Charles Whitman

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Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) is known for ascending The University of Texas at Austin's 27-story tower on August 1, 1966, and shooting passersby in the city and on the campus below, after having killed his mother and his wife the night before. In all Whitman killed 15 people and wounded 31 others before he was shot dead by Austin police. (Some accounts allege 16 or 17 victims, citing a later suicide stemming from the attacks, and a pregnant woman who subsequently miscarried.) At autopsy, Whitman was found to have suffered from a brain tumor affecting the limbic system.

Contents 1 Background 2 Family issues 3 Declining health 4 Leadup to the shootings 5 Tower shootings 5.1 Whitman arrives at the Tower 5.2 Sniper fire commences 5.3 Whitman's death 6 Casualties 6.1 Killed 6.2 Wounded 7 Aftermath 8 References in popular culture 9 Further reading 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Background

The oldest of three brothers raised on South L Street in Lake Worth, Florida, Whitman attended St. Ann's High School in Palm Beach, where he was a pitcher on the school's baseball team.^[1] Charles and his brothers all served as altar boys at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church^[2], and he chose the Confirmation name "Joseph" for himself.^[3]

At the age of 6, he had scored 138 on an IQ test.[1] Six years later, he was among the youngest to ever achieve Eagle Scout, to his father's delight.^[4][5] He took five years of piano lessons[2].

When Whitman was 14, and still serving as an altar boy, his Scout leader Joseph Leduc completed seminary and served as the priest of Sacred Heart for a month. Leduc was a family friend, who had accompanied Whitman and his father on several hunting trips. This was also the year that he finally overcame his habit of nervously biting his nails.[3] At the age of 16, Whitman underwent a routine appendectomy. The same year, he was hospitalized following a motorcycle accident.[4]

Whitman joined the Marines, against his father's wishes, on July 6, 1959. He explained to Fr. Leduc that he had come home drunk several weeks before and his father had hit him repeatedly and pushed him into the family's swimming pool. While Whitman was aboard a train headed towards Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, his father telephoned "some branch of Federal Government" to have his son's enlistment cancelled, but was rebuffed.[5]

After enlisting, Whitman was accepted into the University of Texas' mechanical engineering program on September 15, 1961 through a USMC scholarship. At the University, Whitman was involved in a "teenage prank" that saw him shooting a deer, dragging it to his dormitory and skinning it in his shower.[6]

In August 1962, Whitman married Kathleen Frances Leissner, another UT student. Their wedding was held in Kathy's hometown of Needville, Texas but was presided over by Fr. Leduc.

His scholarship was withdrawn in 1963 due to the deer prank, and sub-standard grades.[7]

In 1963, Whitman returned to active duty at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he was promoted to Lance Corporal. There, he was involved in an accident where his jeep rolled over an embankment. After rescuing his pinned comrade, Whitman was hospitalised for four days.[8]

In November Whitman was court-martialed for gambling, possessing a personal firearm on-base and threatening another Marine over a $30 loan for which Whitman demanded $15 interest. He was sentenced to 30 days confinement and 90 days hard labor, and was demoted to the rank of Private.^[6]

In December 1964, Whitman was honorably discharged from the Marines, and returned to the University of Texas, this time enrolling in its architectural engineering program. Now without his scholarship, Whitman worked first as a bill collector for Standard Finance Company and later as a bank teller at Austin National Bank. By 1965, he had taken a temporary job with Central Freight Lines and working as a traffic surveyor for the Texas Highway Department, and was working for NASA.

He also volunteered as a Scoutmaster for Austin Scout Troop 5, while Kathy worked as a biology teacher at Lanier High School.

After purchasing a new 1966 Chevrolet Impala, Whitman received two speeding tickets, on February 24, 1966 and March 20, 1966.[9]

[edit] Family issues

By 1966, Whitman's family was beginning to fall apart. His mother Margaret had announced she was divorcing Whitman's father. Whitman drove to Florida to help his mother move to Austin, Texas, where she found work in a cafeteria. The move prompted his youngest brother John to move out as well. Meanwhile, his brother Patrick decided to continue living with their father, whose plumbing business employed him.

Whitman's father began to telephone Whitman several times a week, pleading with him to convince his mother to give the marriage another try, but Whitman refused.

