COLD BLOODED KILLERS (Killers from around the World) (14 page)

When police searched Wesbecker's house, they recovered a shotgun, a Colt 9-millimeter revolver, a .32 revolver, and a starter's pistol. They found Wesbecker's will, as well as a copy of Time Magazine on the kitchen table featuring an article about Patrick Purdy who had killed five children and injured thirty others with a Type 56 assault rifle, the same weapon as used by Wesbecker, at a school in Stockton, California, earlier the same year.

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George Hennard

Luby’s Massacre

George Hennerd was once referred to as a nice young boy with long hair. He used to be in a band; he was cool and likeable. All that appeared to change one day when he and his father had a vicious altercation that he would never talk about. After that, Hennard changed into a very cold hearted and mainly vicious person. He would regularly fight with other people and shout obscenities. He was always irritated and very reserved. He had a female neighbor with two daughters that he would stalk, going everywhere they went, and he often wrote letters to the girls. When the girls’ mother went to the police, she was told that they could not do anything about it because he hadn’t committed any crime.

On October 16
^th
, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, and yelled, "This is what Bell County has done to me!" He then opened fire on patrons and employees with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. He walked around, shooting; about eighty people were in the restaurant at the time.

Thinking that the driver had accidently crashed into the building, Dr. Michael Griffith ran to the driver's side of the pickup truck to offer assistance and was shot instantly. During the shooting, Hennard approached Dr. Suzanna Hupp and her parents, who happened to have a handgun in her vehicle? Her father charged at the gunman in an attempt to restrain him but was gunned down. A short time later her mother was shot and killed also. Another patron, Tommy Vaughn, threw himself through a plate-glass window to allow others to get away. Hennard allowed a woman and her four year old child to leave. He reloaded his guns several times, and still had ammunition remaining when he ended his own life after being cornered and wounded by police. But by then he’d killed twenty-three people while wounding another twenty.

In the aftermath, in 1995 the Texas Legislature passed a shall-issue gun law which requires that all qualifying applicants be issued a Concealed Handgun License, removing the personal good judgment of the issuing authority to deny such licenses. To qualify for a license, one must be free and clear of crimes, attend a minimum of ten hours of classes taught by a state certified instructor, pass a fifty question test, show proficiency in a fifty round shooting test, and pass two background tests, one shallow and one deep.

The proposal to change the law was campaigned by Dr. Suzanna Hupp who had been present at the massacre where both of her parents were shot and killed. She later expressed regret for obeying the law by leaving her firearm in her car rather than keeping it on her person, thinking at the time that it could mean losing her chiropractic license. She testified across the country in support of concealed handgun laws, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996. The law was signed by then Governor George W. Bush.

Authors Note: I really admire Dr. Hupp and her efforts of getting this law passed.

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Howard Barton Unruh

The Walk of Death

September 6
^th
, 1949, in Camden, New Jersey, Howard Barton Unruh, twenty-eight, killed thirteen innocent people.

Unruh was the son of Freda and Samuel Unruh, and had a younger brother James. He graduated Woodrow Wilson High School in 1939, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was sent overseas to fight during World War II. During the war, he was purportedly a heroic tank soldier who served in the Battle of the Bulge and kept scrupulous notes of every German killed, down to details of the corpse. He was honorably discharged in 1945 and returned home with an assortment of medals and firearms. He decorated his bedroom with military items and set up a target range in his basement. His mother supported him by working at a factory while Howard hung around the house and attended daily church services. He briefly attended a pharmacy course at Temple University in Philadelphia but dropped out after only three months.

Unruh had difficulty getting along with his neighbors, and his relations with them worsened in the three months previous to his killing spree. Considered a mama's boy, Unruh was the subject of teasing, and often harassed by neighborhood teens who thought he was homosexual. He was reported to have been unhappy about having had homosexual liaisons in a Philadelphia movie theater. He had only one brief association with a girl prior to his arrest. Ultimately, Unruh became obsessed with his neighbors and started to keep a diary detailing everything he thought was said about him. Next to some of the names was the word, ‘retaliate.’ He arrived home from a movie theater at 3 am on September 6
^th
to discover that the gate he had just built in front of his house had been stolen. This appears to have been what set him off. Unruh later told the Police, "When I came home last night and found my gate had been stolen, I decided to kill them all."

After sleeping until 8 am, he got up, dressed in his best suit, and ate breakfast with his mother. At some point, he threatened his mother with a wrench, and she left for a friend's home. At 9:20 am, Unruh left the house equipped with a German Luger handgun, seeking his first victims. In only twelve minutes he shot and killed thirteen people with fourteen shots and injured several others. Although, in general, the killing was premeditated, the victims seemed to be chosen haphazardly. Unruh's first shot missed its planned victim, a bakery truck driver, but then he shot two of five people in a barber shop, sparing the other three that were in the shop. One victim was killed when he happened to block the door to a pharmacy. A motorist was killed when his car slowed to view the body of a victim. Intending to kill a local tailor, Unruh entered his shop, but the tailor was not there; Unruh killed the man's wife instead.

When he heard the sound of sirens from the approaching police, Unruh returned to his apartment and initiated in a standoff. Over sixty police personnel surrounded Unruh's home and a shootout developed. During the blockade, Philip W. Buxton, a reporter from the Camden Evening Courier, phoned Unruh's home and spoke to him for a short time. On a gut feeling, Buxton had looked up Unruh's number in the phone book. Buxton later recounted the conversation, which was cut short when police hurled tear gas into the apartment:

"What are they doing to you?"

"They haven't done anything to me yet, but I'm doing plenty to them."

"How many have you killed?"

"I don't know yet. I haven't counted them. But it looks like a pretty good score."

"Why are you killing people?"

"I don't know. I can't answer that yet. I'm too busy.

I'll have to talk to you later. A couple of friends are coming to get me."

Just minutes after that conversation, Unruh was arrested by the police and taken for interrogation. He told the police that he had spent the previous evening sitting through three showings of a double feature: The Lady Gambles, and I Cheated the Law, stating that he’d thought that actress Barbara Stanwyck was one of his hated neighbors. He provided a careful description of his actions during the killings. Only at the end of the questioning did the police discover he had received a gunshot wound in the left thigh which he had been keeping secret. He was consequently taken to Cooper Hospital for treatment.

Charges were filed for thirteen counts of willful and malicious slaying with malice aforethought, and three counts of atrocious assault and battery. Ultimately, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by psychologists, and found to be insane, making him invulnerable to criminal prosecution. When he was able to leave Cooper Hospital, Unruh was sent to the New Jersey Hospital for the Insane (now Trenton Psychiatric Hospital). Unruh's last public words, made during an interview with a psychologist, were, "I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets."