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hey weirdos I'm Alina I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid hello earthlings and tall gray
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and um short gray as well what do they call this sorry my brain's just going into it's connected okay uh you're
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talking about aliens in the birk shears there's a bridge where UFO incident happened it's on the new Unsolved
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Mysteries all that fun stuff and they've like put up a plaque and everything oh I
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think they call it an offworld incident on the plaque and I think it is just the
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most delicious way to explain an alien coming down like like a an offworld incident yeah I like other
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worldly better see I like it's just off this world like it's just such a strange
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way of saying it but like a poetic one in a weird way yeah like that's like you just being like oh excuse me I'm just
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going to go offworld for a minute offworld I'm going into space see you later I'm going off world not counts
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count as the world no I think just Earth is the world is that how it is I don't think of it like that oh that's that's
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how I always see it I think of the world as like the whole [ __ ] Shang really yeah I never thought of it that I always
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think the world is Earth cuz I it's our world and other people have their own world or other other creatures and have
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their own world butes have their own it's all a world no it's all a universe no I look at it as it's all a universe
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but this is our world see for me I feel like world and universe are like synonymous you're blowing my mind a
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little bit right now my mind a little bit I don't see those as synonymous at all huh well that's our brains so thanks
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for tuning in yeah cuz I always think I know we're harping on this but you know no it's it's an interesting discussion
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CU I always say like you know you're the greatest in all the world to me is like
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the whole planet like all Earth but if I say you're the greatest in the universe
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that's a step up oh okay yeah yeah I guess I see that but I can see why you would think for me if I tell you you're
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the greatest in the world I also mean you're the greatest in the universe well that's good to know yeah because to me I
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was thinking you were downgrading really I mean usually I usually don't say world
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I usually just say universe yeah yeah interesting never think of these things maybe though it's because like your kids
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say like if like we're talking about like imaginary things they say like in our world yeah like do we have that in
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our world yeah maybe that's why you think of it the way you think of it yeah cuz they're always saying like is that
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an our world yeah always think that like our planet where we are yeah and our reality is what I think of it as like
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our world is our reality outside of that I don't know it's [ __ ] Bleak either way or maybe it's great outside of this
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I mean it's got to be great somewhere it does it has to be but I I feel like you
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get the good with the bad the happy and the sad no matter where you go probably I'm I'm assuming I don't really want
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things to be like super [ __ ] awesome all the time because then you would lose you would like lose that feeling you
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wouldn't be as grateful for the for the great times you don't want it to be so fluctuating as it feels like it is now
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with everybody but it's like you want a little bit of dips just so you can appreciate the highs you know this got
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so like theological I know it started with me being like isn't it funny that it says off world yeah wow look at us
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look at us go wow that just got insanely deep yeah and you know um there another
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Deep thing before we get into the story is um Apple did some kind of weird update in like November but we just
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start finding out about it we're not up on anything we never know what's happening we're too busy having
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theological discussions exactly too busy talking about offworld incidents yeah you
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know but we're always behind on [ __ ] like you guys know this about us we're six years into this like we know each
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other now you know us we're always behind [ __ ] we don't know what's going on in this industry at all no and so
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it's fine we like it that way we shut the door at the end of the recording and we say bye bye uh but it's been brought
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to our attention which is probably a good thing that someone told us oh no it's great I'm glad somebody did but
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that apparently Apple has done this update in November uh where you're not getting our new episodes automatically
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how horrible for you like you have to hit follow on our thing on Apple podcast now like there's three little dots at
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the top and if you hit it and just hit follow that way you'll get automatically updated with our new episodes because
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like you could be but who know you might not even be hearing this you might not even be here for this awesome discussion
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that we just had yeah you might hear about this 6 months from now so can you imagine if you haven't and you're just
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one of those lovely people which if you're listening right now you are that just like either is already following us
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figured it out or you've like searched and found this episode like you actively went and found this episode to get and
00:05:30
listen to then you're incredible one you're incredible and thank you but two you can just follow and it'll do it for
00:05:36
you yeah and that'll be great because and it will help out the show too and we help out the show so if you do that just
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that would be sick and also you'll get all the episodes you know yeah we'll all be in a better place because of it what
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a weird thing to do you know it was strange it's very strange it was um that's our that's the only like real
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like you know podcasty thing we have to talk to you about yeah um before we get into the whole episode a quick little uh
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this is a trigger warning just because the episode is something that is uh pretty relevant for recent years um this
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is about a mass shooting it's I'm going to be describing what happened during this shooting it can be triggering for a
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lot of people some of you may you know have even been touched personally by one in recent years so we wanted to make
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sure that you knew right up a front that we will be discussing it um and it could
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be a little distressing so if it is and you want to skip this episode we get it we totally understand maybe just like
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put it on on mute and let it run all the way through no I'm just kidding you don't
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have to do that but that would be sick uh but we totally get it if you want to go to the next episode we love you for
00:06:49
it either way and uh if you're sticking around uh here we go um today we're going to be talking about a pretty
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Infamous case that I know a lot of people have probably heard about I didn't know all the like detail details
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of it but we're going to be talking about Charles Whitman also known as the Texas tower sniper uh sounds familiar
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yeah it's um it's a gnarly one it's it's you so it's awful it's tragic it's also like confusing why it
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happened but I think it had a lot to do with there's I think there was a lot of undiagnosed mental illness here that it
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was was in the' 60s so it's not like oh okay okay I think we talked about this on crime countdown at one point yeah I'm
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sure we mentioned it on crime countdown um but this was in 1966 mass shootings were virtually unheard of in the United
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States which is crazy to think about now in 2024 we're like what do you mean it wasn't just like a known thing every day
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that you get a new one imagine being in that place yeah so this so Whitman's breathed that happened in 1966 it
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shocked the nation I mean shocked and what was worse at the time is that by most accounts he was kind of by an
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outsider's point of view you know the picture of an All-American man which made his actions all the more confusing
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to a very 1960s Society right cuz this very picture of you know like the the happy husband with the you know a happy
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wife the American dream kind of thing outwardly he looked like a very you know again the picture of a 60s happy
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All-American man looks can be deceiving he was also well-liked he had a you know
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a successful question mark on paper military career okay on paper you look deeper into it and there was a lot of
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[ __ ] going down all right um he had a beautiful wife and he once out of the military he had at least started
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pursuing a college degree in preparation for an architectural engineering oh wow
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um career so it's like he was everything you could hope for but behind this facade of an American middle class
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success story there was a very deeply troubled man whose personal history and what we find out to be acute medical
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problems would actually go a little bit of the ways to explaining what happened here okay but nobody else really knew it
