derringers at his home that Charles decided not to carry with him that morning).It's been reported that when Whitman got to the elevator door he couldn't figure out how to start it. He asked an attendant what he was doing wrong. She told him how to turn it on. "Thank you, ma'am," Whitman said. "You don't know how happy that makes me." He took the elevator to the 27th floor and then dragged the heavy footlocker with the rented dolly one flight of stairs to the 28th floor where he killed 51 year old Edna Townsley, the floor receptionist with the butt of a gun to the back of her head. Whitman then dragged her body behind a couch in order to hide it. Soon a couple coming down from the observation deck was without explanation allowed to pass by Whitman unharmed. When the Gabour and Lamport families arrived to the 28th floor from the stairwell, he shot them with the sawed-off shotgun, wounding two and killing Marguerite Lamport and her nephew, Mark Gabour. When Whitman walked onto the observation deck it was 11:45 AM. Where he had a clear view of the campus and the neighboring community including Guadalupe Street known as the "Drag". He began shooting from the top of the tower.
OFFICER REPORTS: Read what happen in the their own words. Officer Houston McCoy - [Click
to Read His Report]
Allen Crum - [Click to Read His Report] What caused the behavior of Charles Whitman to want to go to the Tower and start killing people? It may never be known for certain why he decided that August 1, 1966 would be the day he would become a sniper and kill 16 innocent people. Research has shown he had visited the Tower twice before in 1966, once on April 5th with a friend and then again on July 22nd with family members. An autopsy was preformed on Whitman's body, August 2nd at 8:55 AM at the Cook Funeral Home. They found a small brain tumor located in the white matter above the brain stem. Could this be why Charles Whitman needed to constantly take Excedrin to relieve his pain from tremendous headaches? While in the Marines Whitman was hospitalized for four days after a jeep accident in which he went over an embankment. According to witnesses, Whitman, although groggy, lifted the jeep from his pinned companion, then collapsed and was unconscious for several hours. Could this have led to the tumor that grew within his brain? The official results of a Report to the Governor of Texas dated September 8th, 1966 stated the following:
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