Charles Whitman was born in 1941 and his life began to fall apart in me spring of 1966. The 25 year old ex-Marine, devoted to his family was devastated when his parents decided to divorce. He began to act oddly, breaking into fits of violence and complaining of severe headaches. He sought psychiatric counseling, but his mother and his wife attributed his behaviour change to the stress of his heavy class load atthe University of Texas at Austin On July 31 Whitman wrote a note which read:"l am prepared to die. After my death, I wish an autopsy on me to be preformed to see if there is any mental disorder." That night he stabbed and shot his mother to death at her house. Returning home, he stabbed his wife to death and wrote a diatribe against his abusrve father that closed with me words. "Life is not worth living." The next morning he packed sandwiches, toilet paper, a transistor radio, several pistols and ammunition and headed for the campus. Entering the observation tower he killed a receptionist with a blow to the head. Two people he encountered on the stairwell were shot dead at point-blank range. Whitman settled himself on the top of the tower, and, after several minutes of contemplation opened fire on the unsuspecting students below. Within an hour and a half, during which the expert marksman picked off anything that moved, 16 people were dead and 30 wounded. Police were unable to reach him, and finally decided to charge. In the gun battle that ensued, Whitman was mowed down. His requested autopsy revealed a tumor in the hypothalamus region of the brain. an area directly connected with violent behaviour and judgement.

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