Howard Unruh
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Howard Unruh (also spelled Unrah) (born January 21, 1921, Camden, New Jersey) is regarded as one of the first of the 'lone gunmen' to go on an indiscriminate shooting spree. On September 6, 1949, twenty-eight year old Unruh left his house for a twelve minute walk around his Camden, New Jersey neighborhood, shooting people at random and killing 13.
Always a reserved man, he had turned into a recluse in the three months before his spree. The World War II veteran was unemployed and lived with his mother. During the war, he was reportedly a brave tank soldier who kept meticulous notes of every German killed, down to details of the corpse.
He was honorably discharged in 1945, and returned home with a collection of medals and firearms. He decorated his bedroom with military items, and set up a target range in his basement. His mother supported him by working at a factory while Howard hung around the house and attended daily church services.
He had trouble getting along with his neighbors, and his interactions with them deteriorated in the three months before his spree. He was considered a "mama's boy" and the subject of teasing.
Eventually Unruh became paranoid about his neighbors and started to keep a diary detailing every single thing that he thought was said about him. Next to each of those complained about was the word "retal.", short for retaliate. He arrived home from a movie theater at 3am on September 6 to discover that the gate he had just built in front of his house had been stolen. This appears to have been the final trigger. After sleeping until 8:00 a.m. he got up, dressed in his best suit and ate breakfast with his mother.
At 9:20am he left the house armed with a German Luger pistol looking for his first victims. In only twelve minutes he would shoot at a total of 26 people, killing 13 and wounding several others. When he heard the sirens of the approaching police, he returned to his apartment and engaged in a standoff with police. He was eventually convinced to surrender, and was taken in for interrogation. Only at the end of the interrogation did they discover he had been wounded as well.
Charges were filed for 13 counts of "willful and malicious slayings with malice aforethought" and three counts of "atrocious assault and battery". He was eventually pronounced insane, making him immune to criminal prosecution, and he was incarcerated in a unit for the criminally insane. He evidently suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
As of 2007, he is 86 years old and still resides in Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Shortly after his arrest he was reported to have said to a psychiatrist, "I'm no psycho. I have a good mind. I'd have killed a thousand if I had bullets enough."
Unruh's rampage was the most visible of a number of murders and suicides by WWII veterans, and may have spurred the federal government to put additional resources into mental health treatment for this group.