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was happening huh so who was Charles Witman tell who d d tell Charles Whitman III was born June 2 4 1941 so uh today
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and I didn't realize that I was waiting for I was like girl oh my god do you know that that is the current day happen
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plan this no it happens a lot it's weird like I Pinky Promise all of you that did
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not plan this that's weird in fact I was supposed to do this one like last week and I didn't weird that's really weird
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oh today so he was born today in 1941 in lak Worth Florida and he was the first of three boys born
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to ca and Margaret Wilson from the outside this family appeared to be the perfect American
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family just everything you could want to be you know CA the dad was a financially
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successful business owner he was supported by this lovely wife of his who kept the books for the business also
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managing to you know keep the household afloat raising the three children her three lovely boys like what else could
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you ask for behind closed doors however I was waiting things were not very idic um CA Whitman was very obsessed with
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appearances very obsessed and he was also a very strict disciplinarian uh he did not hesitate to
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use physical punishment with his children and also his wife oh wow uh he was an [ __ ] it um in fact he said
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later I did on many occasions beat my wife but I loved her nope no nope if you can beat your wife
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you don't know what love is that's not good try though I he doesn't even say I hit my wife which is bad enough I beat
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my wife which to me sounds so much like barbaric so much it's like they're all barbaric on every level but it's like
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for some reason the term beat my wife just sounds it gives me like Shivers and to say it in the same sentence as but I
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also love her and also he says it like what and it's like okay but he was also equally as
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unashamed about his abuse of his children he said I'm not asham of ashamed of any spankings I don't think I
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spanked enough if you want to know the truth about it I think they should have been punished more than they were
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punished he sounds horrible he sounds delightful H yeah yeah uh from a very early age Charles young Charles was
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described as being an extremely bright very spirited boy uh one neighbor said he was a noisy little devil uhoh but
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they said but he was a nice little boy and made a handsome man oh and it's true if you look up a picture of Charles
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whitmann he did make a very handsome man and he looks like an allamerican boy he
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really does um and it's true what a lot of the Whitman's neighbors found CA however to be a disagreeable man but
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according to um Gary lever who wrote the book sniper in the tower the Charles Whitman murders M um he said that
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basically the neighbor's charact nearly universally characterized Charlie along with his brothers as good normal boys
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and they characterized the mother as a perfectly good mother okay um despite being an abusive and very highly
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critical father following his son's death CA would tell reporters that Charles was quote a brilliant student
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who never caused trouble for his family he's like I did uh beat the [ __ ] out of
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him as a child but he never caused us trouble like that's good so so why did you beat the [ __ ] out of him then yeah
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not that even causing trouble would War no but it's just like wow uh by the time
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he entered grade school it was pretty clear that Charles was Advanced for his age uh many of his teachers said that he
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was very capable and actually a clearly gifted student W his teacher suspicions were confirmed in fact in 1947 because
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he was given um an IQ exam and he measured 138.0 wow so he wasn't just gifted in
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academics though he also really loved music and he started taking piano lessons around age four um um and he
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went on to honestly be a very successful like he would have been a successful pianist um and he was in a local band
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actually the piano Al he was and he did well it's weird that he seems so well-rounded he started off very well
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well-rounded and things went to Ry things start got turn um but if there was anything about which Charles was
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truly passionate it was Guns oh um CA Whitman the father said I'm a fanatic about guns
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uh he said I was I raised my boys to know how to handle guns and following the shooting evidence of Charles's love
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of firearms was obviously talked about in the Press quite a bit Yeah and in a lot of those reports was a photo of a
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2year old Charles Whitman standing on a beach holding two rifles both taller than him no yeah that no no have your
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own opinions about guns this is mine no one's telling you that you can't have them
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but that's I don't love that but again however your opinion on guns is you are allowed to have it that's totally fine
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uh but that that that the idea of a two-year-old holding two rifles is uh not for
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me it's not for a lot of people yeah it's not for me it's it's for you that's fine um but this would seem to be one of
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some of the things that you know they had in common like the father and the sons sure um and CA often actually
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bragged about this he bragged and said Charlie could plug a squirrel in the eye by the time he was
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16 so there's that why though you going to eat the squirrel yeah maybe who knows
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but um having spent most of his childhood um in an orphanage actually CA Whitman the father he really struggled
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and worked hard to get everything he had well that's one thing I will say for him
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he grew up with nothing so he worked to get everything he had mhm um it also growing up in an orphanage you can now
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see where some of his behavior is probably manifested from in disciplinary style especially orphanages around that
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time period uh and I don't know a lot about obviously his childhood aside from being in an orphanage but when you hear
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that it makes a little more sense why he's very angry yeah um so and obviously CA Whitman drove his sons to be high
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Achievers as well he wanted to be a high achiever he wanted Perfection out of this family which nobody can be perfect
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no absolutely you're driving for something that can happen which is going to cause a breakdown eventually um but
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Charles was the eldest son and he was the one push harder um Charles's father pushed him to join a ton of clubs and
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associations like the Cub Scouts Boy Scouts um he attained the highest levels of achievement in both of those you know
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like an eagle Cub an eagle Cub you know TBT uh young Charles also inherited his father's obsession with um accumulating
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as much wealth as possible so he got a job right away as a paper boy as soon as he could meet the age requirement um
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which is good that's a great um and he was successful because he was successful in most of the if not all the things he
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did at that point um but on the rare occasion that he did get any kind of feedback or criticism for his
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performance he tended to quote personalize customer complaints uh which at first I when I heard that I
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was like I I didn't remember his birthday and I was like is he a Capricorn can I was like no he's not
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he's a cancer yeah which I guess maybe that also could make sense cancers can be very highly emotional and sometimes
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don't get offended they can be vindictive oh okay interesting yes idea okay the the idea of like
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personalizing criticism for your performance seems very Capricorn for me yeah um because I tend to do that you
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know like immediately becomes personal for me which is not like a greatest attribute to have it it harms you yeah
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more than anything else but I feel like it can be like obviously like it can do with your sign but also your upbringing
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I think that probably had a lot to do with it in his case yeah that makes a lot of sense CU he it almost sounds like
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it was like you're right cuz it was like his dad criticizing him yeah you know and and telling him you have to achieve
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this right um by the time he entered High School in 1955 he was again Charlie Charles was well-liked pretty popular
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excelled at most things really had a lot going for him you know um his school friend Frank mccardy actually said he
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was a thinker who never went off half cocked he was completely normal now the idea of him being a thinker who never
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goes off half coocked comes back later when he commits the atrocities that he committed cuz he wasn't half cocked
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right went and it was planned he planned it down to the second so that is almost
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a little scary of like a a sentiment to have about him definitely is um but uh so like most people who were interviewed
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following the murders this guy Frank mccardy remembered really nothing unusual about his high school career
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reputation Charles's wow um mccardy really was just like yeah I don't know during his freshman and sophomore years
