The UT Tower Sniper Attack That Changed Policing

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Charles Whitman’s UT Tower sniper attack was a nightmare collision of mental illness, firearms, courage, and chaos. The bloody 93 minutes that followed helped push American law enforcement into the modern tactical age.

We are all fascinated with psychopathology. It’s like watching a car wreck. You cannot take your eyes off of it.

Serious mental illness is no joke. While sometimes it seems that everybody in America is on some mood-altering drug, legit homicidal lunatics are thankfully quite rare. When you encounter one in the wild, they are a wonder to behold.

The Brutal Origin Story Behind Charles Whitman

Charles Joseph Whitman was born in June of 1941 in Lake Worth, Florida. Eventually, the UT Tower sniper attack turned his name into something darkly permanent. He was the oldest of Margaret and Charles Adolphus Whitman’s three boys. Charles’ Dad was raised in an orphanage and unnaturally driven. Margaret was 17 when they wed. By all reasonable metrics, Charles Whitman’s father was a proper monster.

A neighbor named Judi Faulch later claimed she had lost count of the number of times the cops had been called over the senior Whitman’s beating his wife, kids, and family pets. Despite all of this, the younger Charles was described as polite and self-controlled. His IQ was 139. Genius level is 140. The boy excelled in school at least partly because his scumbag father beat him if he didn’t.

Margaret was a committed Catholic who saw to it that her boys were raised in church. Charles’ Dad was an avid outdoorsman, hunter, and gun guy who ensured that his man-children could shoot and harvest game. Charles became an Eagle Scout at age 12. At the time, he was the youngest Eagle in the country. He also managed an extensive paper route and mastered the piano.

At age 14, Whitman purchased a Harley-Davidson motorcycle using his newspaper proceeds. He used this machine to help him deliver papers. It was obviously a different time.

The Marine Marksman Who Slid Toward Disaster

Two months prior to his graduation from High School, Charles’ Dad beat him severely over some infraction or other. Charles subsequently enlisted in the US Marine Corps without his father’s knowledge. His Dad discovered this once the boy was en route to Parris Island and tried unsuccessfully to get his son’s enlistment nullified.

Whitman thrived as a Marine and excelled on the rifle range. Whitman served 18 months at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was subsequently accepted for a program that took bright enlisted troops and sent them to engineering school. The end result was to be an officer’s commission. This program eventually took Charles Whitman to the University of Texas at Austin as a Mechanical Engineering student.

Charles did great early on. He studied scuba diving and karate in addition to his engineering classes and filled his free time with gambling and hunting. Whitman and a few friends once poached a deer and were caught butchering the animal in the shower in their dormitory. This cost him a hefty $100 fine (about $1,100 today).

Charles was a handsome Marine and an eligible bachelor. He briefly dated actress Deanna Dunagan before falling for Kathleen Frances Leissner. The two were married in 1962. Leissner’s family was over the moon.

Along the way, Whitman got overextended, and his grades began to slip. The Marine Corps canceled his scholarship and ordered him to Camp Lejeune to complete his five-year enlistment. Embittered by this failure, Whitman’s life began to spiral. Despite once singlehandedly lifting an overturned jeep off of a trapped Marine, he was eventually court-martialed for gambling and possession of a personal firearm on base.

Whitman eventually lost his enthusiasm for the Marines. In 1964, he was honorably discharged and returned to UT Austin with his wife to resume his engineering studies. Ever the industrious citizen, Whitman worked as a bill collector, bank teller, and traffic surveyor to support his family. Margaret taught biology at a local high school. Along the way, Whitman also earned his real estate license to help make ends meet.

Headaches, Rage, and a Warning Nobody Heeded

Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Charles Whitman inherited some of his father’s explosive temperament. He physically struck his wife on two different occasions and subsequently hated himself for it. In 1966, Whitman’s parents divorced. Charles drove to Florida to extricate his Mom from the toxic relationship and moved her to Austin.

Like most serial abusers, the senior Whitman was consumed with guilt over his marital failings. He spent the modern equivalent of $10,500 on long-distance phone calls in a failed attempt at convincing his wife to return. Young Charles was caught in the middle of all of that. To help manage the inevitable family stress, he began abusing amphetamines. At around this time, he also began experiencing severe unremitting headaches.

Whitman sought help from at least five physicians. The extensive notes taken by his psychiatrist offer some fascinating insights into his mental trajectory. Dr. Maurice Dean Heatly described the young man as egocentric, self-centered, driven, and angry. At one point, he used the term, “Oozing with hostility.” Dr. Heatly documented that, at one point during their counseling sessions, Whitman had fantasized about shooting random people from the UT Tower observation deck. An excerpt from his subsequent suicide note read, “I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt…overwhelming, violent impulses. After one visit, I never saw the Doctor again, and since then have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.”

The Whitman Arsenal and the Morning of the Attack

Whitman reconnoitered the UT Tower at least twice. On 31 July 1966, Whitman purchased a knife, a pair of binoculars, and some Spam. The following morning, he went to his mother’s apartment and stabbed her to death. He then returned home and murdered his wife as well. In his suicide note, he had nothing but praise for the two women. He claimed he had killed them both to spare them the humiliation that was to come. Whitman phoned their respective workplaces and explained that they were ill and could not be in that day.

