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Authors: Nigel Cawthorne
Tags: True Crime
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former classmate.
The Telecom Credit Union staff scattered in fear. Someone pressed the alarm button. Judy Morris and her best friend ran towards the glass exit doors. A shot rang out. Both women fell. They lay on the ground until Vitkovic finished shooting and disappeared out of the exit to the lift wells. Margellis was safe. He had hidden in the women’s toilets. But Judy Morris was dead.
The security doors shut tight behind Vitkovic, trapping him outside. He kicked the doors, trying to get back in. He went to the lifts and waited until one of the pink arrows flashed up. Then he rode to the twelfth floor.
The Philatelic Bureau was quiet when Vitkovic burst in. In the customer sales section he let rip with automatic rifle-fire. The bureau’s 29-year-old supervisor Warren Spencer was killed while trying to take cover behind the office photocopier. His 24-year-old wife, Susan, mother of their two children, who also worked at the bureau, watched in horror as her husband died. Twenty-year-old Julie McBean and 18-year-old Nancy Avigone were shot dead at their desks.
Below, Melbourne became aware of the shootings. As crowds began to gather in the street, Vitkovic took a sniper’s perch from a broken twelfth-floor window. He fired several bullets at the first motorcycle police officers who arrived at 4.15 p.m.
Vitkovic ran down the stairs to the eleventh floor, which housed the Australia Post accounts department. In the stairwell Vitkovic fired one volley that blew a fist-sized hole in the office window to his right. Turning left he confronted Michael McGuire in the data-processing room, where McGuire trained staff and fixed machines. Vitkovic fired at point-blank range into the young father of three. One bullet passed through the partition McGuire sheltered against and punched a crater in the corridor wall. McGuire had been hoping to be home early that night. His youngest daughter was celebrating her fifth birthday.
The staff in the accounts department now found their escape path blocked by the killer. The shots rang out as Vitkovic entered the room, his fire concentrated to the far corners of the room. Thirty-two-year-old Rodney Brown was shot beside the desk he had worked at for seven years. He died later in the arms of an ambulanceman. Thirty-eight-year-old Marianne van Ewyk and Catherine Dowling, 28, died as they cowered under their desks.
Van Ewyk, who had emigrated from Holland as a child, had worked with Australia Post since she was a teenager. Next to her desk was a school-term calendar to keep track of holidays she could spend with her only son. At the same time Frank Vitkovic was downstairs, waiting for the lift, Marianne’s husband, Bernie Sharp, had rung her to warn her of a rail strike.
The accounts department assistant manager Tony Gloria then put an end to the massacre. A quiet man who was never known to lose his temper, he tackled the gunman.
A head shorter than Vitkovic, he grabbed the killer around the waist. Another of the office workers, who had been shot in the shoulder, helped to drag Vitkovic down. A third man grabbed the rifle and hid it in the fridge.
Vitkovic, who was now bent on taking his own life, struggled to make his way through to the broken window. Gloria fought to save him. Office workers in nearby buildings saw the struggle and the shower of glass that preceded the killer as he fell to the pavement 60 metres below, where he died.
Chapter 4
Sniper in the Tower
Name: Charles Whitman Jr
Nationality: American
Number of victims: 16 killed, 30 injured
Favoured method of killing: Shooting, stabbing
Born: 1941
Profession: ex-US Marine
Married: yes
Reign of terror: 1 August 1966
Final note: ‘The intense hatred I feel for my father is beyond all description’
It was a perfect summer day in Austin, Texas. By mid-morning on 1 August 1966, the temperature had already soared to 36 degrees in the shade and the hot air hung heavy over the downtown campus of the University of
The Telecom Credit Union staff scattered in fear. Someone pressed the alarm button. Judy Morris and her best friend ran towards the glass exit doors. A shot rang out. Both women fell. They lay on the ground until Vitkovic finished shooting and disappeared out of the exit to the lift wells. Margellis was safe. He had hidden in the women’s toilets. But Judy Morris was dead.
The security doors shut tight behind Vitkovic, trapping him outside. He kicked the doors, trying to get back in. He went to the lifts and waited until one of the pink arrows flashed up. Then he rode to the twelfth floor.
The Philatelic Bureau was quiet when Vitkovic burst in. In the customer sales section he let rip with automatic rifle-fire. The bureau’s 29-year-old supervisor Warren Spencer was killed while trying to take cover behind the office photocopier. His 24-year-old wife, Susan, mother of their two children, who also worked at the bureau, watched in horror as her husband died. Twenty-year-old Julie McBean and 18-year-old Nancy Avigone were shot dead at their desks.
Below, Melbourne became aware of the shootings. As crowds began to gather in the street, Vitkovic took a sniper’s perch from a broken twelfth-floor window. He fired several bullets at the first motorcycle police officers who arrived at 4.15 p.m.
Vitkovic ran down the stairs to the eleventh floor, which housed the Australia Post accounts department. In the stairwell Vitkovic fired one volley that blew a fist-sized hole in the office window to his right. Turning left he confronted Michael McGuire in the data-processing room, where McGuire trained staff and fixed machines. Vitkovic fired at point-blank range into the young father of three. One bullet passed through the partition McGuire sheltered against and punched a crater in the corridor wall. McGuire had been hoping to be home early that night. His youngest daughter was celebrating her fifth birthday.
The staff in the accounts department now found their escape path blocked by the killer. The shots rang out as Vitkovic entered the room, his fire concentrated to the far corners of the room. Thirty-two-year-old Rodney Brown was shot beside the desk he had worked at for seven years. He died later in the arms of an ambulanceman. Thirty-eight-year-old Marianne van Ewyk and Catherine Dowling, 28, died as they cowered under their desks.
Van Ewyk, who had emigrated from Holland as a child, had worked with Australia Post since she was a teenager. Next to her desk was a school-term calendar to keep track of holidays she could spend with her only son. At the same time Frank Vitkovic was downstairs, waiting for the lift, Marianne’s husband, Bernie Sharp, had rung her to warn her of a rail strike.
The accounts department assistant manager Tony Gloria then put an end to the massacre. A quiet man who was never known to lose his temper, he tackled the gunman.
A head shorter than Vitkovic, he grabbed the killer around the waist. Another of the office workers, who had been shot in the shoulder, helped to drag Vitkovic down. A third man grabbed the rifle and hid it in the fridge.
Vitkovic, who was now bent on taking his own life, struggled to make his way through to the broken window. Gloria fought to save him. Office workers in nearby buildings saw the struggle and the shower of glass that preceded the killer as he fell to the pavement 60 metres below, where he died.
Chapter 4
Sniper in the Tower
Name: Charles Whitman Jr
Nationality: American
Number of victims: 16 killed, 30 injured
Favoured method of killing: Shooting, stabbing
Born: 1941
Profession: ex-US Marine
Married: yes
Reign of terror: 1 August 1966
Final note: ‘The intense hatred I feel for my father is beyond all description’
It was a perfect summer day in Austin, Texas. By mid-morning on 1 August 1966, the temperature had already soared to 36 degrees in the shade and the hot air hung heavy over the downtown campus of the University of
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