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he had good grades good attendance by his junior year his grad had kind of dropped somewhat um and he ended up
00:19:02
having 26 absences that year wow that's a lot 16 of those were because he had a surgical procedure done and he had to
00:19:09
recover from it okay that surgical procedure was to remove a blood clot on his left testicle oh wow yeah but even
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with all that he ultimately graduated seventh in his class in 1959 with a 3.3 GPA with all of those
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absences and like all of that [ __ ] he had to get through yeah that's crazy so that's interesting um on the night of
00:19:32
his graduation he went out to celebrate with some friends and you know they they
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ended up drinking yeah duhh and yeah duh like obviously and when he returned home
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later that evening CA lost his [ __ ] on him for coming home slightly drunk um in
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fact it was said he lost all control of his temper um Charles told later Charles
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told his priest and former Boy Scout troop leader Father Joseph deluck that his father beat him severely and threw
00:20:03
him into the pool where he almost drowned what the [ __ ] yeah so when people question I mean obviously a lot
00:20:12
of people go through horrible things which is a horrible thing to think about like this and they don't go off to do
00:20:18
the things that he did but I think there's also a couple of injuries involved to his head yeah that we'll
00:20:24
find out later that I think also contributed to mental illness and you know some neurological issues yeah and
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kind of mixed with this kind of up upbringing came out horribly it makes sense and after years of this after
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years of his father's constant abuse and honestly his like tyrannical Behavior at
00:20:46
this point like he's like a dictator in that house it was the last straw so and he was 17 years old at this time and he
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had been accepted to Georgia Tech um and he would have if he went there he was going to have to at least remain
00:21:00
financially dependent on his dad but instead he chose to enter the military because he wanted to escape um and he
00:21:07
wanted to start building his own life so he was like I want to cut ties it was a
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way out on June 27th 1959 just three days after his 18th birthday he enlisted in the Marines and a week later he
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boarded a bus for Jacksonville so he was off uh Charles Whitman had list enlisted
00:21:23
in the Marines obviously to escape the unrealistic expectations the abuse of his father all of it um everything yeah
00:21:31
just get out of that house but which also it's it needs to be said his mother was somebody he could like count on and
00:21:39
Tred to really like you know protect her sons from everything but she also was being abused right um but from what I
00:21:48
can see his mother was never abusive never anything but a good mom yeah um a great mom to be honest um but he had
00:21:55
tried to get away from all that but he soon learned that he had just kind of traded one extremely regimented life for
00:22:02
another now he's just going to be under the control of someone else right um after completing basic training he was
00:22:07
sent to Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba wow um a very difficult post given especially at the time the increasing
00:22:14
tension between us and the Cuban governments at the time but Charles tried to make the best of his 18-month
00:22:20
assignment there and in an effort to be more well-rounded as a person he took a lot of classes while he was stationed at
00:22:26
the base um and apparently he took classes from sanitation to history like w all the way across the board he was
00:22:34
trying to keep detailed notes all the way through he had this thing in his head where and he carries this a lot
00:22:40
through his life that he needs to be busy okay he cannot be alone with his own thoughts I feel like that's not
00:22:46
great and this is a prime example of it um while he was generally a good student
00:22:51
and really exceled in most of his classes he also dra found himself really drawn to the firearms training again cuz
00:22:57
he loves guns was brought up to love guns um Gary lever wrote fairly early in his Marines career Charlie established
00:23:05
himself as a very proficient with guns he took copious notes on the care and techniques of firing a three Caliber
00:23:11
Caliber M1 carbine at the end of the detailed notes he scribbled in large letters world's finest Exclamation point
00:23:18
Exclamation point Exclamation point on the firing range he consistently achieved high scores and actually ended
00:23:25
up earning a Sharpshooters badge in in a very maob bit of foreshadowing he would
00:23:31
be remembered as quote an excellent shot who appeared to be more accurate against
00:23:36
moving targets wow which is a horrific bit of foreshadowing chilling in general his conduct during this period was
00:23:46
pretty good and appears people liked him his his fellow Marines liked him everything was pretty normal right
00:23:51
according to Larry Phillips who was stationed at Guantanamo with Charles whitmann uh he said Charles would quote
00:23:57
do anything for other in his Squad however at one point Phillips and Whitman were in a serious accident and
00:24:05
that's seems to have been the result of Charles complete disregard for danger while in most situations really he had a
00:24:12
very like I'm Invincible way of looking at things he was very he could be very like irresponsible when it came to like
00:24:19
those kind of situations and really following the rules by the book mhm and so an accident happened and he ended up
00:24:25
getting a head injury from it it was like a Jeep accident yikes while at Guantanamo um Charles
00:24:32
learned of a scholarship program for enlisted soldiers um that was known as the naval enlisted Science Education
00:24:38
Program or NE nessp NP nessp couldn't tell you NP like what is that which was developed
00:24:46
as a way of training soldiers in math and science to try to compete with Russia essentially oh okay Charles
00:24:52
applied in February 1961 and was actually among the few Marines selected to participate and started the program
00:24:59
in mechanical engineering at University of Texas Austin in September which this is very highly prestigious absolutely it
00:25:06
is um he had spent his entire life now under the thumb of his father and commanding officers just under the thumb
00:25:12
of everybody above him but now he had a newfound Freedom he wasn't under anyone's thumb now he could study he was
00:25:19
part of this scholarship program and he had difficulty adjusting it's it's almost like when people come out of
00:25:25
prison yeah and they have trouble adjusting to the being not regimented and not regulated um one night not long
00:25:33
after moving into his dorm Charles and two other students illegally poached a deer and brought the animals dead
00:25:40
carcass back to the dorm why which like I'm tapping my head right now like think use the gray matter
00:25:48
between your ears maybe don't do that a local resident spotted them doing this however like coming back into the dorms
00:25:54
and was like hey what the [ __ ] he they reported the poaching to the authorities
00:25:58
and police followed a trail of blood back to the UTA campus they entered Whitman's dorm room and they found the
00:26:05
two of them skinning the deer in the dorm shower what's weird is you did say he took a sanitation course yeah and
00:26:14
then he just dragged a deer through the hallway and brought it into the the shared bathroom yeah and then just was
00:26:21
skinning it in the shower that's bizarre that's unusual behavior to can you imagine walking in
00:26:28
to take a you're just at your college dorm you're like I got a show yeah you walk into that I'd be like oh oh got to
00:26:35
go and it's like like that's bizarre behavior it absolutely that should have been a pretty red flag to me like
00:26:45
that's first of all that's not smart decision making skills like I'd be like what happened here and two it's like
00:26:53
that's [ __ ] up yeah I don't know if people just looked at it like oh he likes to hunt and it's like but that's
00:27:00
like [ __ ] up like even if you like to hunt it's like I don't need to see a deer being skinned in my [ __ ] shower
00:27:09
like what are you doing yeah I don't know like do your business elsewhere like I'm not tell do for it but there's
00:27:16
there's a time and a place for everything and my shower is not it but it's so weird but what's crazy
00:27:23
about this is he got off with a light sentence he was for forced to pay a $100 fine
00:27:28
so they were just like this is very bizarre very red flaggy Behavior but we're just going to make you pay a 100
00:27:34
bucks they don't drag a deer through the hallway again after killing it for no reason and then skin it in the shower
00:27:40
just 100 bucks please yeah the [ __ ] so he was arrested at the time like he got
00:27:44
arrested for but let out like you know so after that arrest um it was really just the first of several incidents that
00:27:51
really indicated that women uh was not taking this program seriously that literally sounds like a Florida man in
00:27:58
it really does Florida man poaches deer illegally skins in in local shower it's true like I'm not past this yet no the
00:28:06
[ __ ] it's true it really is very Florida Manish I mean he is from Florida he's a
00:28:11
Florida man so it makes sense he's a Florida man he's a Florida man to our Floridian listeners we love you we love
00:28:17
you you're not that Florida man we love Florida man but it is very Florida didn't we
00:28:24
another crime countdown we had like four segments of Florida I miss crime countdown daily much fun hi
00:28:32
Max U but yeah he wasn't taking this program seriously evidently he also wasn't handling the increased freedom
00:28:40
very well obviously cuz once he's up to his own devices that's what he does like
00:28:45
that's the first thing he does like I get going a little Buck W oh bad choice of words I get going a little wild like
00:28:51
when you and you have your own Freedom that's that's a different guy that is is what that is you took that far too
00:28:58
literally Lally wild uh but during his first year at UTA Charles was focusing way more on all that kind of [ __ ] and
00:29:06
also he was a gambler he loved gambling and he was focusing on it that's and he was focusing on every other weird you
00:29:13
know you know wild hobby that he had going on oh man so his grad started plummeting CU he just wasn't focusing on
00:29:20
it no one was making him right so he wasn't it's like your first year when you get to do online courses you're
00:29:26
going to feel that [ __ ] unless you're awesome because online courses are tough
00:29:30
figuring out how to self-discipline is one of the hardest things you will do at first and this is where he was so given
00:29:37
his reputation as a prankster and because he did he liked to play pranks he was a jokester you know all that
00:29:43
stuff so and he would also make like outrageous comments a lot but like they just took that as like he's just a joker
00:29:51
you know that kind of thing um but his friend Francis shuck didn't think much at all when one night the two of them
00:29:58
were sitting out on the dorm balcony and Charles pointed up to the top of the campus Clock Tower and said a person
00:30:06
could stand off an army from a top it before they even got to him and of course his friend didn't why
00:30:13
would they think yeah no why would you think anything about that he's rattling off a future plan why who came from a
00:30:21
military background like it to a degree makes sense that he would make a comment
00:30:25
like that I guess like I I don't know that would think twice about that yeah so he just sat there and listened to him
00:30:31
and then he went on like like char Charles went on and he's and he was like he described basically a scenario where
00:30:39
someone could just fire from the top of the tower and just kill Spectators with a rifle now again we look back on it
