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Gunman opens fire on students at UT
On this date in 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman began a killing rampage that left seventeen dead and thirty-one wounded in one of the worst mass murders in modern United States history. Whitman first killed his mother in her apartment and his wife in their residence. He then went to the tower on the University of Texas campus where he clubbed a receptionist, who later died, then killed two other people and wounded two more. Gaining the observation deck at an elevation of 231 feet he began firing on persons crossing the campus and others on nearby streets, killing ten and wounding thirty-one (one died a week later). Police returned his fire from the ground while police officers Ramiro Martinez and Houston McCoy gained the observation deck, where they shot and killed Whitman. An autopsy revealed a tumor in Whitman's head but medical authorities disagreed over its effect on his actions.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- WHITMAN, CHARLES JOSEPH
- UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- First election in Texas (1731)
- Baylor declares himself governor of Confederate Territory of Arizona (1861)
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