Shortly afterwards, John was arrested for throwing a rock through a window, and released after paying a $25 fine.^[1]

[edit] Declining health

In 1966, Whitman admitted depression to the University's doctor, Jan Cochrun, who prescribed Valium and recommended he visit campus psychiatrist Maurice Dean Heatly. On March 29, 1966, Whitman met with Heatly and spent an hour explaining his frustration with his parents' separation and his increasing strains at work and school. During the interview, he made a remark about feeling the urge to "start shooting people with a deer rifle" from the University tower. Heatly noted that Whitman was "oozing with hostility", but never returned.^[6] Whitman mentioned the visit with Heatly in his final suicide notes, saying that the visit was to "no avail". By the summer, Whitman was prescribed Dexedrine.

Although Whitman had abused the drugs that he had been prescribed in the past^{[citation needed]}, the autopsy could not establish if he had consumed any prior to the attacks.

Fr. Leduc met with Whitman for the last time two months prior to the shootings, and said that he had confided that he had lost his faith, and no longer considered himself a practicing Catholic.

It was revealed during the autopsy that Whitman had a cancerous glioblastoma tumor in the hypothalamus region of his brain. Some theorised that it may have been pressed against the nearby amygdala, which can affect emotive passion. This has led some neurologists to speculate that his medical condition was in some way responsible for the attacks. [10][11].

After the attacks, a study of Whitman's journal showed him lamenting that he had acted violently towards Kathy, and that he was resolved not to follow his father's abusive example, but to be a good husband. John and Fran Morgan, close friends of Whitman, later told the DPS that he had confided in them that he had struck Kathleen on three occasions.

[edit] Leadup to the shootings

The day before the shootings Whitman purchased binoculars and a knife from Davis' Hardware, and Spam from a 7-Eleven store. He then picked up Kathy from her summer job as a Bell operator, and they went to a matinée before meeting his mother for lunch at her work.

Around 4pm, they went to visit friends John and Fran Morgan, who lived in the same apartment block. They left at approximately 5:30 so that Kathy could leave for her 6-10pm shift that night. At 6:45, 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 can't recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

The note explained that he had decided to murder both his mother and wife, but made no mention of the coming attacks at the University. He also requested that an autopsy be done after his death, to determine if there were anything to explain his actions and increasing headaches. He willed any money from his estate to be donated to mental health research, saying he hoped it would prevent others from following his route.

Just after midnight, he killed his mother Margaret Whitman. The exact method is disputed, but it seemed he had rendered her unconscious before stabbing her in the heart. He returned to his suicide note, now writing by hand:

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 to his home at 906 Jewell Street and stabbed Kathy five times as she slept naked[12], leaving another note that read:

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.

He wrote notes to each of his brothers and his father, and left instructions in the apartment that the two canisters of film he left on the table should be developed, and the puppy Schocie should be given to Kathy's parents.

[edit] Tower shootings

[edit] Whitman arrives at the Tower

Weapons

12 gauge shotgun

Remington 700 with 4x Leupold Scope

.35 Caliber Remington rifle

M1 Carbine

.357 Magnum

Galesi-Brescia pistol

Luger pistol

Nesco machete, scabbard

hatchet

Ammunition box with gun-cleaning kit

Camillus hunting knife, scabbard

Randall knife inscribed with name

Locking pocketknife

1' steel rebar

Hunter's body bag

Whitman's gear

Channel Master 14 transistor radio

Blank Robinson notebook

Black Papermate pen

light green towel

White 3.5 gallon jug full of water

Red 3.5 gallon jug of gasoline

Nylon and cotton ropes, and clothesline

1954 Nabisco premium toy compass

Davis Hardware receipt

Hammer

Canteen

Binoculars

Lighter fluid, lighter and box of matches

Alarm clock manufactured by Gene

Pipe wrench

Green and white flashlight, 4 C batteries

Two rolls of tape

Green duffel bag from the Army

Extension cord

Grey gloves

Eyeglasses

Earplugs

Mennen spray deodorant

Toilet paper

Food

Twelve cans of food

Two cans of Sego condensed milk

Bread, honey and SPAM (incl. sandwiches)

Planters Peanuts and raisins

Sweet rolls

At 5:45am on August 1, 1966, Whitman phoned Kathy's supervisor at Bell to explain that she was sick and could not make her shift that day. He made a similar phone call to his mother's workplace about five hours later.

