CCS #101 - Understanding Criminal Psychosis

#1

The Right Man for the Wrong Job
A study of Charles Whitman

It has long been a hobby of mine to study people...I love to sit back and observe my surroundings, take notice of the things around me...As I've gotten older, I have been able to study and try to understand how powerful, yet fragile the human mind is...If you care to, follow me as we discover the case of the man that took away America's shock factor...

The Texas Tower Sniper

It is a common saying that "Everything is bigger in Texas..." Allow me to introduce to you one of the pitfalls of this statement...Meet Charles Whitman, born in Florida...His father was a self made man, and as a result, the Whitman's lived above average...Charles and his sibling knew financial security pretty much their all their lives...However, they also knew repression, hurt, and anger...Charles had an abusive father, a man with a temper that he lost control of quite frequently...The entire Whitman family eventually felt the effects of this abuse, as after a rather upsetting fight with his father that almost killed him, a young Charles Whitman left home to join the Marines...

Initially, Charles was an excellent Marine...He even earned a good conduct medal...And, as he was no stranger to guns, Charlie earned a 215/250 score for his Sharshooter's Badge...Other officers were certain that Charlie was to be a good, hardworking man...So much so, that he beat out a batch of other Marines for the the Naval Enlisted Science Education Program (NESEP)...This is how Charlie became acquainted with the University of Texas at Austin...There on a full scholarship + a stipend, Charlie had his All American boy image in tact...He met and married during this time as well...

But without the strict rules of his father...Without the strict rules of the military...Charlie began to loose it...He amassed gambling debts, and eventually lost his scholarship...He was soon sent back to active duty, but this time, he was uninterested in being a good soldier...After several mix ups, Charlie's father, C.A. Whitman, was able to get Charlie's active time down quite a bit, and Charlie was honorably discharged from the military in 1964...

Determined to do better but inadequately able to see a way to do this, Charlie's life and seemingly his sanity began to slip away from him...He loathed himself for having failed at school...Self hatred began to brew inside him, and at the urging of his wife, Charlie wanted to seek counseling...But to compound matters, Charlie's mother divorced his father and move to Austin, and Charlie's troubled home followed him to Austin...

Whitman saw a psychologist, and told him about his frequent headaches, and how he fantasized about going to the top of the Texas Tower and shooting people...As that was nothing new for him to hear, the psychologist prescribed Charlie Valium, and told him to return...The drug inhabited Charlie's effectiveness as a student and research assistant, and as a result, Charlie grew darker and darker...He never returned for a repeat appointment...

On July 31st, something in Charlie finally snapped...Before he was interrupted mid letter by visiting friends (who described him as being quite himself) Whitman sat down and began to compose this a letter...

"I don't quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter,‚ he wrote. ‚“Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed.‚ He went on to say he‚„¢d increasingly been a victim of ‚“many unusual and irrational thoughts‚ and that his attempt to get help with his problems (the visit to Dr. Heatly) had failed. He expressed a wish that his body be autopsied after his death to see if there was a physical cause for his mental anguish. As he continued, he outlined his plan for the coming 24 hours. ‚“It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from work at the telephone company,‚ he revealed. ‚“The prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it.‚ He continued, ‚“similar reasons provoked me to take my mother's life also.‚

That night, Charlie went to his mother's penthouse apartment...He strangled her with a length of rubber hose, before stabbing her in the back with a large hunting knife...He then composed and left a note explaining his actions, and proceeded to head back home, where he killed his wife by stabbing her in the chest...Charlie then sat down and finished composing his letter he started on earlier..."Both Dead" he scribbled, before writing letters to his father, brother, and to his in laws...

On August 1st, he started his mission....

In his old Marine footlocker Charlie packed an array of supplies. He brought a radio, 3 gallons of water, gasoline, a notebook and pen, a compass, a hatchet and hammer, food, two knives, a flashlight and batteries, and various other implements which made it clear he was prepared for a lengthy standoff. Additionally, he packed guns¢¢‚¬¢€a 35 caliber Remington rifle, a 6mm Remington rifle with a scope, a 357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, a 9mm Luger pistol, and a Galesi-Brescia pistol. Later that morning he would buy two more weapons, a 30 caliber M-1 carbine and a 12-gauge shotgun.

As he was an assistant, he was able to to easily get clearance to get on campus with his large footlocker in tow...From there, he took his arsenal to the 27th floor of the Texas tower, killing a secretary and 3 others along the way...He then barricaded the door with the desk, and for over an hour and a half, fired shots from the ultimate snipers nest...Had he not had to bother with killing those in the tower, he would have caught students changing classes....

The shooting was brutal...Whitman murdered 14, and injured dozens more, as his scoped rifle registered a fatal shot at over 500 yards away...Because of the horrifically ideal position and his skills as a soldier, Whitman was virtually unable to be hit from his position on the ground, and it wasn't until Houston McCoy found his way to the 27th and floored Whitman with 2 shotgun blasts to the head...As his body lay twitching, another officer walked up and fired 2 into Whitman from point blank range, killing him instantly...

The Aftermath

Whitman was found to have a small tumor in his brain after the autopsy...Charlie was buried alongside his mother in Florida, an American flag covering the coffin of the X marine...The Texas tower deck remained opened for a few years after that, but a rash of suicides prompted the university officials to close it off for good...It remained closed from 1976 until Sept, 15 1999, when Texas officials allowed the deck to be open once again as a symbol of Texas pride and ideals...

But it is not like it used to be...There are security guards on the ground floor of the Tower and on the deck itself, which is surrounded by a stainless steel lattice to prevent suicides and falls. Visitors can once again enjoy the panoramic view from the Tower, but must pass through a metal detector to gain entry...

A reminder of what we lost that fatal day...

Please feel free to read this piece in depth at my home away from home, the crime library...

http://tinyurl.com/7y8qu

Lets discuss..!

#2

I'd love to delve into this topic, but I just don't have the time.

Instead I'll leave this for now-> I've had frequent headaches like that before................

#3

I wrote this post after I had a premonition in November...

Feeling that it was related to this, or the Kennedy shooting (notice the date of this post) I leaned very strongly towards Whitman...

Oh the irony...How many parallels do you see in this story, to the horror that unfolded at VT...