The character and actions of Bobby Thompson are patterned after Charles Whitman, who committed the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966. Pretty Gritty.
Posted on 08/01/2026 7:52:32 AM PDT by DFG
Edna Elizabeth Townsley, Mark Jerome Gabour, Marguerite M. Lamport, Thomas Frederick Eckman, Dr. Robert Hamilton Boyer, Karen John Griffith, Thomas Ray Karr, David Hubert Gunby, Thomas Aquinas Ashgton, Paul Bolton Sonntag, Claudia Marilyn Rutt, Harry Walchuk, Officer Billy Paul Speed, Roy Dell Schmidt and the unborn son of Claire Wilson.
These are the names of the people who lost their lives when a shooter turned a simple day at the University of Texas into one of the darkest days in Texas history. This Saturday, August 1, marks the 60th anniversary of the UT Tower shooting, a day when 18 people lost their lives, including the shooter, and more than 30 were injured.
"The entire nation experienced the terror of what was going on in that 96 minutes in real time, and it happened just three years after America had gone through the mass trauma of literally witnessing in real time the murder of the President of the United States," Seamus McGraw, author of From a Taller Tower: The Rise of the American Mass Shooter, said to MySA. "Had it not been for that, I don't know what would have happened, but I do know that it established this rhythm of atrocity in search of fame or infamy."
What happened during the UT Tower shooting?
Charles Whitman was 25 years old, a former Marine and a former mechanical engineering student at UT when, on August 1, 1966, he murdered 17 people. Whitman had murdered his wife, Kathleen Frances Whitman, and mother, Margaret Elizabeth Whitman, hours before he climbed to the 28th floor of the UT Tower and began shooting at 11:48 a.m.
Receptionist Edna Elizabeth Townsley, 51, was the first person killed that day. She was followed by Mark Jerome Gabour, 18, and Marguerite M. Lamport, 56, who were touring the tower when they were fatally shot as Whitman made his way to the observation deck. Eighteen-year-old Claire Wilson was the first person wounded after Whitman opened fire. She survived but lost her unborn son as a result of her injuries.
Whitman terrorized the UT campus for 96 minutes, firing from the tower as dozens desperately clung to shelter and every Austin Police Department officer in the area descended on the scene. Ultimately, it was the combined efforts of officers Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez, who responded despite being off duty, and civilian Allen Crum, a retired Air Force tail gunner, who climbed the tower to confront Whitman. McCoy fatally shot Whitman at 1:24 p.m., ending the attack.
The final toll stood at 18 people killed, including Whitman, Kathleen and Margaret, with another 31 injured. David Hubert Gunby did not die on August 1, but his only functioning kidney was damaged in the shooting. He ultimately died in 2001 at age 58 from kidney disease, but his death was ruled a homicide.
What led to the UT Tower shooting?
Gary Lavergne was an employee at ACT, the non-profit organization best known for administering the college readiness assessment test, and in 1995 he traveled around the country. During one of his many trips, he stumbled upon an episode of American Justice with Bill Kurtis that touched on the UT Tower shooting. Remembering the massacre as a kid, Lavergne went in search of a book on the shooting and couldn't find one that had gone in depth about the incident, even 30 years later. So, he set out to write the definitive true crime book about August 1, 1966, resulting in A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders, published in 1997.
One of the questions Lavergne explores throughout the book is what drove Whitman to carry out the attack. While an autopsy revealed Whitman had a brain tumor — a finding that has fueled decades of speculation about its role in the shooting — Lavergne strongly disputes the idea that the tumor was to blame.
"I wanted to believe that something drove him to do this against his will. That something overpowered him," Lavergne said to MySA. "I researched that book for over two years, and when you look at what he actually did the 48 hours before he went up there and started shooting people, I came across with the firm belief that nothing made him do this against his will. He spent 48 hours planning and making serial decisions in a correct order, leading to a goal."
Whitman's past leading up to the shooting has been a topic of scrutiny. Jo Scott-Coe's book Mass: A Sniper, a Father, and a Priest looked into a Catholic priest who may have abused Whitman. Her second book connected to Whitman, Unheard Witness, investigated his wife and how she may have experienced years of abuse before the shooting.