He rented a dolly from Austin Rental Company, and cashed $250 worth of checks at the bank before returning to Davis' Hardware and purchasing an M1 Carbine, explaining that he wanted to go hunting for wild hogs. He also went to Sears and purchased a shotgun, and a green rifle case.

After sawing off the shotgun barrel while chatting with postman Chester Arrington, Whitman packed it together with a Remington 700 bolt-action hunting rifle with 4x Leupold Scope, an M1 Carbine and another rifle, as well as 3 handguns, and other equipment spread between a wooden crate and his Marine footlocker.

He dressed in khaki coveralls over his white shirt and denim jeans, and beneath a green jacket. Once he was on the tower, he also donned a white sweatband.^[7]

Pushing the rented dolly carrying his equipment, Whitman met security guard Jack Rodman, and obtained a parking pass claiming he had a delivery to make, showing Rodman his card identifying himself as a research assistant for the school. He entered the Main Building of The University of Texas shortly after 11:30am, and struggled with the second elevator, until employee Vera Palmer informed him that it had not been powered, and turned it on for him. He thanked her, and took the elevator to the top floor of the Tower, just beneath the clock face.[13]

Whitman then lugged his trunk up three flights of stairs to the observation deck area, where he encountered a receptionist named Edna Townsley. Using the butt of his rifle, he knocked her unconscious and concealed her body behind a couch. She later died from sustained injuries.

Cheryl Botts and Don Walden, a young couple who had been sightseeing on the deck, returned to the attendant's area moments later and encountered Whitman, who was holding a rifle in each hand. Botts later claimed she believed the large red stain on the floor was varnish. Whitman and the young couple spoke briefly, and the couple left the room. After they left, Whitman barricaded the stairway.

Shortly afterwards, some tourists, the Gabour and Lamport families, were on their way up the stairs when they encountered the barricade. Michael Gabour was attempting to look around when Whitman fired the shotgun at him. Whitman continued to shoot as the families ran back down the stairs. Mark Gabour and his aunt Marguerite Lamport died instantly; Michael and his mother, Mary, were permanently disabled.

[edit] Sniper fire commences

The first shots from the tower's outer deck came at approximately 11:48 a.m. A history professor was the first to phone the Austin Police Department, after seeing several students shot in the South Mall gathering center. Many others had dismissed the rifle reports, not realizing there was actually gunfire.

The shootings eventually caused panic as news spread, and after the situation was understood, all active police officers in Austin were ordered to the campus. Other off-duty officers, sheriff's deputies, and Department of Public Safety officers also converged on the area to assist as various reporters from local newspapers, including Austin Statesman reporter and UT law student Donald Vandiver, covered the proceedings and assisted officers.

Once Whitman began facing return gunfire from the authorities, he used the waterspouts on each side of the tower as turrets, which allowed him to continue shooting while largely protected from the gunfire below, which had grown to include civilians who had brought out their personal firearms to assist police.

Whitman's choice of victims was apparently indiscriminate, and most of the victims were shot on Guadalupe Street, a major commercial and business district across from the west side of the campus. Efforts to reach the wounded included an armored car, and ambulances run by local funeral homes. Ambulance driver Morris Hohmann was responding to victims on West 23rd Street when he was shot in a leg artery. Another ambulance driver quickly attended to Hohmann, who was then taken to Brackenridge Hospital about ten blocks south of UT, and the only local emergency room.

The Brackenridge hospital administrator declared an emergency, and medical staff raced there to reinforce the on-duty shifts. After the shootings, the lines at the Travis County Blood Bank and at Brackenridge stretched for blocks as citizens hurried to donate blood.^{[citation needed]}

From a small airplane, a policeman reported that there was only one sniper firing from the parapet. The plane circled the tower until Whitman shot it twice, and it retreated from its position.

[edit] Whitman's death

Police officers Conner and Shoquist remained inside the University to cover the windows on the southeast and northeast sides of the reception area. Meanwhile three other officers, Ramiro Martinez, Houston McCoy, and Jerry Day took hastily deputized citizen Allen Crum up towards the observation deck.

Martinez and McCoy went out on the observation deck, with a .38 revolver and a shotgun respectively, and proceeded to the north-east corner of the deck and spotted Whitman seated on the floor of the north-west corner watching the south-west corner for any signs of police.

