A Sniper in the Tower (35 page)

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Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #State & Local, #Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), #True Crime, #Murder, #test

BOOK: A Sniper in the Tower
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Page 104
The note Charles Whitman left on the yellow legal pad he placed on his mother's
body. 
Austin Police Department Files.
 
Page 105
Shortly after midnight on 1
August 1966 Charles Whitman
committed his first murder
when he killed his mother at
the foot of one of the twin beds
in her bedroom in the Penthouse
Apartments. He then
lifted her body and covered her
with the floral bedspread. Top
photo, 
Texas Department of Public
Safety Files
. Bottom photo,
Austin Police Department Files.
Through this tirade, Whitman clearly intended to hurt his father by identifying the Whitman patriarch as the motivation for what he had done and was about to do. Whitman knew that if his plans came to fruition the mass media would descend upon the Whitman home in Lake Worth, Florida. His revengeful mind probably envisioned a righteous nation seeking retaliation and taking out its hatred on his despised father. The reference to C. A. Whitman giving ''pittances" to Margaret was simply untrue, and calls into question everything else he writes about his father. Hatred and spite had joined the demons that now ruled Charles Whitman's mind.
Near 1:00
A.M.
, Whitman secured Margaret's body in such a way as to delay its discovery long enough for him to complete his
 
Page 106
deadly mission. He lifted her onto the bed. With the wound on the back of her head hidden in her pillow, he placed Margaret's right hand on her abdomen, positioned the yellow legal pad on her body, and carefully covered the stab wounds in her chest with her floral bedspread. As the Justice of the Peace would later observe, "If you just looked in you would think she was asleep."
10
Near the front right corner of her twin-sized bed, Whitman used rugs to cover the blood on the floor that marked the spot of his mother's brutal murder. To further delay the discovery, he wrote a note to The Penthouse houseman and posted it on her door.
Roy,
I don't have to be to work today and I was up late last night. I would like to get some rest. Please do not disturb me. Thank you.
Mrs. Whitman
Whitman left the apartment at approximately 1:30
A.M.
, but instead of entering his car and going home, he returned to the lobby at about 1:45
A.M.
Dick Thommassen had been relieved only forty-five minutes earlier by his roommate Charles Bert Hardy. Thommassen had not mentioned Whitman to Hardy. Whitman explained that his mother had fallen asleep and that he had accidentally locked himself out of the apartment. He had promised to fill a prescription for her but had forgotten to bring the bottle with him. After checking the Penthouse register to determine that Margaret did live in apartment 505, Hardy accompanied Whitman and let him in with his pass key. Whitman asked Hardy to be quiet, because Margaret was probably asleep. Hardy did not enter the apartment but waited in the hallway for a few minutes, where he noticed the note to Roy posted on the door. It was a small note torn from a pad. He did not read it but returned to the lobby. Only about five minutes later Whitman returned grinning and shaking an amber-colored medicine bottle.
11
Exactly why Whitman chose to return to the apartment with a security guard is a mystery Two reasonable explanations exist. First and most probable is that he may have decided that his cover-up would be strengthened if he could establish with a Penthouse em-
 
Page 107
The note Whitman posted to the door of his mother's apartment. 
Austin Police
Department Files.
ployee that Margaret did not want to be disturbed. He wanted Hardy to see the note on the door. Another explanation would be that Whitman realized that he had forgotten a bottle of Dexedrine in the apartment after he had locked himself out. He had gone without sleep for some time, and if all went according to plan, he would need to be awake for quite a while longer. He left the Penthouse and headed home sometime between 2:00 and 2:15
A.M.
III
Whitman returned to 906 Jewell Street between 2:15 and 2:30
A.M.
He must have made some effort to enter his home quietly as Kathy slumbered peacefully; he did not want to wake her. He planned to kill her "as painlessly as possible." Quietly, he approached the bed where his wife lay. Removing the bedding to expose her nude body, he used the hunting knife and his considerable strength to make five vicious thrusts through the center of her chest and slightly below her left breast.
12
Given the size of the knife and the location of her
 
Page 108
wounds, Whitman probably hit her heart, the target for which he aimed. Without struggle, Kathy died instantly. As he watched life leave his wife's body, blood flowed over the bed's white fitted sheet along her outstretched left arm. Her head, sunken into a large white fluffy pillow, was tilted slightly towards the left. Only five hours earlier she had fallen asleep without fear. She most likely went from sleep to death without ever seeing her murderer. It was just as well. Whitman was right: she was as good a wife as anyone could hope for. Her loyalty never wavered, even after physical assaults and mental anguish. She stayed with him to the very end. He replaced the bedding over her. Kathy was gone.
Again, given the nature of the fatal wounds he had inflicted, he must have had to wash his hands and the murder weapon before he retrieved the incomplete letter he had been typing only a few hours earlier when Larry and Elaine Fuess visited. Using a blue ballpoint pen he wrote in the left margin:
friends interrupted
8-1-66
Mon.
3:00
A.M.
Both Dead
Then, after the typewritten portion, "All my life as a boy until I ran away from home to join the Marine Corps," he scrawled the rest of the sentence: "I was witness to her being beat at least one [sic] a month. Then when she took enough my father wanted to fight to keep her below her usual standard of living."
In an attempt to trivialize the area of life in which his father was clearly superior, Whitman again focused on what his father allegedly failed to provide for his mother. C. A. Whitman actually provided quite a good standard of living for his entire family, even after Margaret left Florida. There were allegations from Margaret's brothers, however, that C. A. Whitman had cut off all financial support for Margaret and Charles on 30 July, only the day before he decided to become a mass murderer.
Having placed the blame on his father, Charlie then returned to his own actions.

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