The First Mass Gun Spree Killer:Howard Unruh,Camden NJ 1949.60 Years of Copycats

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Winchester 73

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It all started with this deranged WW II vet.Note that he killed 13 people with 14 shots in 12 minutes.
He's still breathing after his victim's have been rotting in the ground for almost 59 year's.It's New Jersey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Unruh

Howard Unruh (born January 21, 1921) is an American convicted murderer who murdered 13 people on September 6, 1949 in a spree killing in Camden, New Jersey, where he resided.

Always a reserved man, he had turned into a recluse in the three months before his spree. The World War II veteran was unemployed and lived with his mother. During the war, he was reportedly a brave tank soldier who kept meticulous notes of every German killed, down to details of the corpse.

He was honorably discharged in 1945, and returned home with a collection 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 had trouble getting along with his neighbors, and his interactions with them deteriorated in the three months before his spree. He was considered a "mama's boy" and the subject of teasing.

Eventually Unruh became paranoid about his neighbors and started to keep a diary detailing every single thing that he thought was said about him. Next to each of those complained about was the word "retal.", short for retaliate. He arrived home from a movie theater at 3am on September 6 to discover that the gate he had just built in front of his house had been stolen. This appears to have been the final trigger. After sleeping until 8:00 a.m. he got up, dressed in his best suit and ate breakfast with his mother.

At 9:20am he left the house armed with a German Luger pistol looking for his first victims. In only twelve minutes he would shoot and kill 13 people with 14 shots and wounding several others. When he heard the sirens of the approaching police, he returned to his apartment and engaged in a standoff with police. He was eventually convinced to surrender, and was taken in for interrogation. Only at the end of the interrogation did they discover he had been wounded as well.

Charges were filed for 13 counts of "willful and malicious slayings with malice aforethought" and three counts of "atrocious assault and battery". He was eventually pronounced insane, making him immune to criminal prosecution, and he was incarcerated in a unit for the criminally insane. He evidently suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

As of 2007, he is 86 years old and still resides in Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Shortly after his arrest he was reported to have said to a psychiatrist, "I'm no psycho. I have a good mind. I'd have killed a thousand if I had bullets enough."

Unruh's rampage was the most visible of a number of murders and suicides by WWII veterans, and may have spurred the federal government to put additional resources into mental health treatment for this group.
 
Huh -- I interned last semester in Camden; I wonder if anyone at the P.D.'s office is familiar with this guy's story!

(The crime in Camden now is mostly over drugs; the current Prohibition has made depressed and depressing cities into little nightmares of petty crime and major crime.)

Not new, but to think about: when ex-military folks kill others with guns, it's hard to say they "shouldn't have had guns," except in the bright light of retrospect. Some people face combat -- something I'm glad to be born in a time where I was never forced to! -- and then return to normal life, other people seem to be unhinged by it. (And probably most people who return to "normal" life are nonetheless affected by it. I'd be a bit leery of someone who *wasn't.*) But they were trusted enough for at least some stretch of time to carry guns around plenty of other people, and only pull the trigger when pointing at a common enemy. (Not to get into things like whether war is good or glorious or just -- for this context, it's enough that it exists and pits groups of armed men against each other.)

timothy
 
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