00:30:46
knowing what we know and we go oh my God like foreshadowing we knew but think about it how many times hopefully
00:30:53
everybody's on board with this or I'm going to sound weird but how many times have you been somewhere weird like some
00:30:58
like weird Ravine or something where you're like oh my God that goes down so far and you're like oh my God imagine if
00:31:03
somebody just like threw somebody down there like you think something weird and [ __ ] up and you're just like guys
00:31:07
imagine that it's not you're planning to do it it's because you're like whoa like
00:31:12
I'm just like that's crazy that's a wild thought you know like you think of these
00:31:16
things and you think like how scary is that yeah like you're not and who knows maybe he posed it that way like how
00:31:21
[ __ ] up is that [ __ ] up would that be like you know and then his friends just like oh yeah that'd be [ __ ] up
00:31:25
like holy [ __ ] you're [ __ ] guy like you can't yeah that wouldn't strike me as like somebody telling me a plan
00:31:31
especially if he's shown absolutely nothing to me that makes me think he's making a plan to do that exactly so I
00:31:39
understand why that wouldn't really ring alarm bells in that moment hindsight is
00:31:43
2020 obviously now after a year of pretty poor grades and some really shitty pranks uh Charles finally started
00:31:49
to take his schooling a little more seriously the following year thanks in large part to meeting this woman named
00:31:56
Kathy lner in February 1962 unlike Charles Cathy was very focused on her goal of graduating um she was getting a
00:32:05
degree in education and she wanted to be a teacher nice um but she was very Charmed by Charles and they started
00:32:11
dating very soon after meeting and she kind of kept him on on the past like she gave him something to be like you know
00:32:17
what I get better get my [ __ ] together cuz look at this girl focusing on her [ __ ] yeah hell yeah and Kathy definitely
00:32:24
had a positive influence on Charles but um having spent most of his time hanging
00:32:29
out with friends and playing pranks on campus and gambling his grades were just too abysmal to really pull out of the
00:32:36
the bottom here um he was getting one a and it was in algebra which a for algebra cool but the rest were all like
00:32:44
barely D's like he was oh wow he let it get crazy he really did he had some C's in there but they were like there was a
00:32:50
lot of really abysmal ones um he did show a slight Improvement in the summer of 1962 after he married Kathy um that
00:32:57
that augusty so she really did she she had a good influence um and he seemed to be taking the program more seriously at
00:33:04
that point I think because he saw future his future is with Kathy now he's he knows he has to get his [ __ ] together I
00:33:10
just brought up their wedding pictures and it's so they just look like any other like
00:33:15
old timey married couple like they look super happy he looks very like a normal guy you'd wave to on the street the way
00:33:22
he talks about her is like he adored her from what he said um now unfortunately for the Marine
00:33:31
Corps who had invested a lot into him at this point these little improvements were just not enough they weren't enough
00:33:39
to justify him continuing that scholarship and in the winter of 63 he lost the scholarship and was called back
00:33:45
to active duty and stationed at Camp Luan okay now when he entered the military After High School he was trying
00:33:54
to get away from an abusive home life um which probably made that transition a little easier cuz he was leaving an
00:34:00
abusive home life and going into a place where he was also regimented but in a different way and not being personally
00:34:06
abused you know by someone he loved essentially um but this time the transition back into the military was a
00:34:14
little more difficult he's coming from Independence he had that taste of Freedom yeah um he had failed pretty
00:34:20
spectacularly probably for the first time in his life at UTA um but his being assigned to Camp Len meant that he had
00:34:27
to leave Kathy behind an Austin cuz she was finishing her degree program right these challenges kind of set him off on
00:34:34
the wrong foot right away on the base and things really only got worse from there from the moment he arrived on base
00:34:40
he was very difficult very insolent uh very immature his immaturity came out big time in this time period um way more
00:34:49
than it had in the past when he was kind of being again highly regulated his early record of Good Conduct had earned
00:34:56
him a little leeway cuz he had that good behavior in the past but after a few months it was becoming clear that he
00:35:02
really didn't want to be a marine now according to Gary lever Charles quote had become embittered and formed a
00:35:09
hatred of the Marines especially after he was informed that his time spent in Austin would not count as part of his
00:35:15
active duty enlistment uh to make matters worse although he was now back in you know the
00:35:20
rigid confines of the military he continued his problematic gambling and other really [ __ ] up behaviors that
00:35:28
got him in trouble at UTA in a um October of 64 Charles got um and a friend got into a fight with four or
00:35:35
five other Marines and during this whole fight he was actually knocked to the ground and
00:35:41
repeatedly kicked in the head and face yikes like repeatedly very harmed another TV he spent a few hours in the
00:35:50
infirmary for dizziness and headaches and he was given aspirin and then sent back to his bunk
00:35:57
aspirin no doubt concussed yeah no that with the Jeep accident a few years earlier and the years and years second
00:36:06
abused actually abused cuz think about it he when he came home that night after his graduation his dad beat him severely
00:36:13
and then thre him in the pool where he almost drowned that's also lack of oxygen to your brain absolutely it is so
00:36:19
there's a lot happening here that it's not good oh man yeah it's really bad so if the first phase of Charles's military
00:36:28
career was a success and the second was a struggle then this third would be considered a complete [ __ ] abysmal
00:36:33
failure oh no throughout his time in North Carolina Charles was honestly always in trouble always admonished for
00:36:41
being challenging disruptive um he was still carrying on the excessive gambling he would carry non-military weapons and
00:36:49
get in trouble for that his behavior took an even more dramatic turn when he tried and failed to get his scholarship
00:36:55
back that um nesp one in April 63 which honestly was the worst thing that could have happened was him
00:37:02
failing to get that back cuz it just made him hate the military more and it made him more bitter in November of 63
00:37:09
his superiors had finally run out of patience and Charles was actually court marshaled for quote gambling usury and I
00:37:18
looked it up usury is lending money at high like crazy high interest rates oh [ __ ] and the unauthorized possession of
00:37:25
a non-military pistol and he was ultimately found guilty he was sentenced to 30 days confinement and
00:37:32
90 days hard labor oh [ __ ] and then he was demoted back to the rank of private yeah so things are not going
00:37:41
well maybe just uh do a little discharge doesn't seem like this is a great environment for him doesn't seem like he
00:37:48
doesn't like it and it doesn't seem like he's a like a good member to have you know like I don't think this is working
00:37:55
out on either side no I don't think so either throughout 64 though his life had taken
00:38:00
obviously a very significant turn for the worst and he seemed to be struggling on literally all friends um he hated the
00:38:08
military at this point he regretted enlisting it all but still had a large amount of time left before his discharge
00:38:16
yeah uh so desperate he turned to his father in hopes that his father's connections with Florida state
00:38:22
representatives could help him win an early discharge okay it took nearly a year
00:38:28
but it actually worked and ca's connections paid off and he was Charles was honor honorably discharged from the
00:38:34
Marines on December 6 1964 and that's when he went back to Texas to join back with Kathy okay so
00:38:41
that's why I said before he had a successful military career cuz he was honorably discharged yeah but it was a
00:38:46
[ __ ] show while he was there yeah it started off bright but Plum plummeted um so he had a chance at a bright future
00:38:54
but he had literally gambled it away like quite literally literally um it was only after his death when his
00:39:00
diary was discovered among his possessions and that's when anyone really learned how much misery he was in
00:39:06
during this period of time he referred to this time as quote the pit of life's experiences wow yeah not only did
00:39:13
Charles diary entries from his final year in the military really show how desperate he was to be discharged but it
00:39:20
also showed how much he was very much investing in his marriage to Cathy and how it pained him to be away from her
00:39:27
wow um Charles wrote in an entry from November 63 quote it is so good to know that she loves and understands me she is
00:39:34
definitely the best thing I have in my life or as I say my most prized possession I don't love that strange way
00:39:41
of saying it yeah sh women aren't possessions like um are not possessions having failed at his first
00:39:49
attempt at getting a college degree at UTA um and then his failed military career uh Charles had kind of come to
00:39:55
see the relationship with Kathy as literally the only good thing in his life at that point sounds like it was it
00:40:01
was the only thing that was keeping him going to be honest um in the final days of his act of Duty Charles wrote in that
00:40:07
Diary quote God I can't stand the core my love for Cathy and my sense of responsibility to our unborn children is
00:40:14
the only thing that keeps me from going berserk at times it seems as if I'm going to explode so he's already showing
00:40:20
that he's not handling his own inner T turmoil well no not at all also she's not pregnant just so you know but he was
00:40:27
just just thinking like in the future yeah um so he's no longer being controlled by the military and Charles
00:40:33
and Kathy ended up moving back to Austin and at this point he's like all right I'm ready to like take off I'm ready to
00:40:40
like succeed I want to be like a family man I want to be successful so what are you going to do he re-enrolled at UTA
00:40:48
not with the scholarship program or anything just his own thing and before long unfortunately the old feelings of
00:40:54
self-doubt and frustration started creeping back into to his mind and he himself wrote in his diary about his
00:41:02
concerns for his own mental health oh wow yeah and he said I think she is just neglecting me as she says she is getting
00:41:10
lazy he's talking about Kathy he was very insecure about their marriage he was always worried that it wasn't where
00:41:17
it should be he said I am undecided what to do but I definitely feel as though there's something unusual in my mental
00:41:23
state I notice an unusual uneasiness inside myself oh wow it's sad when you read his diary entries because he
00:41:31
recognized it but there nothing it's just in a private diary right he went to his doctor or anything and who knows
00:41:40
what would have been done back then the time period it's like yeah now when he re-enrolled in the fall of 65 he changed
00:41:46
his major from mechanical engineering to architectural engineering he was excited
00:41:50
about this option because he thought like he likes creative Endeavors he thought this was going to be really
00:41:55
where he can express his creative side um and during this period he also found a job as a bill collector for the
00:42:01
standard finance company that he could pay his bills and him and Cathy's bills but they didn't really have a lot of
00:42:06
extra money and by April he took a new position as a teller at the Austin National Bank he was determined at this
00:42:14
point to fill his time fill fill fill that time don't have any time alone to think about your thoughts um when he
00:42:22
wasn't working wasn't going to school full-time he volunteered as a scout master with the local Boy Scout Troop uh
00:42:29
but by January of 66 he had been asked to be relieved of his duties as scoutm because the pressures he was feeling