Which of the officers actually killed Whitman has been disputed, with both claiming to have killed Whitman. McCoy fired his shotgun twice, and Martinez fired six rounds from his revolver before taking the shotgun and approaching the limp Whitman and firing again point-blank. Day meanwhile had taken the green towel Whitman had brought with him, and was waving it to those below, indicating that the sniper had been killed.

While Whitman's final request in his suicide note had been to be cremated, he was not. Whitman and his mother shared a funeral service officiated by Fr. Tom Anglim at his home parish of Sacred Heart in Lake Worth. As a former Marine, Whitman's casket was draped with an American flag for the burial in Section 16 of the Hillcrest Memorial Park in West Palm Beach, Florida.^[8]

[edit] Casualties

Main article: List of Charles Whitman's victims

[edit] Killed

• Margaret Whitman, killed in her apartment
• Kathy Whitman, killed while she slept
• Edna Townsley, receptionist
• Marguerite Lamport, killed by shotgun on stairs
• Mark Gabour, killed by shotgun on stairs
• Thomas Eckman, shoulder, kneeling over Claire Wilson
• Robert Boyer, back, visiting physics professor
• Thomas Ashton, chest, Peace Corps trainee°
• Thomas Karr, spine
• Billy Speed, Police officer
• Harry Walchuk, doctoral student and father of six
• Paul Sonntag, mouth, 18, hiding behind construction
• Claudia Rutt, teenager killed helping fiancé Sonntag°
• Roy Schmidt, electrician shot outside his truck
• Karen Griffith, lung, 17, died after week in hospital°
• Unborn Child, head, still birth, Child of Clair Wilson and Thomas Eckman

° Survived the initial shooting and later died in hospital

[edit] Wounded

Allen, John Scott Bedford, Billy Elke, Roland Evgenides, Ellen Esparza, Avelino Foster, F. L. Frede, Robert Gabour, Mary Frances Garcia, Irma David Gunby° Harvey, Nancy

Heard, Robert Hernandez, Alex Hohmann, Morris Huffman, Devereau Kelley, Homar J. Khashab, Abdul Littlefield, Brenda Gail Littlefield, Adrian Martinez, Della Martinez, Marina

Mattson, David Ortega, Delores Paulos, Janet Phillips, Lana Rovela, Oscar Snowden, Billy Stewart, C. A. Wilson, Claire Wilson, Sandra Wheeler, Carla Sue

° Gunby survived the initial shooting but required life-long dialysis as a result of his injuries. More than 30 years after the shooting, he announced he was quitting dialysis and died within a week as a result. The coroner ruled his death a homicide.

[edit] Aftermath

Together with the Watts riots of the early 1960s, Charles Whitman's shootings were considered the impetus for establishing SWAT teams and other task forces to deal with situations beyond normal police procedures. It also led President Lyndon B. Johnson to call for stricter gun control policies.^[3]

After the tragedy, the Tower's observation deck was closed for two years. It was reopened in 1968, but, after several suicides, it was closed again in 1974 and remained closed until September 15, 1999. Access to the tower is now tightly controlled through guided tours that are scheduled by appointment only. Metal detectors and other security measures are in place during guided tours. Repaired scars from bullets are visible on the limestone walls.

Houston McCoy was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 1998 by Dr. Mink of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Waco, Texas, who related the diagnosis to the tower tragedy three decades earlier. As of 2006, he is living in western Texas.^[9] Ramiro Martinez became a narcotics investigator, a Texas Ranger and a Justice of the Peace in New Braunfels, Texas. In 2003, Martinez published his memoirs entitled, They Call Me Ranger Ray: From the UT Tower Sniper to Corruption in South Texas.^[10]

On November 12, 2001, David Gunby died of long-term kidney complications from a wound he received while on the South Mall. He had been born with only one functioning kidney, which was nearly destroyed by Whitman's shot. After the prospect of losing his eyesight, he refused further treatment and died shortly thereafter. The Tarrant County Coroner's report listed the cause of death as "homicide."^[11]