"I think one of the most surprising things is looking at the narrative of this history differently," Scott-Coe said to MySA. "In other words, instead of seeing the tower shooting as the event, seeing it as the culmination of events already in motion."
Six decades later, no single explanation has emerged for why Whitman carried out the attack. As McGraw put it, hundreds of thousands of people die of tumors every year, but not one of them died on the University of Texas campus on August 1, 1966.
One of the darkest days in Texas history
The Sutherland Springs church shooting remains the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history. The attack at Robb Elementary in Uvalde horrified the nation with the killing of 19 children and two teachers. Mass shootings at an El Paso Walmart, Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen and Fort Hood each left lasting scars on Texas. Many historians consider the shooting at the UT Tower on August 1, 1966, a turning point in the history of mass shootings in America, changing how the nation understood and responded to such attacks.
The UT Tower shooting is widely regarded as the nation's first modern mass shooting on a college campus. It was the first to make international news. Television and radio helped people follow the events in real time. These things are all too common, as more than 500 mass shootings have occurred across the country in the last 60 years, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
"The University of Texas massacre stands out because I honestly believe it was the progenitor of so many of these [shootings]," McGraw said to MySA. "There's a lot of blood that's been spilled that may not have been spilled otherwise had things gone down differently that day."
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The character and actions of Bobby Thompson are patterned after Charles Whitman, who committed the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966. Pretty Gritty.
Whitman was a Marine who was at some point was stationed in Camp Lejeune. It has come to light that from 1953 to 1987 the water on the base was poisoned and that has caused many cancers and other medical problems. It was said that Whitman had a walnut sizes growth in his brain. Was it caused by the water he drank at Lejeune?
I remember it well, I was there as a grad student walking on campus from Red River street apartment. I thought it was workers on the tower until some students standing a basement well told me to find cover.
I remember seeing the shooting of Oswald on television. We were all watching TV, as we had been glued to it since the Friday, when my father yelled, ‘He shot that man!”
Ah yes, people with brain tumors are always going on murder sprees. This kind of thinking is right up there with the time Jorge Bush said poverty makes people commit crime.
The ‘Shrub’ W...
He really disappointed me.
Alot.
Thanks Red.
Yup, I AM retired United States Army.
I was 8 but remember it clearly as a newspaper junkie even back then, perhaps broadcast news, also.
We were in Los Angeles for my sister’s graduation from UCLA and I made the comment that I hoped there were no shooters on a tower on the campus.
Whitman got a nice mention in the Kubrick film “Full Metal Jacket.”
I remember when this happened. I was just about to turn 19 in 1966. I was living in Rochester, NY at the time.
I remember it too, I was 16 at the time.
The Soaring Sixties, as commentators dubbed the new decade at its start, was supposed to be an era of scientific, technological and social progress. Afterwards, David Horowitz would give it a different name: the Destructive Generation.
My memories of being about 4 blocks Northwest of the shooting:
1. I heard every shot and saw many make dust smoke when the bullets (hundreds) impacted the tower.
2. I was on a construction job on the top floor tying steel during my summer break at UT, my sister was a nurse in the flooded emergency room, my other sister was across the street at the UT co-op hiding with other employees in the back of the store.
3. I remember all rednecks (SAID affectionately) got their rifles out and started shooting back at the tower.
4. The tower was perfectly square and had a thick limestone skin but with three flooding portholes on each side. All guys on the ground were shooting through the portholes.
5. I remember non stop sirens for hours.
6. Our boss let us stop work and go one floor down because we were definitely within lucky shot range.
7. Whitman, a former marine and seemingly an outstanding guy must have experienced a major major side effect from his brain tumor.
8. Every shot would go blam and then you would, a half second or so later, hear the bullet hit the tower with a 2nd loud impact noise.
9. My dad was on vacation in Colorado thankfully because he would have been right in the middle of all of it and probably would not have been able to restrain himself from going up the tower after Whitman.
I don’t think the fact that he carefully planned the crime in any was absolves the brain tumor. It could well have influenced his sense of morality and/or eliminated his inhibitions regarding violence.
A little mentioned fact is that Whitman went to his mother’s apartment late the night before and killed her by stabbing and shooting. He wanted to spare her the embarrassment- nice guy.
Oh and I forgot that he also killed his wife before.
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