Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [29]
Before leaving, Whitman rearranged the rugs in his mother’s apartment to cover the bloodstains on the carpet. And he pinned a note on the front door saying that his mother was ill and would not be going to work that day.
Back at Jewell Street, he added another line to his letter: ‘12.30 a.m. Mother already dead.’ Some time after that he walked through into the room where his wife was sleeping. He stabbed her three times in the chest with a hunting knife, then pulled the bed sheet up to cover her body. He added to his letter, this time in longhand: ‘3.00 a.m. Wife and mother both dead.’ Then he began making preparations for the day ahead.
He got out his old green Marine Corps kit-bag which had ‘Lance Cpl. C. J. Whitman’ stencilled on the side. Into it, he stuffed enough provisions to sustain him during a long siege – twelve tins of spam, Planter’s peanuts, fruit cocktail, sandwiches, six boxes of raisins and a vacuum flask of coffee, along with jerry cans containing water and petrol, lighter fuel, matches, earplugs, a compass, rope, binoculars, a hammer, a spanner, a screwdriver, canteens, a snake-bite kit, a transistor radio, toilet paper and, in a bizarre allegiance to the cult of cleanliness, a plastic bottle of Mennen spray deodorant. He also stowed a private armoury that was enough to hold off a small army – a machete, a Bowie knife, a hatchet, a 9mm Luger pistol, a Galesi-Brescia pistol, a .357-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver, a 35mm Remington rifle and a 6mm Remington bolt-action rifle with a four-power Leupold telescopic sight. With this, experts say, a halfway decent shot can consistently hit a six-and-a-half inch circle at 300 yards. He left three more rifles and two derringers at home.
It is not known whether Whitman slept that night. But at 7.15 a.m. he turned up at the Austin Rental Equipment Service and rented a three-wheeled trolley. At 9 a.m. he called his wife’s supervisor at the telephone company and said that she was too ill to work that day. Then he drove to a Davis hardware store where he bought a second-hand .30 M-1 carbine, which was standard issue in the US Army at that time. At Chuck’s Gun Shop he bought some 30-shot magazines for his new carbine and several hundred rounds of ammunition. And at 9.30 a.m. he walked into Sears Roebuck’s department store in Austin and bought a 12-bore shotgun, on credit.
Back at Jewell Street, he took the shotgun into the garage and began cutting down the barrel and stock. The postman, Chester Arrington, stopped by and chatted to Whitman for about 25 minutes. He was probably the last person to speak to Whitman before the massacre. Years later he recalled: ‘I saw him sawing off the shotgun. I knew it was illegal. All I had to do was pick up the telephone and report him. It could have stopped him. I’ve always blamed myself.’
At last everything was ready. Whitman loaded his kit-bag and the last of his guns into a metal truck and loaded the locker into the boot of his car. He covered it with a blanket, then zipped a pair of grey nylon overalls over his blue jeans and white shirt and, around 10.30 a.m., set off for the university.
Nearly two-and-a-half hours later, Whitman was still fulfilling his deadly mission. Dead bodies were strewn across the streets and plazas below him and hundreds cowered from his bullets. But it could not last forever. Outside the door to the observation deck, just a few feet away, two policeman and a veteran Air Force tailgunner were determined to put an end to his psychopathic spree.
Crum, the civilian, took charge.
‘Let’s do this service style,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll cover you and you cover me.’
They cleared away the barricade at the top of the stairs and, while the police on the ground intensified their fire to distract the killer, Martinez slowly pushed away the trolley that was propped against the door. Using an overturned desk as a shield, they crawled towards the observation gallery. Crum, carrying a rifle, headed west, while Martinez, with a .38 service revolver, headed eastwards around the gallery, followed by