A Sniper in the Tower (86 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

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Page 293

Ramiro Martinez

Ramiro Martinez as he looks today.
Gary
Lavergne.

People still recognize him as the slayer of Charles Whitman. He has slowly become resigned to the notion that "you just can't escape it," deciding that one of the most effective ways to deal with what has happened to him is simply to get it over with, answer the questions and talk openly about it.

As one of his first official duties after the Tower incident, Ramiro Martinez was assigned to be among the APD officers attending the burial of Billy Paul Speed. Shortly after returning to his duties as an Austin police officer, Ramiro Martinez received a frantic radio dispatch calling for him to respond as quickly as possible to an area of Austin where "shots were being fired." As he had done a few days earlier, Martinez took a deep breath and headed to the area as fast as he could. Was history going to repeat itself? Was it going to happen again? Was there a nut out there who wanted to outdo Charles Whitman? The answer to each of these turned out to be "no." Martinez had been dispatched to a place where a number of little boys were "popping firecrackers in the back of a red wagon."
¹¹

Less than two years after his heroics on the Tower's deck, on 5 July 1968, Ramiro Martinez, then a Sergeant Investigator, announced his intention to resign from the Austin Police Department. His last day on duty was 26 July 1968. He had become disgruntled with the Austin City Council's new policy that called for the automatic suspension of any officer who discharged his weapon. Reports were that

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he was also dissatisfied with the pay and retirement offered by APD. He quickly denied that his resignation had anything to do with his relations with other officers. "I enjoyed the work and we officers always got along well."
¹²When he left police work, he first went into the restaurant business. Later he joined the Texas Department of Public Safety. On 5 September 1973, at 9:00
A.M.
, he was sworn in as a Texas Ranger. At the time Texas had only eighty-eight Rangers. Contrary to popular myth, he was the third, not the first, Hispanic Ranger in Texas history. His colleagues and others called him "Ranger Ray."
¹³

By August of 1991, Ramiro Martinez was described by the
Austin American-Statesman
as "burned-out." Shortly afterwards he retired from the Texas Rangers. Today, he is the Justice of the Peace of Precinct #2 in Comal County, Texas. Occasionally people write to him and ask for his autograph; he signs the little cards and sends them back. "You just accept it. You can't escape it."
¹⁴

As recently as 8 May 1994,
Parade
magazine published a question from a reader: "Whatever became of Ramiro Martinez, the Texas policeman who shot the berserk sniper Charles Whitman at the University of Texas in 1966?" In February 1994, Robert Draper published an article in
Texas Monthly
about the Texas Rangers; page eighty-one was a magnificent picture of "Ranger Ray."

Ramiro Martinez has never second-guessed what had to be done nor has he ever lost a night's sleep or dreamed of Charles Whitman. He often sees the Tower when he visits his brother in Austin, and it does not affect him.
¹⁵

Outside a Luby's Cafeteria in New Braunfels, Texas, I awaited his arrival. At exactly the appointed hour, he drove up and we met. He was dressed for work in a sports coat, white shirt and tie. He now wears glasses and has lost much of his hair, but he is still a handsome man. And again, he answered the questions in a methodically calm and patient style. He still had no doubts. But he was clearly saddened by how often reporters and others pit him against Houston McCoy. When I asked the predictable question about who shot Charles Whitman, he blurted out a sincere, but nonetheless frustrated answer: "Who cares, as long as he's dead!"
¹⁶

Therein lies the secret to how Martinez has adjusted. He killed Charles Whitman only once.

Page 295

Houston McCoy

Houston McCoy as he looks today.
Gary
Lavergne.

One hundred and fifty miles west of Austin, drivers heading north from the little town of Junction, towards Eden on Highway 83, cannot help but be impressed by the vast expanse of Texas and the hardiness and gut determination it must have taken for pioneers to settle the area. Seeing this region makes it easier to understand Houston McCoy. The only thing between Eden and Junction is the even smaller town of Menard, which takes drivers by surprise as they motor over a hill and see it all at once. Menard looks much like it did when Houston McCoy grew up there five decades ago. The antiquated water tower looks rusty, but it is painted yellow to honor the Menard High School Yellow Jackets. The homes have been placed in no particular pattern; many look crooked. The businesses are old, except for a few major oil company "mini marts" that look out of place.

