A Sniper in the Tower (49 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 160
Vietnam War. Her remaining lung would eventually lose all function as she struggled for life. Karen died a week later, the last of Whitman's victims.
12
Thomas Karr walked a few feet north of Karen's position on a sidewalk on the west side of the Drag. He had just finished a Spanish exam and was pleased with the results. He had earned a good grade by staying up nearly all of Sunday night to study. At age twenty-four he was older than most students. Like Charles Whitman he was an ex-serviceman with a keen interest in hunting and guns. He was probably the only one of Whitman's victims who might have been able to outshoot his murderer. Originally from the small Texas town of Spur, he had moved to Fort Worth and become an honor student at Arlington State College. He was attending UT for the summer, living in an apartment at 803 West 28th Street. After graduation, he hoped to work for the United States Department of State.
Most reports state that Karr was headed back to his apartment from Batts Hall, after having decided to cut his next class for well-deserved rest. But he was walking in a southerly direction away from 28th Street when he caught the attention of Charles Whitman. He had probably turned to render assistance to Karen Griffith. With a large sturdy frame and wide muscular shoulders, Karr was an easier target than many of Whitman's other victims. Whitman aimed and fired a round that entered the left side of Karr's back and exited the right side. The wound sent him to the sidewalk. For many people the trauma might have brought instant death, but Karr was a big, strong man. He lasted another hour before dying on an operating table at Brackenridge Hospital at 1:10
P.M.
13
III
As a number of university students moved Alex Hernandez to the relative comfort of shade and the safety of being out of sight from the sniper on the Tower, someone removed the bag of newspapers from around Alex's neck. A small crowd began to gather around the stricken newspaper boy. Some of the more observant students immediately realized what was going on and began to cry out for pedestrians to take cover.
 
Page 161
Across the street in the University Co-op, Allen Crum, the floor manager, had stopped next to what was cash register number one when he noticed the group huddled around Alex Hernandez. His first impression was that a fight was in progress. He started to leave the store to assist in breaking up the brawl when a boy ran across from the area screaming that shooting was in progress and that a boy (Alex) had been shot. And then Allen heard the popping sounds from the Tower. They were not strange noises to him. He had retired from the Air Force after twenty-two years and had served as a Master Sergeant and a B52F tail gunner. Now age forty, he had spent virtually all of his adult life in the military and was well-trained in firearms.
14
Crum heard more shots, and still more. He dashed across the street to the group accumulated around the wounded paper boy. Those gathered there did not know how to stop the profuse bleeding spurting from Alex's upper leg. Crum then directed efforts to move Alex into the bushy area just south of the entrance to the West Mall and gave quick instructions to a number of students as to how to stop the bleeding. In so doing, he may well have saved Alex Hernandez's life.
15
Shots continued to ring out, the echoes deceiving Crum, who at first thought they came from the top of the Student Union. Regardless, he dashed through normal traffic across Guadalupe Street and reentered the Co-op. About ten minutes after the shooting had started on the Drag, shouts from all directions called for everyone to take cover. The traffic kept moving, but Whitman never directed his fire at vehicles; he had not gone to the Tower to shoot cars. Once inside the store Crum instructed a Mr. Magrill to get all of the customers back and away from the windows. By that time students had halted traffic from the south, but a steady stream of vehicles continued from the north. Crum then moved to 23rd and directed traffic onto that street and off the Drag. He then dashed across the Drag to a phone where he attempted to call his wife so she would not worry, but he could not reach her.
Allen Crum then proceeded in an easterly direction along the West Mall towards the Tower. He stopped to hide behind a pillar of the Academic Center, which is the first building directly west of the Tower. There Allen Crum wisely and patiently waited until Charles
 
Page 162
Whitman directed his fire towards the South Mall. He then dashed across a small driveway and entered the Tower through an entrance on the west side.
16
IV
Houston McCoy reached the campus at 21st and Guadalupe. Just north of that intersection a light blue Studebaker sat motionless in the middle of the street. As he drove up to the vehicle to inspect it, he heard gunshots and saw puffs of smoke coming from the deck of the Tower. According to Houston, no one was inside the car, but alter a few seconds ''a fellow with big eyes runs over to me and says that some people are shooting from the Tower. I say, 'Aw really! Go find cover and stay there!' "
17
McCoy returned to his unit and zigzagged north along the Drag to 24th Street. He turned east and then into the drive directly to the north side of the Tower, where the edge of the parking lot extends to within eighteen inches of the Tower itself. Houston parked the car so close to the back wall that it would have been impossible to open the passenger-side door. Clutching his shotgun, he looked both east and west for an entrance to the building. Unfortunately, his position, angle, and the design of the exterior walls made it difficult to see the entrances, which were recessed gates within protruding sections of the north wall. Combined with the distractions of shooting, dying and death occurring all around him, McCoy could not find either of two entrances fairly close to where he had parked the unit. Windows on the first floor were barred, so he looked upstraight up. Three rain spouts jutted out at the very top. He saw hundreds of windows; he "saw" a sniper behind every one. It "scared the shit" out of him, as he later said.
18
He was literally too close to do anything so he returned to his car and drove north past the biology and physics buildings to Mary E. Gearing Hall, where he searched for anyone who might have a high-powered rifle with a scope. (His shotgun was worthless from that distance.) A student indicated he had such a weapon at his apartment a short distance away. They got into the squad car and raced to retrieve the weapon. The student, however, had no ammu-
 