00:42:36
from work in school were just too much he couldn't handle the volunteering part M but that shows you how hard he was
00:42:42
trying to fill his time he was volunteering on top of all the [ __ ] he was doing he just didn't want to be by
00:42:47
himself now despite the fact that his post-military life seemed to be going in a positive direction there were
00:42:53
definitely signs that he wasn't doing well emotionally physically for that matter by January of 66 he had put on I
00:43:01
from everybody around him they said he very quickly put on a noticeable amount of weight um and he was suffering from
00:43:09
frequent severe headaches exhibited symptoms of very severe anxiety he would chew his fingernails he would sweat even
00:43:17
if it was cold like he was just always on edge um and the self-doubt and insecurities about he felt about his
00:43:24
marriage and professional life it appeared appear to be coming up way more frequently now that he was back home
00:43:30
with his wife in his diary he wrote as I look back over my past few adult years they seem so wasted will I ever
00:43:36
accomplish anything I set out to do wow so he was just really falling into an abys sad things continued this downward
00:43:45
trajectory too as they entered 1966 because Kathy's really busy um with her teaching schedule and her school
00:43:53
schedule and so it it ended up being like a frequent stress her on their marriage they would get in arguments a
00:43:59
lot that because he didn't really know what to do when she wasn't there he would Panic she's like you need to have
00:44:06
your own life exactly and he was he couldn't handle it adventures and yeah and he was able to maintain good grades
00:44:13
during this period which is interesting but impressive he struggled to make friends um most people found him pretty
00:44:20
difficult to deal with at this point his mood had changed his attitude had changed which is a very big turn from
00:44:26
when he was in that highly regimented but very abusive home people liked him right because I
00:44:33
think that's the only thing he knew but it's also so indicative of like the the brain trauma that he had gone through it
00:44:39
shows you after all that like people CH he has changed completely irreversibly yeah completely and to make matters
00:44:47
worse he also struggled to maintain employment and he changed his job several times between 65 and 66 which is
00:44:54
a stress on his wife too and I'm sure that led to arguments also yeah she's really the one earning the most money at
00:44:59
this point which is hard and he he doesn't even want to be like home without her and she's like do I have
00:45:05
to and to the world around him he seemed like a nice young man who you know despite some interpersonal difficulties
00:45:12
appeared to be patient driven to succeed trying to make the best of the situation
00:45:16
but he was living in an almost constant state of panic anxiety unease discontent nothing positive wow so it's
00:45:26
pretty significant that he himself recognized these signs and symptoms of like mental illness and neurological
00:45:32
issues um in himself at the at the moment because at multiple points between 64 and 66 he did undergo routine
00:45:40
physicals and evaluations through the military and he and if he had mentioned these things outside of his Diaries at
00:45:48
any point he might have been able to at least start on the path to like stopping
00:45:54
the tragedy that was about to happen you know like just mention it to someone you
00:45:58
wonder what would have been done cuz I don't yeah I know obviously like therapy back then and especially for men wasn't
00:46:04
what it is now but I know something well we're we're heading toward the 70s so it's got to be progressing like somewhat
00:46:11
you know I do wonder what would have happened but at the same time unfortunately like most Americans at
00:46:18
this time period he was facing the stigma ofal mental illness MH and in fact he himself actually had some pretty
00:46:28
archaic views on the matter while he was struggling well it makes sense with where he was brought up and you know his
00:46:35
lifestyle yeah precisely and in ' 64 when his brother Patrick was actually having a difficult time emotionally
00:46:42
Charles wrote in his diary I just found out that Pat ran away from home a couple
00:46:46
of days ago and had a car accident in Kissam Florida he was injured pretty bad the boy has definite emotional and
00:46:52
psychological problems until he puts forth some effort to make good I don't want anything to do with them wow which
00:46:59
shows youing wow sorry but it's like it shows you how aric his own views are like like [ __ ] that guy until he does
00:47:08
his own [ __ ] and fixes it I don't want anything to do with him when support is
00:47:11
probably what Patrick was looking for and so it's interesting because it's like you can see then that he is
00:47:19
volunteering all his time taking all these courses trying to do all this stuff on his own and it like that
00:47:25
opinion in and of itself shows why he's not reaching out for help he thinks this
00:47:29
is his problem and he probably fears being cut off by his family abely I mean if he thinks that about his brother
00:47:36
right then he probably thinks the same thing would happen to him so I'm not going to say anything that's really sad
00:47:41
and so lonely because of how he was raised and abused he perceived emotional problems
00:47:49
and mental illness to be a form of weakness right and given that his post-d discharge life hadn't really been
00:47:55
working out the way he wanted it to and that he was struggling to achieve even the most modest of his goals he probably
00:48:03
felt as though his symptoms would have kind of really further derailed any F future success for him um so instead of
00:48:11
seeking help for the clear growing depression and anxiety and distorted thinking that he was having he just
00:48:17
tried to suppress it all and just carry through like nothing was wrong mhm he was not doing a great job at it
00:48:23
obviously because it was a lot more severe than I think he could have handled on his own yeah um and
00:48:28
everything was far from fine uh entering the new year he was struggling academically professionally personally
00:48:35
literally in every way you could struggle but he continued to invest as much as he could into his marriage um at
00:48:42
that point like we were talking about before Kathy was the primary earner in the family that was also a big blow to
00:48:48
his ego especially at that time um and despite the fact that he outwardly said he adored his wife and acted as if he
00:48:56
adored his wife they had hit a rough patch in their marriage and the previous summer Cathy had actually confided to a
00:49:02
friend that she was thinking about divorce wow um according to her friend Fran Morgan Kathy said Charles was quote
00:49:08
a perfectionist and expected too much from her which is his dad uhhuh um and as an example Cathy told her friend
00:49:16
Charles would quote wipe his hand behind pictures hanging on the wall looking for
00:49:21
dust and on at least three occasions he had lost control of his violent temper and hit her oh so he's taking notes from
00:49:29
his father 100% um so that's why I say like he says he adors her and also [ __ ] you're at home if there's
00:49:38
dust behind those pictures [ __ ] pict that's on you baby she's out making the bacon going to school yeah getting the
00:49:45
bacon and now you make it yeah and in early March 66 Charles faced another huge stresser because he got a call from
00:49:53
his mother on the night of March 2nd saying his father CA there had become very violent and she was afraid of him
00:50:01
Charles anonymously called the Lake Worth Police Department and reported a disturbance at the home of CA and
00:50:07
Margaret Whitman telling the dispatcher they're going to kill each other oh God but when an officer arrived at the house
00:50:14
everything was quiet a short time later he called the police again this time saying that his
00:50:19
father had quote threatened to do bodily harm to his mother and that he was on the way to Florida but worried something
00:50:25
bad would happen before he got there oh that stress is unbelievable it's unclear
00:50:31
what actually happened here but two days later Charlie did succeed in convincing
00:50:35
his mother to finally leave his father wow after all those years and she returned back to Austin Texas with him
00:50:41
and settled into an apartment near where Kathy and he were living it's also worth
00:50:46
noting cuz I feel like listening to this story I'm like oh he's probably like in
00:50:49
his mid-30s at this point he's in his early 20s yeah he's young like for anybody that doesn't know this story
00:50:54
he's in his early 20s and this is everything he's going through at this point it's a lot now Margaret and ca's
00:51:01
separation was definitely an additional strain on an already increasingly emotionally fragile Charles yeah
00:51:08
although he wasn't exactly hostile CA made strong and repeated attempts to convince his wife to come home it was
00:51:16
bordering on harassment at that point especially after what he had done it's like [ __ ] off it's like you've been
00:51:20
abusive to her your entire marriage later he would say I'm not ashamed of the fact that I spent $1,000 a month on
00:51:26
the phone Bill begging her to come back I kept begging Charlie to come back to me too I promised Charlie that if he'd
00:51:31
only persuade his mama to come back I'd swear never to lay a hand on her this is that's also putting it on
00:51:39
your child yeah and you have to imagine I mean like I was just saying he's in his early 20s and he was the oldest so I
00:51:45
think there's and younger earlier he mentioned one of his brothers ran away from home MH they're younger it's like
00:51:50
they're they're experiencing all of this firsthand yep it's so sad how toxic this
00:51:58
and Charles said later that his father was calling daily or every other day I mean on the phone bill back then and
00:52:05
that and he's putting it on his child you have to convince your mother to come back no no my friend you're the one that
00:52:10
[ __ ] up in your marriage and has nothing to do with your child and their relationship between either one of you
00:52:17
he's not part of your marriage like that's what a lot of people need to understand like you your child is not
00:52:23
part of your marriage in that way they have no responsibility to get you two back together or figure anything out
00:52:28
that's between youg and it's like what the [ __ ] dude and maybe you should have
00:52:33
[ __ ] thought one day she was going to leave if you kept beating her yeah like you're just mad because she finally hit
00:52:39
her breaking point and you lost out on the thing that you like to hit when you're mad exactly like that's [ __ ] up
00:52:46
now at the at a time when his mental health was clearly deteriorating rapidly getting drawn into this separation and
00:52:53
divorce later would really only make things worse for Charles Not only would it likely have made him
00:52:58
even more paranoid about his own marriage uhhuh which was by then in trouble but he also felt an urge to
00:53:06
protect his mother and smooth things over with the whole family cuz he's the oldest so the stress had actually become
00:53:12
bad enough that Charles did finally start talking to his friends about what he called the quote gross disharmony in
00:53:19
the Whitman household uh in late March he actually finally sought professional help from the UTA student health Cent oh
00:53:27
okay um he attended a 1hour session with a psychiatrist a one or two hour psychiatrist session uh when the session
00:53:33
ended the doctor recommended that Charles come back the following week for ongoing treatment and to call if they he
00:53:39
was in crisis or needed help before then well that's great but he never came back
00:53:45
and they can't force you to and it should be noted that well it was definitely like on he needed to return
00:53:50
for help like that that was part of the you know he's an adult he needs to come back right for help um there might have
00:53:57
been a reason for him not wanting to come back because according to other students who had seen that same
00:54:01
psychiatrist Dr morce Dean Heatley around the time of Charles's visit they reported that he was uh very
00:54:08
unimpressive he was not a good doctor his demeanor his clinical approach not good one student Bill Helmer said that
00:54:16
