The Charles Whitman Papers

The Charles Whitman PapersShortly before noon on Monday, August 1, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman barricaded himself on the observation deck of the University of Texas tower in Austin and began shooting everyone he could see through the telescopic sight on a high-powered Remington hunting rifle. Because of the many buildings surrounding the tower and the vantage point it afforded a sniper, people on and off the campus were slow to realize that the distant, reverberating booms were gunshots; many u...