Page 163
nition, so they raced to Everett Hardware Company at 2820 Guadalupe and charged three boxes of 30.06 and one box of 30.30 shells. From Everett Hardware, McCoy and the student drove to 21st and University and parked near the Littlefield Fountain, only a few feet from Unit #353, parked there by Billy Speed.
19
From the entrance to the South Mall near the fountain, Speed and McCoy, at different times, used the same route to head towards the Tower. Under the cover of oak trees they proceeded along a wide walkway past the statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston. Their routes differed when they reached the English Building. Speed stayed outside and darted across Inner Campus Drive to the safety of a wall below the statue of Jefferson Davis; minutes later, McCoy and the student entered the English Building with the scoped rifle, ready to shoot at the sniper.
20
West Texas cowboys were seldom rich enough to afford fancy rifles with scopes. So when Officer McCoy lifted the fancy scope towards his eye, he found it difficult to keep it still enough to get a good shot. He decided to return the gun to the more experienced owner. McCoy looked out the window and could clearly see Billy Speed and Officer Jerry Culp huddled under the statue of Jefferson Davis. Still hiding were Leland Ammons, Judith Parsons and an unidentified woman in a brown checkered dress. Newsman Phil Miller of KTBC-TV arrived shortly afterwards. The time was 12:08
P.M.
Above the wall and on either side of the statue, fencing the upper terrace, stretched concrete balusters and a railing. The smallest gap between any two balusters was four and one-quarter inches; the widest measured about six and five-eighths inches. Culp had gotten there before Speed and asked Speed to take cover. Each of the officers had shotguns but both knew that their distance from the sniper made returning fire gratuitous. As he faced the Tower, Speed moved a little to the right and then he and some of the others huddled against the wall stood up.
From the deck, Whitman took careful aim and saved his best shot for Billy Speed. The first shot hit the concrete between two balusters, showering Speed, Culp, and the civilians with bits of concrete and dust. Billy turned to the left to protect his eyes. Whitman fired again, sending a missile between the balusters into Speed's upper
 
Page 164
A series of balusters and
steps separates the upper
and lower terraces of the
South Mall. Standing below
the balusters near the statue
of Jefferson Davis, Officer
Billy Speed looked up at the
Tower just as Whitman
took aim and fired. From
atop the Tower, Whitman
fired a 6mm. round through
the narrow opening,
mortally wounding Speed. 
Gary
Lavergne.
right shoulder, from where it continued into the chest cavity He fell flat on his face. Leland Ammons did not think Speed was seriously wounded; it looked like a shoulder wound. Judith Parsons saw that he was bleeding quite a bit. Soon, Speed's uniform would be soaked in blood from shoulders to ankles.
21
Culp and another officer named Robert Still exposed themselves to move Billy to a shady spot out of the line of fire. Seconds later, a woman who identified herself as a registered nurse ran from the English Building over an open area to try to comfort Speed as Culp ran into a nearby building to phone in an "officer down" situation. Everyone did all they could. A young man in a yellow shirt and shorts ran through the same open area with a tin cup of water for the wounded officer. Judith Parsons pulled off her slip so that it could be soaked in water and placed on Speed's head. The registered nurse checked everyone else out and then ran back out into the open area and into the English Building to call for more help. By the time Billy Speed was moved towards the west along Inner Campus Drive to a Cook Ambulance along Guadalupe Street it was clear that the young officer, who earlier in the morning spoke of quitting police work and going back to school, was in serious trouble.
22
Watching the drama unfold beneath the statue of Jefferson Davis, on the third floor of the English Building, Houston McCoy and the student with the high-powered scoped rifle looked at one another in amazement. The student asked McCoy, "If I see the sniper should I kill him?"
 
Page 165
In a frighteningly cold gaze, with piercing frontier eyes that looked into the soul, Officer McCoy replied, "You shoot the shit out of him!"
23
Houston was not scared anymore.
1 Houston McCoy;
Austin American-Statesman
, 3 August 1966.
2 Houston McCoy.
3 The Austin Police Department Files contain a ten-page, typed statement by Houston McCoy detailing his movements during his duty shift on I August 1966. It is undated, but clearly not given as part of his official duties in 1966. It is apparently in response to the growth of a controversy over whose shots actually killed Charles Whitman. It is hereafter cited as 'APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d."; Houston McCoy; APD Files:
Duty Logs
, 1 August 1966.
4 Houston McCoy; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.,
CAPOR
by E. Tramp,
SOR
by Sgt. Schulle, 1 August 1966;
Austin American-Statesman
, 2, 3, and 7 August 1966.
5 Houston McCoy; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.,
Radio Dispatch
, 1 August 1966; Phillip Conner.
6 Houston McCoy; APD Files: McCoy Statement, n.d.
7
Austin American-Statesman
, 7 August 1966.
8 Houston McCoy; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.; Ibid.
9 Margaret Allen and Diane Casey quoted in
Austin American-Statesman
, 7 August 1966.
10
Austin American-Statesman
, 2 August 1966, 30 July 1967, Alex Hernandez quoted on 1 August 1986; APD Files:
CAPOR
by D. Kidd, 2 August 1966 and
SOR
by Sgt. Pilgrim, 5 August 1966.
11
Daily Texan
, 1 August 1991;
Playboy
, October, 1970.
12 APD Files:
SOR
by B. Gerding and D. Kidd, 8 August 1966 and
CAPOR
by D. Kidd, 2 August 1966; Fahrenthold and Rider,
Admissions
, p. 90.

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