[edit] References in popular culture

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

• 1966 — A photograph of Whitman appeared on the August 12th Time, highlighting an article entitled "The Psychotic & Society."
• 1966 — He also appeared on the cover of Life for an article entitled "The Texas Sniper."
• 1968 — The poem "Dream Song 135" in John Berryman's His Toy, His Dream, His Rest references Whitman, the murder of his wife and mother and the clock tower shootings.
• 1968 — Peter Bogdanovich's film Targets was largely inspired by the Whitman case. The film describes a man murdering his mother and wife, sniping a freeway, and finally sniping through the screen at a drive-in movie theatre.
• 1972 — Harry Chapin recorded an album entitled Sniper and Other Love Songs. "Sniper," the album's title song, was recorded from both first and third-person narratives, referencing Whitman's issues with his mother and highlighting his isolation.
• 1973 — Texas singer Kinky Friedman recorded "The Ballad of Charles Whitman," a satirical tune, on the album Sold American. Friedman attended the University of Texas and graduated in 1966, a few months prior to the shooting.
• 1975 — The film The Deadly Tower starred Kurt Russell as Whitman. Officer Ramiro Martinez later sued the producers for its portrayal of him and his wife. Officer Houston McCoy also sued. Martinez settled out of court, but McCoy received no settlement.
• 1976 — The song Don't Take Me Alive from the album The Royal Scam by Steely Dan.
• 1979 — In the novel The Dead Zone by Stephen King.
• 1982 — Stephen King's short story, Cain Rose Up.
• 1987 — The movie Full Metal Jacket contained a scene in which a USMC drill instructor tells his recruits that Whitman's phenomenal accuracy was a result of his training as a rifleman in the Marines.
• 1989 — The movie Parenthood contains a brief fantasy sequence strongly reminiscent of the Whitman incident.
• 1991 — In the movie Slacker, filmed on location in Austin, the Old Anarchist (Louis Mackey) proclaims, "Now Charles Whitman, there was a man!..."
• 1993 — The 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..."
• 1993 — Macabre wrote a song about Charles Whitman on the album Sinister Slaughter, called "Sniper in the Sky."
• 1993 — In the NBC TV sitcom Blossom, Blossom Russo jestingly confesses frustration, expressing she'll be "up in the tower with a rifle".
• 1994 — In the 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 one of the bullets had fatally wounded his mother.
• 1994 — In The Simpsons episode "Homer Loves Flanders," Ned Flanders climbed up a clock tower in a dream sequence and began shooting random bystanders with a sniper rifle.
• 1994 - In The X-Files episode "Blood," a man fires on people at a blood drive from a clock tower.
• 1995 — The 1995 movie Higher Learning features a sniper shooting from a tower at the fictional Columbus University.
• 1996 — Charles Whitman was featured prominently in an episode of American Justice entitled "Mass Murderer: An American Tragedy."
• 1996 — The movie The Delicate Art of the Rifle features a character based on Charles Whitman and tells of a clock tower shooting from the shooter's point-of-view.
• 1997 — In the narrative television program Murder One, bookish attorney Arnold Spivak (J. C. MacKenzie) notes the difference between a serial killer and a mass murderer by invoking the Whitman massacre in some level of detail. The reference is prompted by his firm's defense of Clifford Banks, a serial killer played by Pruitt Taylor Vince.
• 1998 - The book Cat & Mouse by James Patterson, contains numerous references to killer Gary Soneji, including his fantasizes of being with Charles Whitman on the bell tower.
• 1999 — In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Earshot," a socially awkward loner (Jonathan Levinson) is shown in the tower on top of the high school with a high powered rifle.
• 2001 — Dateline NBC broadcast a special on the Tower tragedy in a special called "Catastrophe." That same year, Fox's World's Wildest Police Videos shows a brief clip of the tragedy in a segment about the history of SWAT teams.
• 2002 — Rock band Tomahawk implores the crowd to chant Whitman's name instead of booing during a show with Tool in Austin on July 26.^[12]
• 2004 — In an episode of the Comedy Central series Drawn Together, after he is left out of a trip to the zoo, Wooldoor Sockbat says, "If anybody needs me, I'll be in the clock tower", then cocks a rifle and heads off.
• 2004 — The South Park episode "You Got F'd in the A" makes reference to this incident, when Butters is informed that one of the women killed in the accident he caused was pregnant, and two of the survivors later committed suicide.
• 2005 — In an episode of the TV series House, House's colleague Wilson says he wanted to make sure that House "didn't start firing shots from the clock tower" in his extreme irritability coming off his pain medication.
• 2006 — On Tom Waits' Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, Charles Whitman is mentioned in the gospel song "Down There by the Train."
• 2006 — In the October 2, 2006 episode of "How I Met Your Mother," Robin Scherbatsky mentions that she had an uncle who was schizophrenic and shot at people from a bell tower.
• 2006 — In the manga Black Lagoon, Dutch likens Revy's homicidal tendencies to those of "Charles fucking Whitman".
• 2007 - In the album by rap duo Insane Clown Posse, The Tempest, Whitman is paid homeage to on the track "The Tower".
• In an episode of the TV series King of the Hill, exterminator Dale Gribble goes up to a tower to spray poison for insects but is mistaken for a sniper, resulting in mass police involvement.
• The director's commentary for Texas Chainsaw Massacre mentions that during filming, the crew were approached by a sheriff who objected to their blocking off a road. He insisted that he had been the officer shooting at Whitman from the plane.

