 It's just before noon on an August day in Texas and people are carrying on with their normal day along the Guadalupe street. Building works are ongoing leading to banging sounds, but a new sound rings out. It's quickly followed by a pregnant woman falling to the ground. Soon enough more people also fall to the ground as the horror of what's unfolding sinks in. The shots are coming from a tower in Texas University. The year is 1966. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult. Today I'm covering the tragic University of Texas tower shooting. A Sharp Shooter Our story to the Texas Tower begins and will ultimately end with this one person, Charles Joseph Whitman. He was born in Lake Worth, Florida on the 24th of June 1941. He was known as an intelligent and calm child from a strict Catholic family. Charles and his brothers were introduced to firearms at a young age. This would lead them to become proficient in cleaning, maintaining and shooting. During his teenage years he joined the Eagle Scouts and took on a paper round. Over the years he managed to save up enough money to buy a motorcycle. He was well liked in high school and Charles had a career for himself in mind by the time of his graduation in June 1959. Whitman enlisted in the Marines on July 6th 1959. His father didn't approve and he was also known to be violent towards Charles and the rest of the family. However he still joined and within the first 18 months of his enlistment his experience in shooting would pay off when he achieved a sharp shooting badge. He applied and was accepted into the Naval Enlisted Science and Education program. This would pay for his studies, initially starting with mathematics and physics, eventually graduating to the University of Texas in Austin to study mechanical engineering. His scores were initially really good, making his superiors believe enrolling him was a good investment, although his performance would drop when he actually started to attend uni. He became known as the class joker, albeit with a slightly darker sense of humour. In 1962 he married Kathleen Francis Lesnar, a teaching student who was also attending the university and they had met just six months before. His grades had a slight uptick but it wasn't enough. Eventually his scholarship was withdrawn and Whitman was recalled to active duty and ordered to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to serve out the remainder of his five year enlistment. He was promoted to Lance Corporal. During his time there he was involved in an accident whilst in a jeep, which had rolled over an embankment, hospitalising him for four days. His career would take another dive when he was caught with a personal firearm on sight, gambling and making threats to another Marine over a $30 loan in which he was attempting to charge 50% interest on. He was hit with a sentence of 30 days of confinement and 90 days of hard labour and on top of that he was demoted to the rank of private. He would be honourably discharged in December 1964 after which he moved back to Austin, Texas. He re-enrolled at the university to study architectural engineering. Money was tight by now his wife was working as a teacher to try and help their financial situation. Charles took on multiple jobs. He was a bill collector at some point as well as working for the Texas Highway Department. He also volunteered with the Eagle Scout. Charles and Kathleen had a turbulent relationship with Whitman hitting his wife on two known occasions although he had expressed concern for his behaviour of not wanting to turn out like his father. Speaking of parents, Whitman's life would become particularly stressful when his mother announced her separation from his abusive father. His mother and one of his brothers would move out to Austin from Florida with the assistance of Charles. His mother rented an apartment and secured herself a job. The family break up put tremendous strain on Charles and around the same time he started to experience severe headaches. Whitman between 1965 and 1966 saw help from several physicians but no one could get to the bottom of his severe and painful headaches. He would even visit a psychiatrist in which they would later reveal that Whitman had admitted to feeling hostile towards people without much provocation. He felt like his headaches had worsened and his personality was changing. During his time with the psychiatrist he would reference going up a tower with a deer rifle to shoot at people. Pressure was building up in Whitman and it was only going to get worse until he could take no more. On the 31st of July 1966 sat down as his typewriter to write the first of two notes attempting to explain the actions over the following day. The first of August. In the early hours of the first of August, Charles got in his car and drove to his mother's house. At approximately 12.30 am he stabbed his mother to death after which he covered her body in bedsheets and left a note. He then headed home and at around 3 am stabbed his sleeping wife to death. He had killed the two people he loved the most in the world but this wouldn't be the end of the bloodshed that day. He would when the shops opened in the morning make his way to a hardware store to rent a hand truck. You know those things used to carry heavy cases. Anyways after that he went to his bank where he cashed in some bad checks. From there he went to another store where he bought an M1 carbine, 8 boxes of ammo and some magazines. After that he went on to another gun store to purchase some more ammunition and magazines as well as a shotgun from a seers shop. Whitman returned home to saw off the shotgun's stock and collect his weapons in his old marine footlocker. He placed the M1, a Remington 700 6mm bolt action hunting rifle, a .35 calibre pump rifle, a 9mm Luger pistol, a .25 calibre pistol, a smith and wesson M19, .357 magnum revolver, the shotgun as well as over 700 rounds of ammunition. He also packed cans of food, coffee, vitamins, dexadrine, dexadrine earplugs, three and a half gallons of water, matches, a machete, lighter fluid, rope, binoculars, three knives, a small channel master transistor radio, toilet paper, a razor and a boss of deodorant. Clearly he was planning to be out for quite a while. He addressed in blue overalls in an effort to masquerade as a janitor and headed down to the University of Texas. At around 20 past 11am he arrived at the University. Using a fake ID he managed to get a parking permit under the story that he was delivering supplies to a professor. He carried his footlocker on the hand truck and headed for the main building. He entered