Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
A true crime classic, Gary M. Lavergne's book gives the most complete analysis of the man who climbed the tower at the University of Texas in 1966 and shot 45 people, besides killing his wife and mother the night before. Also revealed is the shocking information about Whitman's family life; he was not the all-American young man gone suddenly insane as he was depicted in the media. Instead, the dark secrets of his relationship with his father and his father's own violence is woven into this account of calculated evil. This book has been hailed by experts as an excellent depiction of a case that defined mass murder, the largest mass murder in U.S. history at that time. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In the summer of 1966, America lost its innocence when two mass murders were committed. In Chicago Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses, and 19 days later, on August 1, Charles Whitman gunned down people from the tower at the University of Texas at Austin, killing 16 and wounding 31. Lavergne, director of admissions and guidance services of the College Board's Southwest Regional Office, attempts to answer this question by writing the first full historical analysis of the event. Using primary sources and photographs, the author has done an excellent job of describing Whitman's murdering rampage. Was it caused by his domineering father, a brain tumor found during an autopsy, or both of the above? Lavergne examines these explanations and others as to why Whitman committed such a terrible deed. A good choice for true-crime collections.?Michael Sawyer, Clinton P.L., Iowa
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