Inside the Mind of the Tower Sniper: The Early Signs [1:00-3:54]

After a few hours to Fuse's left, so Whitman can drive his wife home from her part-time job as a switchboard operator, it is believed that upon arriving at home, Kathleen Whitman went directly to bed. The post-event investigation also surmised that around 12.30 am Whitman drove to his mother's apartment on Guadalupe Street near the university and stabbed her to death. He then covered her with the bed sheets and placed her on the bed and then placed the second of the two notes upon a yellow legal pad beside her bed. He returned home around 3 am and repeatedly stabbed his wife through the heart as she was asleep, and he also left the first note which was handwritten. In both notes, he stated that he loved them both but killed them to spare them the humiliation of his pending actions. In the note left with his mother, he stated that he wanted to alleviate her suffering after decades of abuse by his father. He also clearly stated his intense hatred beyond description for his father because of the years of physical and emotional abuse. What he did for the next few hours is unknown, but later, in the first warning hours, he stopped and rented a hand truck. He then drove to his bank and cashed several bad checks totaling $250. Worth about $2,500 today, one from his own account and the other from his mother's account. At 9 o'clock, he drove to a hardware store and purchased a 30 caliber universal M1 Caribbean, a weapon with which he had become a sharp shooter in the Marines, two extra magazines, and eight boxes of ammunition. He told the cashier that he was going to Florida to hunt wild hogs. 30 minutes later, he drove to Chuck's gun shop, purchased four more magazines, six additional boxes of ammunition, a can of gun cleaning solvent, and then he drove to a sears-and-roll book store where he bought a 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun. Whitman then returned to his garage at home and sawed off the buttstock and barrel of the shotgun. He then placed all these items as well as cans of food, coffee, vitamins, dexadrin, etc., earplugs, three and a half gallons of water, matches, lighter fluid, rope binoculars, a machete, three knives, a small channel master transes to radio, toilet paper, a razor, a bottle of deodorant, a rimington 706 millimeter bolt action hunting rifle with a Louis folded M8, four-power scope, and a 35 caliber pump rifle, a 9 millimeter luger pistol, a Galacey Brissia 25 caliber pistol, a Smith & Wesson M19357 Magnum Revolver, and 700 rounds of ammunition into his Marine Corps footlocker. He was also addressed in blue nylon khaki coveralls over his shirt and jeans so that people would think that he was a janitor, a repairman, or delivery man, or some other service person, so it was to not arouse any suspicion when he arrived at the university at 11.25 a.m.