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 (3 page)

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1
Two Very Different Upbringings

During the post-World War II era, middle class workers populated the community of Lake Worth, Florida, a seaside community along the Atlantic Coast. Hard-working entrepreneurs penetrated markets, cultivated clients, and grew rich while economic Darwinism and American free enterprise eliminated the weak. Lake Worth's population doubled from 7,408 in 1940 to 15,315 in 1955.
¹Charles Adolphus "C. A." Whitman flourished in such an environment. He became a successful plumbing contractor as well as

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an accomplished, affluent and admired businessman. It had not always been that way.

C. A. Whitman knew his mother, but he spent much of his childhood in the Bethesda Orphanage in Savannah, Georgia. He overcame a lack of formal education by sheer determination and by out-working his competitors. His ruddy, round face and neatly cut slicked-to-the-side hair complimented a stocky, solid body. His appearance suggested he had "paid his dues." Self-made and proud of it, he used his money to buy what he wanted, unapologetically. Some acquaintances, however, found his pride to be monumental egotism; he provided very well for his familyand never let them forget it.
²

Early in his journey to financial security, he met and married Margaret Hodges. Though she lacked the determination and drive of her husband, she contributed to C. A.'s business success by running the office and keeping the books. For twenty-five years after its founding in 1941, the Whitman plumbing business grew consistently. By 1963, the firm owned four cars and twenty-one trucks, employed twenty-eight full-time workers and recorded gross annual sales of $303,433 on a net worth of $289,463. C. A. Whitman's prominence in the Lake Worth community paralleled the growth of his business. Driven to achieve greater social respectability, he joined nearly every public organization in the Lake Worth area. In his quest for upward mobility, he moved his family eight times between 1941 and 1947. In 1941 and 1942 their moves were between Georgia and Florida. After a brief move to Belle Glade, Florida, the Whitmans firmly settled in Lake Worth. C. A. became an acknowledged civic leader, popular enough to be elected president of the local Chamber of Commerce and the PTA.
³

C. A. and Margaret Whitman became the parents of three sons: Charles Joseph, born in 1941; Patrick, born in 1945; and John, born in 1949. With his sons C. A. demanded strict discipline; he believed in and used corporal punishment. His marital relationship with Margaret was nearly as turbulent.


I did on many occasions beat my wife, but I loved her. . . . I did and do have an awful temper, but my wife was awful stubborn, and we had some clashes over the more than twenty-five years of our life together. I have to admit it, because of my temper, I knocked her around. ⁴

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Charles J. Whitman
during happier times
with his family. Back
row, L-R, his father,
Charles A. Whitman,
Jr.; Charles J. Whitman.
Front row, L-R, his
brother, John Michael;
his mother, Margaret;
and his other brother,
Patrick.
UPI/Corbis-Bettmann.

When discussing his relationships, C. A. Whitman had a propensity for mixing love and violence, often in the same sentence. He unashamedly pointed out that he used only paddles, his fists or a belt to discipline his sons, apparently believing that those restrictions were examples of his moderation.
⁵


With all three of my sons it was "yes, sir" and "no, sir." They minded me. The way I looked at it, I am not ashamed of any spankings. I don't think I spanked enough, if you want to know the truth about it. I think they should have been punished more than they were punished. ⁶

In spite of his iron discipline, C. A. Whitman believed his sons were "spoiled rotten," and some Lake Worth neighbors agreed. He provided well for the material wants of his entire family, even his mother; he bought the house next door to his home for her. Later, C. A. provided each of the family members with new cars, and all of the boys had motorcycles. In return, however, he expected much. One Lake Worth neighbor characterized the elder Whitman as both "overly permissive" and "overly strict."
⁷

Margaret Whitman also demanded strict discipline, although hers was a more gentle firmness. A devout Roman Catholic and a regular

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churchgoer, she insisted that her sons attend Mass with her. They attended Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth, a rather small congregation that supported a grade school and Boy Scout Troop 119. One Lake Worth neighbor characterized Margaret as a "perfectly good mother." A Lake Worth police officer and family friend described her as one of the most gracious ladies he had ever known. Her eldest, Charlie, would become an altar boy, and win a five-dollar prize for "learning Latin the best." All of her children would attend Catholic parochial schools. She tried desperately to instill her deep religious devotion in her sons.