while he was explaining his marital problems to the doctor that the doctor quote talked on the phone on the phone
00:54:22
to a driller engaged in the installation of a well on the heatly rant and then he just wrote this guy a
00:54:29
prescription for Librium okay so as much as it was it was definitely he's an adult he needs say if
00:54:38
he's going to go back he should go back but it's like I or seek alternative that
00:54:42
could have possibly been the reason he didn't go back yeah if that's your first experience I guess I can understand not
00:54:47
having a lot of faith in that approach but in interviews with the authorities directly after the shootings that would
00:54:53
later occur those closest to Charles would actually deny noticing any neurological deficits or evidence of a
00:55:00
disability in his State of Consciousness huh so nobody was reporting that like they noticed like something he was like
00:55:07
disassoc disassociating things like that um but that wasn't entirely true I don't
00:55:13
know why people were reporting that because in the months leading up to that summer Charles had clearly been
00:55:18
demonstrating some odd behavior simp like disordered thinking um some of this definitely could have been attributed to
00:55:24
uh what had been prescribed him in the spring which was like amphetamines oh um and he ended up becoming addicted to
00:55:31
them was that sorry was that when he went to the psychiat just like handed him a prescription first first [ __ ]
00:55:37
appointment you just get amphetamin Jesus Christ ex and he became addicted to them um yeah but there were other
00:55:43
symptoms like he had some increasingly bizarre beliefs about God and spirituality that were like becoming
00:55:49
more and more bizarre and he had a very noticeable lack of inhibition when it came to talking about things in front of
00:55:58
people okay like he was inappropriate you know and he wasn't like that before every once in a while
00:56:06
you know like when he was in the military I said like he would sometimes like make a crazy comment or something
00:56:10
that was like a little different than what this was this was like I'm going to talk to you about my sex life kind of
00:56:16
thing when like I've known you for an hour interesting um in an interview with authorities the day after the shooting
00:56:21
happened Charles's friend John Morgan told investigators that the last time he had spoken with Charles they had spent
00:56:27
hours quote talking about philosophy religion marriage problems sex Etc and Charles had some way out ideas about
00:56:34
those subjects really yeah and he wasn't afraid to share them okay according to Morgan Charles was uncharacteristically
00:56:40
open about his marriage problems he seemed as he said quote over sexed and talked at length about how much he hated
00:56:47
his father which were all things he just wouldn't have talked about before like wouldn't have gone into that yeah much
00:56:54
of detail about um there were also strange other strange changes in his behavior as well that
00:57:01
spring he had spoken extensively with instructors about his depression and told several of them that he planned to
00:57:07
drop out of school at the end of semester which previously he was like very committed to completing this degree
00:57:14
like that was one of his main goals so these type of comments would have definitely seemed strange and out of
00:57:22
place like somebody would have been like wow that's a weird change and we should
00:57:26
look at that and also that spring after an argument with Kathy he left the house
00:57:31
and was just missing for an entire day Kathy didn't know where he was and he returned the following day still had no
00:57:37
idea was out of character yeah very out of character like he hadn't done that before yeah on the afternoon of July
00:57:43
31st 1966 Charles and Cathy visited the home of John and Fran Morgan around 4 p.m. and John noticed then that Charles
00:57:52
quote acted different and was extremely quiet okay about 2 hours later the couple left the Morgans Charles drove
00:58:00
his wife to work at the telephone company and she was scheduled to work until about 10 p.m. okay so she she was
00:58:06
working hard two jobs Kathy's supervisor later confirmed that she did finish her
00:58:10
shift and left work a little after 10 p.m. and it was the last time anyone saw her
00:58:16
alive oh no now after dropping Cathy off at work Charles returned home sat down at his typewriter and he wrote quote I
00:58:25
don't understand what what it is that compels me to type this letter Perhaps it is to leave some vague reasons for
00:58:30
the actions I've recently performed oh no now the letter was dated and timestamped 6:45 p.m. which means he
00:58:38
hadn't done anything yet um but this indicates that whatever reservations he might have had about his plans that he
00:58:46
was going to carry out they were gone by this time when he sat down at the typewriter uh he went on to write I
00:58:53
don't really understand myself these days I'm supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man
00:58:58
however lately I canot recall when it started I've been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts in March
00:59:05
when my parents made a physical break I noticed a great deal of stress I talked with a doctor once for about 2 hours and
00:59:11
tried to convey to him my fears that I felt some overwhelming violent impulses so he shared that with the doctor and
00:59:18
then the doctor prescribed him amphetamines good I never saw the doctor again and since then I've been fighting
00:59:25
my mental turmoil alone and seemingly to no avail after my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see
00:59:32
if there are any physical visible physical disorders so he was literally being like something is drastically
00:59:39
wrong with me I can't do this I'm just G to I don't know why I'm about to do what I'm about to do but I'm
00:59:46
going to and after I die which I plan to die today I want you to find out what's
00:59:52
wrong with me like that's a scary series of plans and thoughts yeah you know like
00:59:58
for someone to be so aware of the struggling but so so aware that like something is severely
01:00:07
wrong with me but I don't know what it is I can't imagine that feeling no and I know a lot of like I know a lot of our
01:00:16
listeners probably either know people or have felt that way that you're like something's wrong with me and I don't
01:00:21
know what it is right like I can't imagine feeling that way it must so out of control that's the thing when you're
01:00:27
not in control of your own [ __ ] and like you don't feel like you can get in control yeah that's scary it is scary
01:00:35
like that's I can't imagine that feeling I really can't and based on the note left behind it's obviously clear that he
01:00:42
intended to die that day either he was going to do it or he was going to have the police Do It um but what's not clear
01:00:49
here are his reasons for what he said he did next killing his mother and his wife
01:00:55
oh he killed his mother too yep he hadn't done it yet but he said it was after much thought that I decided to
01:01:03
kill my wife Cathy tonight I love her dearly and she has been a very fine wife to me I cannot rationally pinpoint any
01:01:10
specific reason for doing this that's terrifying yeah it is Charles was equally vague about killing
01:01:17
his mother he said similar reasons provoked me to take my mother's life also it's like no reason I can't
01:01:25
pinpoint it he just feels compelled now when he finished writing the note he went back
01:01:29
to the phone company to pick up Cathy a little be like basically at 10: oh and she has no idea no idea they returned
01:01:37
home what's worse is they returned home a short time later he got a call from his mother he left Cathy at home went to
01:01:44
his mother's apartment building and she met him at the front door she introduced
01:01:49
him to the doorman dick thinon explaining that Charles intended to study while he was here like you know
01:01:56
just nice little casual combo the two of them went up to the fifth floor apartment and once inside he wasted no
01:02:01
time killing his mother it is unclear exactly what happened like in what order it all happened because there was
01:02:10
actually no autopsy done on his mother which I'm a little confused about that's strange um but authorities found a
01:02:18
length of black rubber hose at the scene and assumed she was strangled but there
01:02:22
was also a severe injury to the back of her skull with which Gary lever notes quote is commonly interpreted to be a
01:02:29
gunshot wound but he said no autopsy was performed on Margaret and those reports
01:02:34
cannot be positively confirmed but he also stabbed his mother in the chest with a large hunting
01:02:41
knife wow mhm so she was either shot strangled or stabbed or all through like she was all
01:02:49
those things but one of the who knows what the cause of death was that's insane I do wonder why she didn't
01:02:56
I know sometimes people can put it in their will but they don't want an autopsy so maybe this is obviously a
01:03:01
complete speculation but because she had been suffering at the hands of her husband for so long maybe she was
01:03:06
worried that like that might end her life someday and she didn't want something to happen to him maybe CU she
01:03:11
wanted him to be like around for the kids I don't know but I'm cuz that's so strange that they just that they didn't
01:03:19
do an autopsy on a murder victim that's what blows my mind it's like what like I
01:03:24
would think like nine out of 10 times well before leaving the apartment he Charles washed his hands then sat down
01:03:30
at the table and wrote a note he wrote I have just taken my mother's life I am very upset over having done it however I
01:03:38
feel if there is a heaven she is definitely there now and if there is no life after I have relieved her of her
01:03:44
suffering here on Earth wow and once he'd finished the note he carried his mother to her bed
01:03:52
covered her body with the bed spread and left the apartment around4 5:00 a.m. it's just so bizarre it's so
01:04:01
bizarre and it's so like it's it seems like he's so removed from the situation but one part of him is still so present
01:04:10
and connected con like placing her in bed yeah you know and to think that like he relieved her of suffering yeah it's
01:04:17
very disordered after inflicting mhm the most amount of suffering it's bizarre it
01:04:24
is now he returned home around 2:15 a.m. and entered the house very quietly he snuck up to the bed where Cathy was
01:04:32
sleeping in their bed pulled back the covers and stabbed her in the chest with the hunting knife five times in Rapid
01:04:41
succession killing her almost immediately oh my God now with Kathy murdered he replaced the bedding and
01:04:51
covered her back up and then went back to the letter he started writing earlier on the typewriter and in the margins he
01:04:59
wrote 3:00 a.m. both dead isn't that chilling it's just so callous now he had killed the two most
01:05:09
important people in his life yeah it's so I don't know if it's like he because he says he doesn't know why he did it
01:05:16
it's like did he but part of me just wonders did he do it so that they didn't have to be aware of what he did
01:05:23
afterwards like what he was planning on maybe and I don't maybe he didn't even realize
01:05:27
that that was the reason subconsciously that was it or something it was he had such disordered thinking that there's
01:05:32
like really no way to tell no there's not and he sat down at the table again and he wrote three more notes to his
01:05:38
brothers and father and then he prepared for the next step now the most shocking I mean there's so
01:05:46
many shocking things about this case but the way that he was so prepared like I said he didn't go into things half
01:05:53
coocked that's what one of his friends said he didn't he was very prepared for this this was not the impulsive Act of a
01:05:59
desperate man he had planned meticulously for his trip to the UTA campus and he intended to be there for a
01:06:07
long time really after finishing his notes to his brothers and father he went to the garage to get his old military
01:06:14
Foot Locker and into that Foot Locker he loaded supplies including 3 and A2 gallons of water 3 and2 gallons of
01:06:21
gasoline a hatchet and machete an alarm clock several hunting knives 12 cans of different food tons of lengths of rope
01:06:32
he also packed a 35mm Remington rifle an illegally customized 12 gauge shotgun a
01:06:39