the building around 11.35am and headed towards the lift. As a cruel sense of luck for Whitman the lift had actually originally been switched off for the day. A member of staff thinking he was a repairman had actually switched it back on for him. He left the lift at the 26th floor, hauled his box up to the final flight of stairs and headed for the tower's observation deck. In the reception he encountered a staff member. He beat her unconscious with the bus of his rifle. Moments after he had hit the victim's body Donald Walden and Cheryl Botts entered the room from the observation deck. In a strange lull to the violence of the day the couple left the floor unharmed and Whitman began making a barricade to the floor. As he began to make his way back to the deck a family attempted to push past the barricade. In response Whitman fired his shotgun killing a 16 year old boy and his aunt. The remaining family members fled for help. Charles re-secured his barrier and made his way back to the observation deck. He placed his weapons around him and put on a white headband. The observation tower had views all around it of traffic and people moving along the Guadalupe street, south east and west malls and university drive as well as a view of even further. Whitman sighted a couple Claire Wilson James and her boyfriend Tom Ekman. Claire was eight months pregnant. They were just walking outside the main building. A shot rang out and hit Claire in the stomach killing her unborn child. Soon after another shot hit Ekman killing him almost instantly. Initially the gun shots were not noticed but soon enough more people started hitting the ground. Whitman would continue to change points around the observation deck making it hard to pinpoint where the gunman was. Soon enough members of the public returned fire upon the tower forcing Whitman to fire through the storm drains on each of the tower's four walls. At 11.52am the Austin Police Department received their first report of the shootings. Police both on and off duty scrambled to reach the university. One of the first officers on the scene was Billy Speed. He sought cover behind a stone wall but unfortunately he was not safe. Whitman shot Speed through a six inch gap in the wall killing him instantly. As the gunfight unfolded Whitman continued to find targets including a funeral director who had driven his ambulance to assist in ferrying the wounded. Many found cover from the gunfire but not all. The unlucky ones caught in Whitman's sights out in the open became an easy target. A light aircraft was employed with a sharp shooter on board but sadly due to turbulence on approach to the tower a clear shot couldn't be made and Whitman returned fire. The pilot rather bravely continued to circle the tower in an attempt to distract the gunman. Enter this story's mad lad Alan Crumb. He was a manager at the university bookstore and an ex air force tail gunner. Upon realising the events unfolding he offered his help to the police after assisting an injured student. He was given a firearm and proceeded with the police into the tower. Public safety agent William Cohen, Austin police officer Jerry Day and Crumb went into the elevator to the 26th floor where they were shortly joined by off-duty officer Romero Martinez. The four men made their way to the 27th floor. Crumb asked are we playing for keeps? Essentially saying the gunman wouldn't be leaving the tower alive. Martinez responded you're damn right we are. Crumb replied well you better deputise me. Martinez replied back consider yourself deputised. They reached the observation deck. Martinez and McCoy went left and Crumb and Day went right. Whitman was on the northwest corner. Crumb thought he heard movement and open fire there was nothing and his bullet hit the parapet of the southwest corner. By now it was 1 24 p.m. Martinez and McCoy rounded the northeastern corner. Whitman was looking for the source of the shot fired by Crumb. McCoy fired his shotgun twice and Martinez fired six rounds from his revolver. Some of the shots hit Whitman who was now lying prone. The body was approached by Martinez who fired one shot at him point blank. Shots continued to rain in from the ground as the death of Whitman was not known. Crumb waved a white flag marking the end of the shootout. In the confusion news outlets reported Crumb to be the sniper but it would be quickly corrected. Between 12 30 in the morning and 1 24 in the afternoon, Charles Whitman had killed 16 individuals, wounded at least 31 others, emotionally scarred hundreds more and left an indelible mark on the American psyche. By 3 p.m. Whitman had been identified and after a phone call to the police from his dad Whitman and his mother's addresses were searched and the bodies of his first victims were found. Whitman's note left to explain his actions requested an autopsy and cremation. The first was granted but the latter was not with his body being buried with a shared service with his mother at West Palm Beach, Florida. Rather disgustingly he was buried with military honours and he even had a US flag draped over his coffin. But back to his autopsy. His body was examined a day after the shooting and a Pekin sized tumor which had some necrosis was discovered inside his brain. John Connolly ironically someone who had actually been shot by an ex US Marine from a tall building and also the then governor of Texas commissioned a task force to examine the autopsy findings. They concluded that the tumor had no evidence of causing any neurological condition. They did also say however that organic brain diseases are known to cause aggressive behaviour. Said that the tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions. They also pointed the finger of blame on the stressors in his life. His parents splitting up, issues with his wife, studying and working with financial issues. The university closed for one day and was reopened with its flags at half-mast. The event ingrained itself into the culture of the decade and beyond and much like the bath school bombing just shows how much damage just one person can make. This is a plain different production. All videos on the channel are created commons, attributes and share alike licensed. Plain different videos are produced by me John in a currently wet corner of southern London UK and also in a currently very echoey new study room. I have instagram and youtube and a second youtube channel and I'd like to thank my patreon and youtube members for your financial support and the rest of you for tuning in every week and all that's left to say is thank you for watching and Mr Music plays out please.