At the top of the University of Texas Tower 35 years ago, Austin policemen Houston McCoy and Ramiro “Ray” Martinez risked all to end the killing spree of ex-Marine Charles Whitman. The press initially credited Martinez with taking Whitman down, but after the coroner’s report was issued, it seemed…
Thirty years later, the legacy of Charles Whitman’s shooting spree at the University of Texas still towers above us.
At 11:48 a.m. on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman began firing his rifle from the top of the University of Texas Tower at anyone and everyone in his sights. At 1:24 p.m., he was gunned down himself. The lives of the people who witnessed the sniper’s spree firsthand would never…
Nine years after the brutal murder of four teenage girls in a yogurt shop rocked the city of Austin, the police say they have finally caught the killers. But they have no evidence and no witnesses—only two confessions that the defendants say were coerced. Which is why, when the case…
In “Parties Around a Punch Bowl,” Kimberly Schlegel Whitman offers a year’s worth of seasonal cocktail recipes.
A reminder that Charles Whitman’s shooting spree resonated far outside of Texas.
Officials at an El Paso hospital are scrambling after exposing more than 700 babies to TB, and Charles Whitman's rifle is up for sale.
On a sweltering Monday in August 1966, Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower and began shooting pedestrians below, killing eleven people and forever altering the lives of many others. In this excerpt from her new novel, Elizabeth Crook reimagines the day that changed everything.
Senior editor Pamela Colloff talks about tracking down eyewitnesses and listening to their accounts of Charles Whitman’s shooting spree from atop the University of Texas Tower.
The element most conspicuously absent from our tour of the University of Texas Tower was any mention of sniper Charles Whitman.
