Charles Whitman - Prelude To The Tower Shootings

Prelude To The Tower Shootings

The day before the shootings, Whitman purchased a pair of binoculars and a knife from a hardware store, and Spam from a 7-Eleven convenience store. He then picked up his wife Kathy from her summer job as a telephone operator, before meeting his mother for lunch at the Wyatt Cafeteria, located close to the university campus.

At approximately 4:00 p.m. on July 31, Charles and Kathy Whitman visited close friends of theirs named John and Fran Morgan. They left the Morgans' apartment at approximately 5:50 in order that Kathy Whitman could leave for her 6:00–10:00 p.m. shift. At 6:45, Whitman began typing his suicide note, a portion of which read:

I do not quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

The note explained that he had decided to murder both his mother and wife, but made no mention of his intended attacks at the university. Expressing uncertainty about his actual reasons, he nevertheless observed that he felt he wanted to relieve his wife and mother from the suffering of this world.

Just after midnight on August 1, Whitman drove to his mother's apartment at 1212 Guadalupe St., where he killed her before placing her body upon her bed and covering it with sheets. The exact method by which Whitman killed his mother is disputed, but it is believed he first rendered her unconscious before stabbing her in the heart. He left a handwritten note beside her body, which read in part:

To Whom It May Concern: I have just taken my mother's life. I am very upset over having done it. However, I feel that if there is a heaven she is definitely there now I am truly sorry Let there be no doubt in your mind that I loved this woman with all my heart.

Whitman returned to his home at 906 Jewell Street and stabbed his wife Kathy three times in the heart as she slept, killing her instantly before covering her body with sheets. He then resumed the typewritten note he had begun the previous evening. Using a ballpoint pen, he wrote at the side of the page:

Friends interrupted. 8-1-66 Mon. 3:00 A.M. BOTH DEAD.

Whitman then continued to compose the note, although he finished the letter using the ballpoint pen:

I imagine it appears that I brutally killed both of my loved ones. I was only trying to do a quick thorough job If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type.

He also requested that an autopsy be done after his death, to determine if there had been anything to explain his actions and increasing headaches. Whitman then wrote personal notes to each of his brothers, Patrick and John and a final note to his father (the contents of which were never made public). He also left instructions in the apartment that the two canisters of film he had left upon his table should be developed, and that the couple's puppy, 'Schocie', should be given to Kathy's parents. In his final written message, Whitman wrote upon an envelope entitled 'Thoughts For the Day' in which he stored a collection of personal written admonitions. Upon the envelope, Whitman had written:

8-1-66. I never could quite make it. These thoughts are too much for me.

At 5:45 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Whitman phoned Kathy's supervisor at Bell System to explain that his wife was ill and therefore unable to work that day. He made a similar phone call to his mother's workplace approximately five hours later.