Texas Tower Sniper

WEBVTT

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Welcome to ten Minute Murder, Brief
and bingible true crime. My name is

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Joe. I'm the host, and
thank you for joining today. And when

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one of you listening suggested that I
do this story that I talk about the

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story you're going to hear today,
before I looked it up, I thought,

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Charles Whitman, I know who that
guy is, and I immediately thought

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of We don't read and write poetry
because it's cute. We read and write

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poetry because we are members of the
human race, and the human race is

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filled with passion. So medicine,
law, business, engineering, these are

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noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance,

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love, these are what we stay
alive for. That is from Leaves of

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Grass by Walt Whitman, not the
person we're talking about today, Charles Whitman.

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Joe, you dummy, So that
was my mistake. But you can

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see where I would get confused.
Right. If this is your first time

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to ten Minute Murder dot com for
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Now to today's story. When Charles
Whitman, armed with multiple firearms, terrorize

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the University of Texas Austin campus on
the first of August nineteen sixty six,

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it seemed that his only goal was
taking as many lives as possible. He

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had no vendetta against these people.
He didn't even know them. What does

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it take for a seemingly ordinary young
man to spend more than an hour shooting

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strangers on a university campus, killing
sixteen people. Charles was a smart boy,

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with an IQ of one hundred thirty
nine at the age of six.

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His parents supported all of his academic
achievements, but to Charles's father, any

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failure was unacceptable. If Charles didn't
perform to his father's standards, he would

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be disciplined. His parents had married
when his mother was only seventeen years old,

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and she was abused throughout their marriage. The control that Charles's father exerted

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over his mother was clear to their
children, who lived in fear of upsetting

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the fragile balance. From a young
age, Charles desperately wanted to impress his

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father. He found another way to
do that firearms. Charles's dad was a

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gun enthusiast, a pro at shooting
and taking care of weapons, and Charles

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began accompanying him on hunting trips.
He showed a natural aptitude for firearms and

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was a talented marksman, which impressed
his father greatly. This is the first

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piece of the puzzle. The love
for guns and the natural talent for hitting

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targets from a distance followed Charles into
adulthood. He went on to enlist in

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the United States Marine Corps, where
his firearms skills earned him a Sharpshooter's badge,

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although he never became a Marine Corps
sniper. That day at the University

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of Texas, a part of Charles
was remembering the skills that he had first

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learned as a young child while his
father talked him through shooting and killing his

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first squirrel from a distance. University
students were just a target to Charles,

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like the ones he had shot in
his marine marksmanship tests. The UT Austin

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campus wasn't just some random target.
In fact, this is where Charles had

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studied engineering in nineteen sixty one,
thanks to a scholarship with the Marines.

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It's also where he met Kathleen Leisner
known as Kathy, the woman who would

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become his wife one year later.
However, Charles wasn't a great student,

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and the Marines canceled his scholarship due
to his poor grades, ordering him to

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return to active duty the following year. The bad habits that Charles had engaged

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in university, especially gambling, still
plagued him, and he was no longer

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happy to be serving in the Marines. In late nineteen sixty four, he

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was discharged and worked a series of
temporary jobs. Shortly afterwards, something happened

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that put Charles under immense stress.
His mother decided that she had had enough

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of her abusive marriage and wanted to
divorce. Charles made every effort to help,

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terrified that his father's violence would escalate. Although Charles managed to help his

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mother get to safety, he started
abusing amphetamines to help with the stressful situation.

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But only months after saving his mother
from her abusive marriage. He would

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go on to brutally take her life
himself. One day before the murders,

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Charles visited a hardware store where he
purchased a knife and a pair of binoculars.

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Despite these sinister purchases, Charles's loved
ones didn't see any signs of anything

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that was about to go terribly wrong, just like normal. He picked Cathy

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up from work and then went out
for lunch with his mother. Cathy had

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a shift beginning at six pm.
While she went to work, Charles wrote

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a letter only days later. The
letter would gain notoriety as the suicide note

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of a homicidal maniac, the Texas
Tower Sniper. The note didn't have the

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confidence or the anger that usually oozes
from the manifestos of mass shooters. Instead,

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Charles seemed to be doubting himself,
saying quote, I don't really understand

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myself these days, and confessing that
despite being an average, reasonable and intelligent

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young man, he had recently been
plagued by alarming, intrusive thoughts which became

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harder and harder to ignore. These
thoughts had gotten so distressing that it was

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difficult for Charles to function in day
to day life, bringing him to the

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point of desperation that led him to
writing the note. As well as the

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feeling like he was losing control of
his own mind, Charles was distressed by

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almost constant headaches. This led him
to writing an unusual request. He asked

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that his body be autopsied to see
if there were any medical reasons for his

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change in behavior and worsening headaches.
The note made it clear that Charles fully

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intended to murder his wife and his
mother, but he wasn't even sure why

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he had decided to. Even referring
to his wife as quote as fine a

