A Sniper in the Tower (64 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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13 Houston McCoy; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.
14 APD Files:
SOR
by B. Simpson, 3 August 1966,
CAPOR
by B. Landis, 1 August 1966 and
Food and Drug Administration Statement
, Robert C. Stokes, MD, 5 August 1966; Phillip Conner;
Daily Texan
, 1 August 1991;
Summer Texan
, 2 August 1966;
Austin American-Statesman
, 2 August 1966.
15 APD Files:
Food and Drug Administration Statement
, Robert C. Stokes, MD, 5 August 1966;
Austin American-Statesman
, 2 and 3 August 1966.
16 Ramiro Martinez; Houston McCoy; APD Files:
SOR
s by L. Morgan, R. Martinez, 1 August 1966 and John Pope, 3 August 1966;
Palm Beach Post
, 3 August 1966.
17
Daily Texan
, 1 August 1991;
Austin American-Statesman
, 2 and 7 August 1966, 1 August 1976.
 
Page 222
18 Lawrence A. Fuess; APD Files:
SOR
by Harold Moe, 2 August 1966; KLBJ Radio,
The Paul Pryor Show
, 1 August 1995; Time-Life, pp. 40 and 54;
Newsweek
, 15 August 1966.
19 Ramiro Martinez; Houston McCoy; Phillip Conner; APD Files:
McCoy Statement
, n.d.;
Texas Monthly
, August 1986;
Austin American-Statesman
, 3 August 1966; Ruth McCoy, in a conversation with the author on 31 August 1996.
 
Page 223
15
To Whom It May Concern
I
Charles Whitman began shooting from the deck at 11:48
A.M.
Ninety-six minutes transpired before his shooting spree ended, enough time for major news organizations to cover some of the tragedy live. Bulletins interrupted regular programming all over the world. In Lake Worth, Florida, Charles's grandmother Whitman heard a bulletin and summoned Charles's brother Patrick to the television. Twenty years later, Patrick remembered it this way:
I went in to listen to the TV, but the news
 
Page 224
bulletin didn't come right back, so I called the station, and I asked them to repeat the news bulletin. At first they wouldn't repeat it, so I said, "My name is Patrick Whitman. Would you please repeat it." Then I broke up and went and got my father. From then on it was turmoil. They had to sedate me.
1
It probably went exactly as Charles would have hoped. Much of the world's media began to ask questions, many of them directed at C. A. Whitman of Lake Worth, Florida. The glare of publicity for the Whitman family was only beginning. Still to be discovered were the notes Charles had left at 906 Jewell Street and Penthouse Apartment #505.
"Johnnie Mike" Whitman was still on a cross-country trip with his friend Jim Poland when his brother Charles began his killing spree. After the news of the sniping broke, the Whitman family began a search for the youngest Whitman boy, eventually locating him in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a small town along the Atlantic Coast. Immediately, "Johnnie Mike" and Jim Poland began the long drive to Lake Worth to attend funerals.
2
As Whitman had anticipated, media attention immediately turned to his father,
C. A. Whitman, in Lake Worth, Florida. 
UPI/Corbis-Bettmann.

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