Then came the arsenal. Whitman traveled to a sporting goods store where he used bad checks to purchase a .30-caliber Universal M1 carbine, two spare magazines, and eight boxes of ammunition. As he was checking out, he told the cashier he needed the weapon for an upcoming trip to Florida to hunt hogs. Half an hour later, he traveled to another gun shop where he bought four more carbine mags and another half dozen boxes of ammo.

His next stop was Sears, where he purchased an autoloading 12-gauge shotgun. He then returned home to cut the buttstock and barrel down on the brand new weapon. While there, he collected his favorite 6mm Remington Model 700 scoped bolt gun, a .35-caliber pump-action rifle, a 9mm Luger pistol, a S&W Model 19 .357 Magnum, and a Galesi-Brescia .25-caliber pocket pistol. He also accumulated a further 700 rounds of ammunition, assorted drugs, 3.5 gallons of water, matches, rope, lighter fluid, several knives and hatchets, a transistor radio, toilet paper, toiletries, and a bottle of Mennen deodorant. He stashed all of this stuff in his old Marine footlocker and rented a dolly to help move it around.

Inside the 93 Minutes That Terrorized UT Austin

At 1135 in the morning, Charles Whitman falsely claimed to be a research assistant delivering equipment and talked his way past a security guard at the UT clock tower. En route to the 28th floor, he murdered three people and wounded several others. He then established himself in a barricaded firing position on the observation deck. Whitman wedged the sole entrance closed with his dolly, arrayed his weapons and equipment around the space, and methodically went to work.

Most of Whitman’s victims were students simply going about their day. One of the first officers to respond was a 23-year-old Austin cop named Billy Speed. Speed took cover behind a set of stone columns. Whitman then shot him dead through a six-inch gap in the stone. A 29-year-old electrical repairman named Roy Dell Schmidt was hit at a slant range of 500 yards.

As the reality of what was happening became apparent, anyone with access to a weapon began returning fire, cops and civilians alike. Locals pulled guns out of their trucks, while frat boys reported with their hunting rifles. This forced Whitman’s head down. Most of his shooting was subsequently undertaken through storm drains located at the base of the observation deck. Everyone admitted afterwards that the armed civilians saved lives.

Armed Civilians, Austin Police, and an Impossible Fight

The cops were in an impossible position during the UT Tower sniper attack. Whitman was a military-trained marksman with a barricaded firing position. The police obtained access to a Champion Citabria airplane from which sharpshooter Marion Lee attempted to neutralize the threat. However, Whitman’s return fire and afternoon turbulence confounded his efforts. The plane took two rounds before retreating out of range.

A 40-year-old civilian named Allen Crum had been a tail gunner in the US Army Air Corps during WW2. The manager of a local bookstore, the Air Force veteran lived nearby with his wife, three kids, and a pet duck. Crum ran to the sound of the gunfire and found himself in the base of the tower alongside a couple of cops. The police officers handed Crum a Remington .30-caliber rifle and directed him up the tower alongside Austin PD Officer Ramiro Martinez.

As Martinez and Crum neared the observation deck, Crum asked, “Are we playing for keeps?” Martinez answered, “You’re damn right we are.” Crum replied, “Well, you better deputize me.” Martinez replied, “Consider yourself deputized.”

Crum and three Austin cops approached Whitman’s barricade carefully. Forcing the door alerted Whitman to their presence. However, the four men gained access to the landing before the lunatic could stop them.

Crum fired his rifle from one corner to distract the shooter and allowed the three police officers to flank Whitman and get an angle. In a furious exchange of fire, Charles Whitman caught three rounds of 12-gauge buckshot at close range. Over the preceding 93 minutes, this maniac had killed 17 people and wounded a further 31. Now he was done.

The Brain Tumor That Still Haunts the Whitman Case

Whitman’s body was taken to the Cook Funeral Home, and an autopsy was performed. Eight shotgun pellets struck him in the head. A further twelve hit him in the neck and chest. The last round fired at contact range nearly removed his arm. Death was expeditious.

The investigating physician discovered a well-defined 2×1.5x1cm brain tumor adjacent to the amygdala. He postulated an astrocytoma. While the previously undiscovered malignancy certainy contributed to Whitman’s headaches, it is anyone’s guess as to whether it also precipitated his murderous rampage. If left untreated, this brain lesion would undoubtedly have killed him eventually.

How the UT Tower Sniper Attack Helped Create Modern SWAT

The UT Austin clock tower shooting shook America to its core. The responding cops did the best they could, including welcoming the assistance of armed civilians and providing a long gun to a passing veteran who ultimately helped make the final assault on the objective. However, nobody had been prepared for this.

Law Enforcement agencies around the country subsequently began incorporating tactical training into their curricula. Eventually, many to most departments fielded their own tactical teams. In a way, the diseased lunatic Charles Whitman was actually the father of the modern American SWAT team.