In June of 1947, the Whitman family moved into a comfortable home at 820 South L Street, eight blocks south of Lake Worth's business district. The neighborhood was distinctly middle class, and the Whitman home was one of the best in the area. Large awnings shielded the windows of the wood-framed house from Florida's radiant heat. The home's front yard had been expertly landscaped and dotted with tropical fruit trees. By the 1950s a swimming pool was installed in the backyard and an upstairs apartment rested above the large garage. By the 1960s the home was valued at $12,00015,000. Every room was finely furnished. On almost every wall, along with the pictures, guns were displayed. C. A.'s admitted fanaticism for weapons provided his sons with the opportunity to become accustomed to instruments of hunting and aggression.
⁸

Charles Joseph Whitman was born to eighteen-year-old Margaret in the Lake Worth office of Dr. Grady Brantley on 24 June 1941 after a full-term pregnancy and normal delivery. The Whitmans brought Charlie home to 2214 Ponce de Leon Street in West Palm Beach. The eldest Whitman son was a healthy boy who had the usual childhood diseases, suffering no long-term effects from any of them. Neighbors described him as "high-spirited" and fun, and never one to make trouble. While many neighbors found C. A. Whitman to be disagreeable, they nearly universally characterized Charlie, along with his brothers, as "good, normal boys." At ages three and four Charlie attended private kindergartens. In September of 1947, Margaret enrolled him in Sacred Heart's Catholic grade school, founded only three years earlier and staffed by the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Located next to the church, the barracks-like, two-story school re-

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sembled a small dorm or motel amid impeccably maintained and landscaped grounds.
⁹

Shortly before entering grade school, Charlie began to take piano lessons, and by age twelve he excelled. Reportedly, C. A. placed a belt on the piano to guarantee Charlie's faithful and determined practice. The elder Whitman later denied the story, asserting that Charlie loved to play. Frank McCarty, a boyhood friend, did observe that Charlie loved to play the piano. For a time Charlie used his musical training to play in a teenage band run by Robert Vrooman; C. A. objected and made him quit.
¹⁰

Even before Charlie began his musical training, he learned to handle guns. As soon as he could hold one, he did. One infamous photograph shows Charlie as a toddler holding two riflesone a bolt action, the other a pump. In the photograph, taken at a beach with Charlie wearing a swimsuit that looks more like training pants, the rifles stand taller than Charlie. It must have struck other beachgoers as odd to witness a two-year-old playing in the sand with high-powered rifles. The Whitman boys received toy guns as gifts, followed shortly by real ones. C. A. boasted, "I'm a fanatic about guns. I raised my boys to know how to handle guns." In this, as in many other things, the elder Whitman insisted on excellence. He took pride in Charlie's prowess: "Charlie could plug a squirrel in the eye by the time he was sixteen." Given C. A.'s tutoring and the availability of so many firearms, Charlie was very proficient at a young age.
¹¹

C. A. Whitman had ambitions and wanted a better, more comfortable and accomplished life for his children than he had experienced. He may also have suffered from a need to relive his youth through his eldest son. Their experiences in the Boy Scouts of America provide a good example of the father's pressure on his son to excel. At age eight, Charlie joined the Cub Scouts where he attained the rank of Bear Scout. Two years later, the Lake Worth area experienced a shortage of Cub Scout leaders and Charlie was forced to drop out. In 1952, he attempted to join the Boy Scouts at age ten-and-a-half, but the minimum age for enrollment was eleven. He attended the meetings anyway and joined on or near his eleventh birthday. By that time he was prepared to earn a multitude of badges in a short time. According to Charlie himself, he reached the exalted

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