6mm Remington bolt action rifle a 357 Magnum Revolver a 9mm lug I think it's a Luger I don't know I don't I think it's
01:06:49
a Luger Pistol and a 30 caliber caliber M1 carbine capable of Rapid firing okay that's what he's bringing with him
01:06:59
Charles left his house a little after 7 a.m. and went into the direction of the UTA Camp campus but he stopped at the
01:07:05
hardware store on on the way and rented a two- wheel Dolly to transport all this
01:07:10
gear then he stopped at the bank and cashed two checks in the amount of 125 each okay then he was like you know what
01:07:18
I don't think I have enough gums and ammo so he made three more stops at Davis Hardware where he bought another
01:07:26
30 caliber carbine and several more boxes of ammo sorry is that a gun I believe so okay uh then at Chuck's Gun
01:07:34
Shop he bought more ammo on top of that and then he stopped at the local sear and bought a pump action shotgun and
01:07:42
more ammo the fact that you could buy a shotgun at Sears is absolutely mind it's
01:07:47
Texas all I think of is and me girls when she goes you could try Sears that's I was thinking that too you could try
01:07:54
Sears that's how much this man is bringing three more stops to get three more giant things of ammo and at least
01:08:01
two more guns when he already has at least what like packs with him in a nuts amount of ammo and like canned food oh
01:08:10
yeah and like three and a half gallons of water when I say he was planning to be there for a while he was planning to
01:08:16
be there for a while he was going to cause some damage and he does but he was planning to do even more seems like he
01:08:23
was planning to be there for like days oh I think he was and honestly he made it he made it really
01:08:29
hard for them to stop him really he had thought of every single thing in this and it was people got hurt trying to
01:08:36
stop him people died trying to stop him like police officers so while checking out at Sears it occurred to Charles that
01:08:45
actually he hadn't made any attempt to explain why his mother wouldn't be in work that day and that they would end up
01:08:50
wondering why she wasn't there and that could interrupt his plans because he planned to be there for a long time and
01:08:57
he didn't want to be interrupted by them trying to figure out where she was so he
01:09:01
drove back to the apartment he placed a call to his mother's boss told them she was sick and
01:09:07
wouldn't be in that day then he rearranged everything in the Foot Locker packed it all back up and he was on his
01:09:14
way at about 11: a.m. and what about Kathy nobody's going to be looking for Kathy apparently that didn't stri he
01:09:21
arrived at the campus a little before 11: a.m. and he used the two will Dolly and made his way towards the little
01:09:27
guard shack at the foot of the tower now when asked his purpose in the tower he explained that he was there to deliver
01:09:34
some equipment and he showed them his campus ID card M and because he had been given lab access as part of his studies
01:09:41
his campus ID actually indicated that he was responsible for transporting large equipment so the guard had literally no
01:09:49
reason to believe that this was anything other than what he was saying it was I have to bring equipment up there why
01:09:56
would you think anything else yeah and again at this point school shootings weren't a thing M shootings all this was
01:10:05
not a thing so he allowed him to enter the tower and once inside he started Charles started frantically pressing the
01:10:11
button for the elevator and it didn't feel it wasn't working um so finally the woman at the reception desk was like oh
01:10:17
I got you and she switched on the power and the elevator came on he looked at her and said thank you ma'am you don't
01:10:24
know how happy that makes me me oh that just me before he entered the elevator he turned around and shot and killed the
01:10:31
receptionist Edna Townsley and then dragged her body behind the desk so that no one would find her oh my God so after
01:10:38
she turned on the elevator for him and he said thank you so much ma'am that makes me really happy boom
01:10:44
gone yeah riding the elevator to the top of the tower he barricaded the door behind him and then stepped out onto the
01:10:51
observation deck and set out equipment all over the place the first rifle shot rang out at 11:48
01:10:59
a.m. Shelton Williams who was a senior at the school recalled a lot of people thought it was a car backfiring I
01:11:05
attribute this to the fact that I'm from West Texas but I knew immediately that it was
01:11:10
gunshots the first person to be hit was margarite Lamport who was a 45-year-old tourist visiting the campus that
01:11:17
afternoon with her family oh God her nephew Mark Mark Gabor was also shock uh struck with a bullet the family had
01:11:25
planned to view the city from the top of the tower and they were super frustrated
01:11:29
cuz they found the door barricaded right so Mark and his brother started pushing
01:11:34
aside some things that were in front of the door and Whitman fired at them through the door with a pump action
01:11:40
shotgun Mark and margarite were killed almost instantly and several other family members were wounded the first
01:11:47
call to police came in just after the shooting started and officers were dispatched to the scene John Pipkin a
01:11:53
senior at UT remembered being in a near by Cafe when it all started he said we were eating sandwiches when some guy
01:11:59
busts open the door and jumps up on the bar and starts screaming for everybody's
01:12:03
attention he's yelling you got to hear what I'm saying there's a sniper up on the tower and he's shooting people
01:12:09
everybody in the place starts laughing and saying yeah right a sniper in the tower let's drink to the sniper so
01:12:16
everybody raises their beers and makes a big joke of it and about that same time
01:12:20
we suddenly started hearing Sirens oh my God mass shootings were so so [ __ ] nonexistent that this was a joke if
01:12:30
someone ran into a place today and said someone shooting oh everybody one person
01:12:36
would think that's a joke not a one person no no way but everybody raised their glasses and said to the sniper in
01:12:43
the tower that's how non-existent these were it's yeah wow now what's from his position so high in the tower Charles
01:12:55
could never have seen the faces of the people he was shooting at he was just firing indiscriminately and like you
01:13:00
said he was better at shooting a moving Target oh yeah he was a sharpshooter right freshman David bis said I ran
01:13:07
towards bat's Hall and I just gotten inside when the bell rang people started pouring out of the classrooms it was
01:13:13
lunchtime and everyone was in a hurry he actually tried to stop all the other students from walking out directly into
01:13:19
the line of fire telling everyone someone shooting out of the tower no one believed him and they all just push
01:13:26
pasted him and walked right out into the line of fire feel that helpless like you're trying and no one's believe and
01:13:31
again what do you do to make believe nonexistent this was wow no one believed him if someone said that today the
01:13:37
entire thing would go into lock down barricaded in the door but by the time it became clear that he was telling the
01:13:44
truth it was too late and the quad exploded into chaos people were running in every direction trying to find any
01:13:51
kind of cover Junior Bob higgle said he was killing IND discriminately aiming aiming wherever he saw targets riding
01:13:58
their bicycles looking out windows walking down the drag 18-year-old Paul sag was shot next and was killed
01:14:05
instantly just walking and his body fell right in front of the university co-op and his girlfriend Claudia rut was
01:14:12
walking next to him and she was also killed shot and killed instantly oh my God by then most of the students who
01:14:18
were able to able to had escaped um and i' gone to safety somewhere but there were still so many others who were just
01:14:25
now pinned down by the gunfire and they were terrified to move yeah because if he saw you move he was shooting you so
01:14:33
some of them were just pretending to be dead on the ground just hoping that he wouldn't shoot in their Direction trying
01:14:38
not to move a muscle and some of them had found hiding spots but they were hiding spots where they couldn't get
01:14:43
somewhere else so they were just hiding behind something and they couldn't get out of there uh Michael Hall who was a
01:14:48
history professor at the time said to my left there were three live oak trees a young man was crouched down behind one
01:14:55
one of them his fingertips touching the bark terrified staring up at the tower it just like paints such a picture it
01:15:02
does and like the students and faculty on the quad the officers who came to the scene couldn't get very close cuz they
01:15:09
were targets as well right as one reporter described it blood literally ran on down on the sidewalks throughout
01:15:15
the sprawling campus as the sniper picked off victim after victim Charles had planned his assault very well and
01:15:22
had set up stations around the OB obervation deck which allowed him to move quickly from one station to the
01:15:29
other and could fire in multiple directions so no one especially law enforcement knew where the next shot was
01:15:36
coming from and they probably assumed like it was multiple people yeah they had no idea so they would be approaching
01:15:42
from one end he's shooting on of the other he can shoot from that in a second right and so it made getting closer to
01:15:49
the tower very risky and almost impossible Claire Wilson and her boyfriend Tom emman um they hadn't heard
01:15:56
the shots when it actually began they had been drinking coffee at a cafe like nearby and they decided they were going
01:16:03
to put another nickel in their parking meter before it ran out and they were just going to walk across the campus so
01:16:09
she said we were walking across the South mall holding hands when all of a sudden I felt like I'd stepped on a live
01:16:15
wire like I'd been electrocuted and this is she told her reporter in 2006 I was eight months pregnant at the time oh my
01:16:22
God and Tom reached out for Claire but then he was hit too and they both fell to the ground she said Tom never said
01:16:29
another word I was lying next to him on the pavement and I called out to him but
01:16:33
I knew he was dead later when it was all over she also lost the baby oh my God that's say he killed the baby yeah
01:16:43
despite all the chaos going around the quad there were still some people who didn't even realize what was happening
01:16:48
it was the mid 1960s and the anti-war movement was beginning to gain momentum especially on college campuses in the US
01:16:55
so people were just becoming kind of accustomed to seeing protests and other public events around them in these
01:17:01
environments so Claire recalled a conservative looking guy in a suit walked by and I yelled at him please get
01:17:07
a doctor he looked annoyed and said get up what do you think you're doing I think he thought it was Guerilla theater
01:17:13
because we had started doing things like that to bring attention to the war in Vietnam oh the conservative man didn't
01:17:19
know what was going on but when 33-year-old math professor Robert Boer saw CLA and Tom fall to the pavement
01:17:26
they immediately knew something was wrong and he ran for help Robert's friend Alfred child remembered Boer as a
01:17:33
free spirit by choice and inclination and told a reporter he did not believe Americans were gentle enough and that
01:17:39
they were far too competitive aggressive and easily swayed towards war and killing yep seeing two young people in
01:17:46
obvious trouble Robert ran in their direction to offer help but before he could reach them a bullet hit his
01:17:53
abdomen his kidney was absolutely destroyed and there was extensive internal damage it sent him flying
01:18:00
across the steps that led up to the tower and his body landed at the foot of the Jefferson Davis statue and he died a
01:18:07
few minutes later just trying to save students and minutes later after witnessing the Carnage unfolding in
01:18:14
front of him 22-year-old Austin Police Officer Billy speed decided I'm not [ __ ] waiting anymore like they were
01:18:21
all hiding cuz they were trying to figure out some kind of plan to get up to the tower they didn't want to all
01:18:27
just run out at once that would cause more chaos but um Billy speed was like [ __ ] that I'm going to take this guy out