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wife to me as any man could
ever hope to have, he settled on

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a motive for their murders. By
killing them, he would save both of

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those most important women in his life
from any further suffering and from the shame

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that would no doubt follow his next
actions. Although this implied that he planned

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to commit more than just two murders
and his own suicide, the note never

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directly mentioned a plan for the mass
shooting. He did not wait to carry

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out his plan. Shortly after midnight, Charles arrived at his mother's apartment,

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killing her with a stab wound to
the heart. He gently placed her lifeless

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body on top of her bed,
wrapping it with bedsheets, and placing another

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note next to it, addressed to
only to whom it may concern. The

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note began quote, I've just taken
my mother's life. I'm very upset over

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having done it. However, I
feel that if there is a heaven,

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she is definitely there now. Charles
went on to apologize to the anonymous reader,

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assuring them that he loved this woman
with all of his heart. Charles

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had now done something irreversible. It
might have felt as though he had no

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choice but to continue with the rest
of his plan. Returning home to find

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his wife sleeping in their bed,
he abbed her in the chest, just

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like he had done with his mother's
body. He covered her with sheets.

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Then he edited his suicide note,
writing in the margins that both of his

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intended victims were dead. He finished
the note in a ballpoint pin, making

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a series of requests, including being
cremated, his life insurance used to pay

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off debt, and that any remaining
money be donated to mental health charities.

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Despite having killed his wife, he
was concerned for the well being of the

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couple's dog, asking for his wife's
parents to take care of it. Early

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in the morning of August first,
Charles made phone calls to both his wife's

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and his mother's workplaces, saying that
they were sick and would not be coming

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into work. Six hours later,
he made his way to the University of

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Texas Austin campus, where he told
the security guard that he was delivering research

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equipment. Then his rampage began.
Charles entered the university's clock tower, shooting

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and killing three people on his way
up to the twenty eighth floor. Once

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he was on the observation deck,
he aimed his hunting rifle and began shooting

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indiscriminately at passers by. He was
actively shooting for a total of ninety six

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minutes, using several weapons. During
this time, he wounded thirty one and

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killed fourteen two. More of the
wounded would later die from their injuries.

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It's unclear whether Charles had planned to
commit suicide by cop, but as he

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had intended, he died that day. His rampage was ended when two Austin

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police officers entered the top of the
clock tower, and patrolman Houston McCoy shot

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and killed Charles at the scene of
the crime. The autopsy was carried out

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on August second. Blood and urine
were sampled after it was discovered that Charles

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had been prescribed valium before his death, and he had also been abusing amphetamines.

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The toxicology, however, was not
the most interesting part of the autopsy.

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The neuropathologist who performed the tests discovered
that there was a tumor and Charles's

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brain. Although investigators could not say
for sure that the tumor had led Charles

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to the massacre, it was possible
that it had changed his behavior enough to

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make an ordinary man into a killer. They believed that the tumor was pressing

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against a part of the brain called
the amygdala, which controls the fight or

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flight response of the body. With
the amygdala compromised by the tumor, Charles

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might have experienced out of control emotions
and a lack of rational thinking. He

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had no way of knowing that a
brain tumor was growing inside his skull,

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taking away his ability to think reasonably
and tormenting him with headaches. The tumor

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was a glioblastoma, a type of
cancer with incredibly poor survival rates even in

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twenty twenty three, let alone in
the nineteen sixties. Even before he committed

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the murders, Charles Whitman had been
a dead man walking. That is your

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ten minute murder story for today.
Now, what I'm about to tell you

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about has nothing to do with the
story that you just heard, even though

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it's about Austin. It's a complete
coincidence. But it's something that I feel

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like I need to pass along to
you. There is current information that there's

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something going on in Austin, Texas
right now. I don't want to be

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all dramatic and sound the alarm that
there's a serial killer out prowling around,

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but there's definitely something happening. People
are going missing and being found drowned near

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Rainy Street that seems to be the
primary point of origin, and it looks

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like it could be a group or
team of people maybe doing this. No

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one really knows, and if the
police know, they aren't saying at this

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point. If you live or visit
Austin until this gets figured out, it's

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advisable that you hang out in groups
and absolutely not alone, buy your own

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drinks, and don't for any reason
leave it unattended. I know it can

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be a nice gesture or an ice
breaker if a stranger buys you a drink,

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but don't do it, don't put
your mouth on that thing, and

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don't go walking anywhere alone. Ladybird
Lake is the bodies are being found,

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and the problem here is that many
of these drownings are being ruled accidental despite

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the fact that there appears to be
blunt forced trauma on some of the bodies.

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So there's really no way of knowing
how many potential victims there are,

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but it's possibly over twenty, approaching
thirty, and all of them are young

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male victims. So that is happening
right now in Austin, Texas. It's

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been going on for the last few
years, but it seems to be ramping

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up, so if you live in
that area or a plan to visit that

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area, please be careful.