Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #State & Local, #Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), #True Crime, #Murder, #test

A Sniper in the Tower (16 page)

Page 45

becoming an Eagle Scout in less than two years; it required endurance and patience.

A fixation with money plagued Charlie for the rest of his life. He continued to gamble and believe in his poker prowess, although he lowered the stakes. His friends give testimony of his willingness to engage in schemes to make a quick buck. Although there is no evidence to support the claim, he bragged that he made enough money gambling to put Kathy through college. Kathy did much to put herself through college, and she and Charlie would continue to live as "poor" students. She served as the major provider of the Whitman household.

Charlie had shown potential for becoming a serious student when he enrolled in a course entitled "American History from 1865" during the summer of 1961 at East Carolina College.
¹⁸His loneliness and the stark reality of Camp Lejeune's brig may have rekindled a determination to succeed, but he was still a troubled young man and his insecurity manifested itself in doubts over Kathy's love for him.

I think she is just neglecting me, as she says she is getting lazy. She doesn't like me writing in my diary and wants me to come home on the 26th. I am undecided what to do. But I definitely feel as though there is something unusual in my mental state. I don't know if it is my imagination or if my feelings are valid. But I notice an unusual uneasiness inside myself. However, I am quieter externally than I have ever been. And I seem to think more before making a statement or decision. . . .
¹⁹

Kathy joined Charlie for a short time in North Carolina, and surely that eased his troubled state, for a while.

Kathy resumed her studies during the 1964 fall semester. She neared the end of her undergraduate degree program, and when Charlie returned to Austin, he, for all practical purposes, soon began his. During the following spring he would change his major from mechanical engineering to the more aesthetic architectural engineering, a major he believed to be better suited to his artistic interests. He arrived with a great sense of urgency, sensing it was his last real chance for success at the University of Texas. He had learned a hard

Page 46

Members of the American Association of Architectural Engineers posed for a group
picture for the 1966 Cactus, UT's annual. Charlie Whitman is sixth from the left on
the fourth row. Some students pictured here remembered Whitman's use of drugs to
stay awake for projects and exams. Others reportedly complained of how difficult he
could be in study groups.
Cactus, CN08901, The Center for American History, The
University of Texas at Austin.

but valuable lessonan engineering degree at UT required serious work and study.

Upon his return, finding a job became his first task. In September he settled for a position as a bill collector for Standard Finance Company. Because it paid little, the Whitmans lived on a tight budget. Charlie did not handle the mundane job very well. He was relieved when other distractions, such as his volunteer activities, interfered with work. But the young couple had healthy priorities and a strong work ethic. They saw a college education for both of them as a necessity and were willing to sacrifice to get it. Charlie did not attend UT during the spring semester of 1965. Technically, he was still a marine, and during that time he underwent routine physicals which found him to be healthy. The last of his physicals took place in November, just before his honorable discharge on 4 December 1964. Charlie held reserve status for the next eight months, and on 18 July 1965, he received his honorable discharge as a Private 1st Class (E-2) with a military specialty as "0211-Rifleman."
²⁰

Once completely out of the military, Charlie re-enrolled in the University of Texas. He did not schedule a particularly heavy course load. His new major and a healthier attitude about work and study served him well. He earned three Cs, one B, and one A at the end of

Page 47

the spring of 1965. He worked for Standard Finance until April, when he left to take a more convenient job as a bank teller at Austin National Bank, working afternoons for $1.25 an hour. Either Charlie did not find the job fulfilling enough or, more likely, he became dissatisfied with the pay. He left only three months later. His supervisor at the bank, Eddie R. Hendricks, later described Charlie as "an outstanding person, very likeable, neat and nice looking."
²¹

Charlie and Kathy moved into Apartment A at 1001 Shelley Avenue in a section across Shoal Creek from downtown Austin. Small but neat houses crowded the neighborhood, where overgrown shrubs landscaped the yards of some of the older homes. The inhabitants were diverse. Neighbors concluded that the Whitmans loved music; they often heard it blaring from the apartment. Soon there would be an addition to the young family Charlie bought a little dog that Kathy would name Schocie. He had long been a lover of animals. Many Lake Worth neighbors remembered his attachment to a favorite dog named "Lady," so much so that Lady was generally referred to as "Charlie's Dog."
²²Schocie remained with the Whitmans until it mysteriously disappeared on 1 August 1966.

True to her upbringing, Kathy continued to be a devout Methodist, worshipping with the congregation of the First Methodist Church of Austin. She managed to involve Charlie in at least some of the services; he sang in the choir, but never exhibited deep religious devotion. Carole Barnfield, a friend of both Whitmans, recalled that on one occasion a minister from the church went over to see Charlie at home. Determined not to see or speak to the minister, Charlie ran out the back door.
²³

Charlie's experience with the Boy Scout troop of the Methodist Church represented a more comfortable and significant contact with the congregation. He had been recruited as an Assistant Scout Master in January, 1965. By February he had become the Scout Master of Troop 5. As a former Eagle Scout and Marine Corps reservist, Charlie should have been ideally suited to lead and counsel young boys, but in reality he had limited success. Some of the other adults involved with the troop remember that at times he had little patience, and on one occasion he got angry with another scouting associate over whether the troop had been made to do too many calisthenics. Even though Charlie did not take constructive criti-

Page 48

cism well, he could be quite an effective leader. Nearly everyone associated with the scouts remembered how well he taught the safety and care of firearms. At Camp Tom Wooten, Charlie demonstrated the use of a 22-caliber rifle by hanging a clothespin on a line, and from a distance of about seventy to eighty feet, shooting it so that it spun continuously until it fell apart.

Others began to notice that Charlie often had very severe headaches, perspired profusely (even on cold days), and had the nervous habit of chewing on his fingernails. He ate constantly, and since his discharge from the marines, he probably exercised less. Predictably, he put on weight. The kids began to call him "Porky." His service as a scout master ended by January of 1966, after only a few months of involvement. He is reported to have asked to be relieved because of the pressures of work and studies.
²⁴

Kathy spent the spring of 1965 student-teaching at Lanier High School. She graduated with the UT-Austin Class of 1965 with a B.S. in Science Education. Meanwhile, Charlie got more frustrated and impatient. Racked with insecurity, he was haunted by a short rhetorical question he had written in his diary eighteen months earlier: "As I look back over my past few adult years they seem so wasted. Will I ever accomplish anything I set out to do?"
²⁵

1 John T. Davis and J. B. Colson,
Austin: Lone Star Rising
(Memphis: Towery Publishing, Inc., 1994), p. 19.

2 Ibid., pp. 4, 1921; Clifford Hopewell,
Sam Houston: Man of Destiny
(Austin: Eakin Press, 1987), p. 25354.

3 Hopewell, pp. 27075.

4 Davis and Colson, p. 103; Richard Zelade,
Austin
(Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1984), p. 50.

5 Davis and Colson, p. 21.

6 Ibid., p. 44.

7 Austin History Center, File AF Murders-Mass M8960 (1), unidentified clipping. Hereafter cited as "AHC";
Austin American-Statesman
, 3 August 1966; Zelade, p. 65.

8
Austin American-Statesman
, 3 August 1966.

9 Ibid.;
Dallas Morning News
, 4 September 1966.

10
Austin American-Statesman
, 7 August 1966, 1 August 1976;
Newsweek
, 15 August 1966; AJS;
UTMost
, September, 1991;
Time
, 12 August 1966; Davis and Colson, p. 11; Mary Catherine Berry,
UTAustin: Traditions and Nostalgia
(Austin: Eakin Press, 1992), p. 27;
Dallas Morning News
, 2 August 1966.

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