I parked my truck at what must be a Menard landmark, the Navaho Inn, near the center of town. It looked like a good place for breakfast so I went inside. There, seated by the window facing the street, I waited for Houston McCoy. A few minutes later, I saw a "long drink of water" strutting toward the Inn from a few blocks away. He must have seen the strange truck and known it did not belong to anyone who lived in Menard. He figured it had to be the writer from Austin he had spoken to earlier in the week.

"Go ahead and finish your breakfast. We've got time," McCoy said as he watched me devour my favorite meal, a real West Texas

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breakfast: eggs (the kind that looked like they came out of a real chicken), ham, and grits with real butter. He never let me call him "Mr. McCoy," insisting on just "Houston" instead. He wore a blue western shirt and brown polyester pants. I do not know why, but I knew they were his best clothes. Immediately, he began to talk.

"I don't want any money. I just want my grandchildren to know the truth," McCoy said as he was explaining that we needed to go to the home of his friends, Hugh Bob and Mary Lee, to continue the interview. We arrived at the lovely home at 9:00
A.M.
and got comfortable at the dining room table. While I hooked up the tape recorder McCoy excused himself and went to the kitchen. I could see him moving things in a cabinet. McCoy was clearly at ease at Hugh Bob's house. He returned with a nearly-full liter of whiskey and an empty eight-ounce glass. Pouring a considerable amount of warm brew into the glass, he closed his eyes, took a sip, and said, "Okay, what do you want to know?"

He sipped straight whiskey for the rest of the morning. I studied him carefully for nearly four hours and I never saw even the beginnings of intoxication. Some of my sources documented McCoy's problems over the years. He had admitted in 1991 that he was an alcoholic; he admitted it again in 1995. But on this day McCoy was ready and able to talk. Because of his tragic past, and the bottle before me, I baited him with questions I already knew the answers to. His responses were flawless. Hell, he even corrected me on some elements of the story. Mary Lee beams, "You sound so good today."

"I'm a pilot and I got to talk in directions," McCoy said as he explained the events of 1 August 1966 by pointing to a map of the University of Texas campus. Once he located north he began. Again, he was flawless. When he got to the part where he and Martinez shot Charles Whitman, he left the dining room chair, sat on the floor with his back against the fireplace, and re-enacted the position Whitman took on the northwest corner of the deck. He turned his head to the left and eyeballed me, just as Whitman had done to him twenty-eight years earlier, and McCoy's head snapped back as he told the story, only to return and snap back again. I did not know what the hell to do.

A chill filled the silent room. McCoy was no longer in Hugh Bob's house. He was on that deck, killing Charles Whitman again. I

Page 297

felt the unsettling realization that Houston McCoy kills Charles Whitman every day. It saddened me because an authentic hero like Houston McCoy does not deserve that much pain, and Whitman does not deserve that much attention.

It was time for a break. Mary Lee and I talked about Cajun food. Hugh Bob invited everyone to lunch at the Navaho Inn.

"Just send this back when you're finished with it," McCoy told me, handing me an envelope filled with personal mementos. Outside of the Navaho Inn I bade farewell to Houston McCoy, but before leaving I pretended to pack things in a tool box bolted to the bed of my truck. I wanted to watch the hero of the Tower cross the streets from whence he came.

His friends hope to see justice; they hope that his heroics will one day be appreciated, and they have a point. It is a point, however, that does not have to come at Ramiro Martinez's expense.

The truth is that on 1 August 1966, Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez together participated in one of the most courageous acts in American law enforcement history. They, and the world, should remember that one fact and forget about whose bullet actually killed Charles Whitman.

Maybe the day will come when Houston McCoy will find peace, but for now the killing repeatedly and unceasingly haunts him. During the early part of our interview, he had gazed at me, his piercing frontier eyes looking into my soul, becoming watery and red. His large, wrinkled hands shook slightly as he took a deep breath and yet another sip from that eight-ounce glass filled with straight, hot whiskey. Then Houston McCoy said something I will never forget: "If I meet Charles Whitman in heaven, I'm gonna have to kill him again."
¹⁷