01:18:33
he's 22 wow um with a fellow officer providing cover fire Billy and this other officer Jerry Culp made a break
01:18:41
for the tower and got as far as the Davis statue when Charles saw the two men and took aim just as they were able
01:18:48
to hide behind the base of the statue the first shot hit the base and exploded the base like concrete flying everywhere
01:18:54
holy [ __ ] the second shot hit speed near the right shoulder but the bullet traveled to his chest and sent him just
01:19:02
flat on his face oh no and at first the other officers were like oh he got hit in the shoulder like that sucks but like
01:19:08
he'll be okay but then they saw that his uniform was just soaking in blood um Charles changed position at this point
01:19:16
CU he hit his Target that gave the officers the opportunity to pull Billy to safe to at least a safe location out
01:19:22
of the Sun in the line of fire and several civilians including one one nurse ran over to them to try to provide
01:19:29
Aid and try to make Billy comfortable at least but they tried Billy speed died a
01:19:34
short time later and it's like these civilians all ran up to him you know I mean like
01:19:39
people were trying to help each other right now again it's understandable that the officers at the scene were hesitant
01:19:46
to advance too quickly and risk more injuries I mean yeah cuz they also don't want to run out and endanger the people
01:19:51
around them if he starts shooting wildly yeah or run out of officers yeah um but
01:19:57
after officer speed was killed it seemed that a lot of the other officers lost any inhibition and became determined to
01:20:03
get to the Tower and stop him um one officer asked the commanding officer if they should shoot on site and the
01:20:09
officer replied you shoot the [ __ ] out of him yeah while the officer began making a plan to reach the tower Charles
01:20:17
kept firing from various points um nearly an hour had passed already holy [ __ ] and remaining time in in the
01:20:26
remaining time he had he would uh end up killing 29-year-old Roy Smith who was an
01:20:32
electrician who tried to run his truck for cover Harry walchuk who was a graduate student hiding near a new stand
01:20:40
Thomas Ashton who was a student attend attending a peace core training class oh my God Thomas Carr a young man who was
01:20:47
walking down the street just walking down the street taking a walk and Whitman's final victim was Karen
01:20:53
Griffith who was was a 17-year-old who was shot and ended up dying a week later from her injuries oh God now finally
01:21:01
after more than an hour and a half four officers managed to make their way into the Tower with underground tunnels oh
01:21:08
wow two of the officers guarded the front door while officers Romero Martinez and Houston McCoy started
01:21:15
climbing up the stairs slowly and once they made it up to the top floor they just made like crept up to the door and
01:21:22
then they just burst into the object observation deck but as soon as he heard the sound Charles whipped around and
01:21:29
immediately prepared to fire but before he could officer Martinez just quickly fired six shots in his Direction all six
01:21:38
shots missed but it was like a quick like boom boom boom boom boom you know like just
01:21:44
whatever they could do it did do something though because it forced Whitman to lower his weapon long enough
01:21:50
that the other officer McCoy aimed a shotgun and fired at his head and it actually in quotes tore away his left
01:21:58
side of his head wow now Charles Whitman's Rampage at the UTA campus lasted a total of 96 minutes which is a
01:22:06
long [ __ ] time 96 Minutes in that time he killed 14 people on that campus and wounded 31 others before he was
01:22:15
finally shot and killed by police wow when the ordeal was finally over in all 17 people were dead cuz his wife and
01:22:23
mother and him himself um but at this point everybody was like what the [ __ ] happened why did
01:22:30
he do this and how was he able to like I can't imagine the amount of questions people had and like we talked about
01:22:36
before unfortunately now mass shootings are a daily occurrence which is [ __ ] awful but in the 1960s they were so
01:22:45
[ __ ] rare and I mean like non-existent so his actions literally bewildered everyone nobody knew what to
01:22:53
even think of this within a day of the tragedy various law enforcement agencies in Texas were dispatched to gather
01:22:59
information about him hoping that something in his history or recent interactions with friends Associates
01:23:05
employers anything might explain something to do with this right and those interviews did provide some
01:23:11
insight um and what they found was this man had been slowly unraveling for months leading up to this shooting right
01:23:18
like you know more often than not his friends and family were just as stunned as everyone else and two decades later
01:23:25
Charles's brother Patrick recalled the complete panic and confusion that he felt when he learned what happened he
01:23:33
said I went in to listen to the TV but the News Bulletin didn't come right back so I called the station and I asked them
01:23:39
to repeat the News Bulletin at first they wouldn't repeat it so I said my name is Patrick Whitman would you please
01:23:45
repeat it then I broke up and went and got my father from then on it was turmoil they had to sedate me wow oh God
01:23:53
and he was already going through his own stuff too like he had run away from home
01:23:57
yeah and again other than like comments from people about like his academic struggles his employment issues the
01:24:04
marital problems like everyone was like but why did you snap like this like this
01:24:08
is a big why did you go to the school and that's a why are you killing innocent people like what are you doing
01:24:15
right and why you K like your mother and your wife the two people who supported you the most the most and it's just like
01:24:21
how did it get this bad like you plann this out how did you get this bad the brain is a very fragile organ yeah so CA
01:24:30
Whitman had to sign off on the autopsy for Charles whitmann his father um because they wanted to determine whether
01:24:37
he had a neurological condition or some other biological impairment that could even somewhat explain how something like
01:24:44
this could happen um but the problem was the shotgun blast had obliterated a big
01:24:51
chunk of his brain yeah and according to the medical report presented to the governor's office quote all of the
01:24:57
pieces of the brain were not recovered for the examination the doctors who performed
01:25:01
the autopsy did identify a malignant gleo blastoma um in the right temporal lobe that they believe could have
01:25:09
accounted for um some abnormal aggressive behavior I say um but that being said the Consulting neurologists
01:25:17
were did acknowledge pretty quickly that yes there was a presence of a tumor but
01:25:22
they said the application of existing knowledge of organic brain function does not enable us to explain the actions of
01:25:28
Whitman on August 1st so basically they're saying like yeah he has a brain tumor not everybody with a brain tumor
01:25:35
is going to do this and like he aggressive behavior absolutely like that can happen for sure but like this
01:25:41
they're like we we don't have any precedent that says that this is what happens when you have this kind of brain
01:25:47
tumor you know what I mean like they're like take it and add it into all the other things that are going on and the
01:25:53
different injuries to the head like the diff you know the the history of abuse the the ACD yeah sure take all that into
01:26:01
consideration but this alone is just this alone you know um in the years that followed people continued to struggle to
01:26:09
understand why women had done all this um but just as many were happy to put the whole thing thing completely behind
01:26:15
them they didn't even want to talk about it anymore reporter uh Robert herd told
01:26:19
the Austin Statesman in 1996 quote it's worn out its welcome as something to talk about if ever it had one in the
01:26:26
first place so he you know he thinks like we should stop talking about it I I don't
01:26:32
think disagree in a big way uh still haven't figured out why he did it so I feel like that's like a pretty important
01:26:38
thing to talk about absolutely and Gary lever who wrote the book that we will cite in the uh in the show notes um he
01:26:47
disagrees with that sentiment he can understand the sentiment but he was like you need to talk about it you can't just
01:26:53
not talk about tragedy IES and expect them to disappear yeah he said superficially you could say the city and
01:26:58
the university are in a state of denial people don't want to go back over it and
01:27:03
the university actually shut down access to the tower immediately after this and
01:27:07
it was closed to the public for nearly a year before the board of regions voted to open it June
01:27:13
1967 um it wasn't long though and this is really tragic that before a number of students committed suicide by jumping
01:27:20
from the observation deck in the years after that oh God uh so the top floor was once again closed to the public for
01:27:26
decades literally you can understand why yeah a former student Larry Falkner said
01:27:31
in 2006 the university stance has always seemed to be to try to erase what had happened it was like an injury that
01:27:37
would never heal and honestly he's pretty right because the University of Texas and
01:27:43
nearly all of Austin for that matter seemed to just want it to go away disappear it just they wanted everyone
01:27:49
to move on which I can understand that sentiment for sure like nobody wants to relive a tragedy in your especially in
01:27:56
your hometown forever but you can't erase it well you have to acknowledge it yeah you have to acknowledge you have to
01:28:02
acknowledge everybody that lost their lives exactly like you can't just pretend that didn't happen unfortunately
01:28:07
that's not fair you got to learn from it is what you need to do and move forward
01:28:11
yeah um it wasn't until 2016 that the university formally acknowledged the tragedy they hadn't
01:28:17
even acknowledged it really 2016 that's when they placed a plaque about a half block away from the tower
01:28:25
took a long time that's ridiculous and the black says the University of Texas at Austin remembers with profound s
01:28:31
sorrow the tragedy of August 1st 1966 this space is dedicated as the tower garden a memorial to those who
01:28:38
died to those who were wounded and to the countless other victims who are immeasurably affected by the tragedy
01:28:44
that should have been there long time ago in 1967 68 at the latest but as for why he decided and chose to murder 16
01:28:55
people that day that day of all days nobody has figured it out to they we can speculate like we can say all
01:29:05
these things put together but like a lot of people go through things yeah but some people do just break and there's
01:29:13
got to be something to it and I think someday we'll find something in the brain that disconnects from another area
01:29:19
of the brain but it's like now that it's so common unfort Ely there's got to be some kind of shared piece of disruption
01:29:29
internally that people are going through because even now we can't pinpoint why this happens and why is it happening so
01:29:36
much now like none of us can say that it's like are we spending enough time like studying this area you know are
01:29:43
looking at the right things it's like it's so hard to I don't know wow yeah wow what a what a case yeah it's
01:29:53
it's a a tough one it is a tough one and I definitely think it's important to kind of end on a note of uh if you are
01:30:00
someone you know is suicidal or an emotional distress you guys should consider using the 988 suicide and
01:30:05
crisis Lifeline you can call or text 988 or even chat online to connect with a trained crisis counselor and the
01:30:12
lifeline provides 24-hour confidential support to anybody in suicidal crisis or emotional distress and there's also the
01:30:19
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that National helpl line you can call 18 00 662 help
01:30:26
which is 4357 again that's 1 18006624357 or you can text help for you to 4357 48 yeah and we love you we love you and
01:30:41
we hope you keep listening we hope you keep it weird I don't I'm not going to do one
01:30:47
for this one yeah yeah love you love you [Music] [Music] [Music]