[edit] Further reading

• Douglas, John; Olshaker, Mark (1999). The Anatomy of Motive. Scribner. ISBN 0-7567-5292-2. 
• Lavergne, Gary M. (1997). A Sniper in the Tower. University of North Texas Press. ISBN 1-57441-029-6. 
• Levin, Jack; Fox, James Alan (1985). Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 0-306-41943-2. 
• Martinez, Ramiro (2005). They Call Me Ranger Ray: From the UT Tower Sniper to Corruption in South Texas. New Braunfels: Rio Bravo Publishing. ISBN 0976016206. 
• O'Brien, Bill (2000). Agents of Mayhem. Auckland: Bateman, Ltd.. ISBN 1-86953-423-9. 
• Rich, Frank. "The Long Shadow of the Texas Sniper", New York Times, September 29, 1999.
• Tobias, Ronald (1981). They Shoot to Kill: A Psycho-History of Criminal Sniping. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-207-4. 

"The Ultimate Sniper" by John Plaster shows a detailed sketch that includes ranges to each of the victims killed and a case study on the shooting.ISBN 0873647041

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Cawthorne, Nigel. Spree Killerstext
2. ^ http://alt.cimedia.com/statesman/specialreports/whitman/leduc.pdf
3. ^ ^{a b} "Deranged tower sniper rained death on UT campus", Houston Chronicle. Retrieved on 2006-04-13.
4. ^ Early Charlie. CHARLES WHITMAN: THE TEXAS TOWER SNIPER. Crime Library (2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-08.
5. ^ Aiken, Tom. "Boom Boom... Out Go the Lights", Austin Chronicle. Retrieved on 2006-04-30.
6. ^ ^{a b} MacLeod, Marlee. "Charles Whitman: The Texas Tower Sniper", Court TV Crime Library. Retrieved on 2005-12-07.
7. ^ "UT tower gunman put an end to honeymoon", The Paris News. Retrieved on 2006-04-15.
8. ^ "Charles Joseph Whitman", Find A Grave. Retrieved on 2005-12-19.
9. ^ Carlisle, Kristin. "City appeals against compensation for Tower hero", The Daily Texan, April 11, 2004. Retrieved on 2005-12-10.
10. ^ Ray Martinez: The Call Me Ranger Ray. Morgan Printing. Retrieved on 2006-04-15.
11. ^ Licheron, Mark. "A killer's conscience", The Austin-American Statesman, December 9, 2001. Retrieved on 2006-04-15.
12. ^ "The Tool Page: Tour Reviews", July 27, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-03-31.

[edit] External links

• Eyewitness accounts of the UT Tower shootings from MemoryWiki
• Charles Whitman: The Texas Tower Sniper from the Court TV Crime Library.
• Forrest Preece's personal recount of events
• Charles Whitman from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Coverage of the 30th Anniversary of the UT Tower Sniper Attack from The Daily Texan, 1996
• Eyewitness accounts on the 40th Anniversary of the UT Tower Sniper Attack from Texas Monthly , 2006
• The Whitman Archives of the Austin Chronicle
• Charles Whitman Research Guide from the Austin History Center
• Hero Talks About U.T. Shooting Spree
• Whitman-The Texas Tower Massacre - August 1st, 1966: A Day Texas Will Never Forget
• "What Charlie Saw," from Deek Magazine

Persondata
NAME	Whitman, Charles Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	University of Texas tower sniper; mass murderer
DATE OF BIRTH	June 24, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lake Worth, Florida
DATE OF DEATH	August 1, 1966
PLACE OF DEATH	Austin, Texas