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 (8 page)

Page 19

relationship with his father, Charlie approached his orders dutifully He earned a Good Conduct Medal, a Sharpshooter's Badge, and the Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal for his service in Cuba. Years later the Executive Officer of the 2nd Marine Division, Captain Joseph Stanton, would state, "He was a good marine. I was impressed with him. I was certain he'd make a good citizen." Charlie carried a card with these typed words:


YESTERDAY IS NOT MINE TO RECOVER, BUT TOMORROW IS MINE TO LOSE. I AM RESOLVED THAT I SHALL WIN THE TOMORROWS BEFORE ME!!! ⁷

He tried desperately to live by the creed; numerous handwritten and typed copies of the quote were found throughout his personal effects.

While at Guantanamo Bay, Charlie learned of a scholarship program designed to increase the number of scientists in the United States Military. The Naval Enlisted Science Education Program (NESEP), begun after the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik I, was intended to train engineers who would later become commissioned officers. Charlie applied for a scholarship on 2 February 1961 and like all other scholarship candidates, took a competitive exam. He scored high enough to go before a selection committee who recommended him for a NESEP scholarship, which he eventually received. Marine Colonel M. H. LaGrone would later describe recipients of this prestigious scholarship: "Only the best are picked and located at various colleges."
⁸Charlie was expected to earn an engineering degree, follow up with ten months of Officers' Candidate School, and then become a commissioned officer.

The marines sent Charlie to a preparatory school from 5 June to 31 July 1961 in Bainbridge, Maryland, for enrichment courses in math and physics. There he met and formed a lasting friendship with Francis Schuck, Jr., a fellow NESEP scholar. Schuck was a native Texan who helped Charlie with his trigonometry and algebra coursework. Upon arriving in Austin for the 1961 fall semester, they both reported to the Navy ROTC office. Afterwards, Charlie enrolled in the university with a major in mechanical engineering and was officially admitted on 15 September 1961.

Page 20

NESEP scholars were generously rewarded. A civilian allowance supplemented their regular pay. According to a credit file cited in an FBI report, Charlie received $250 a month from the marines. Reportedly, C. A. Whitman chipped in an additional $140 a month. Tuition, books, and other campus fees also were paid.

During this time Charlie moved into Goodall-Wooten men's dorm. Francis Schuck, Jr., suggested to dorm officials that Charlie would make a good counselor. Schuck and Charlie were interviewed by the dean of men and the owner of the dorm and were offered jobs, which meant free boarding, and hence, extra money Charlie had plenty of resources to live very well as a college student.
⁹

What residence hall officials did not know was that Charlie was entering a second phase of his marine career. For the first time in his life, he would experience real freedom. He did not handle it very well. The first time Charlie ever exercised any significant control over his daily affairs should have been a cause for elation. But less than three months after his emancipation, he nearly got himself thrown into jail. He, Schuck, and another student named Jim Merritt ventured out into the Hill Country west of Austin, and in an area near the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch, poached a deer by "jacklighting" it. A Hill Country resident observed the dead catch protruding from the trunk of Charlie's car, noted the license number and reported the incident to the Texas Game and Fish Commission. The game warden assigned to the case, Grover Simpson, with three policemen, followed a trail of deer blood from the entrance of the dorm to Charlie's room, where they caught Charlie and his cohorts skinning the catch in a shower. Charlie claimed to have wanted to send his father a supply of deer meat for Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, Simpson found in Charlie a cooperative and even likeable suspect, a "darn nice fellow."

Perhaps because he was new to Texas, a student, one of "our boys in uniform," or maybe because he could be charming, the incident was dropped after Charlie agreed to pay a $100 fine. Or maybe authorities found the spectacle of butchering a deer in a shower in a dorm inhabited by hundreds of college boys to be laughable. Regardless, he had been caught poaching in Texas, and he should have considered himself extremely fortunate at Travis County Court on 20 November 1961 when, as part of Case #69869, he was allowed

Page 21

to plead guilty, pay his fine plus court costs in the amount of $29.50, and go back to the dorm. Eight days later, however, he foolishly entered a motion for a new trial; the judge overruled him.
¹⁰

The Charlie that Francis Schuck observed had good relations with his family. He kept a steady and faithful correspondence with them all and spoke of earning a degree in mechanical engineering so as to return to Florida and join C. A. in his business. He shared a love of guns and hunting with his father and looked forward to hunting trips they made together.
¹¹Charlie appeared to be a responsible student. "He seemed more mature than most students, and [was] very, very serious," stated Professor Leonardt Kreisle, Charlie's academic advisor. Schuck remembered him as well-mannered, good looking, well-dressed, and personable. But he had a distracting habit of biting his fingernails, which subtracted from his otherwise impeccable appearance.
¹²

Today it is evident that Charlie had become a consummate actor. He could be a serious student, a contrite poacher, a daredevil, or a model marine. He considered himself a polished bluffer and a better-than-average gambler. In Charlie's circle of acquaintances, the stakes could get high, especially for college students with limited resources. Charlie and his friends often drove considerable distances to play poker. During one all-night poker game in San Antonio in March of 1962, a fellow dorm resident named Robert Ross bet $190 on a hand; Charlie called and lost. He had lost a total of $400 that night. The Texas State Bank check he wrote to settle the debt bounced. When Ross approached him with the bounced check, Charlie was lying on his dorm room bunk throwing a huge hunting knife into a closet door. "Look, kid, my family is loaded. I'll get you your money Don't worry about it," he said.
¹³Ross, considerably smaller than Whitman, would later decide the debt unworthy of pursuit. It would never be paid. The episode revealed Charlie to be obsessed with making quick money, to think nothing of dismissing a debt, to be able to revert to a dependence on his "loaded" family (i.e., C. A. Whitman), and to have little conscience when it came to intimidating the smaller and weaker.

Equally revealing was the manner in which Charlie dealt with characters who could intimidate
him
. After another night of gambling he owed a debt of $200, this time to two ex-con brothers well

Page 22

known in Austin circles as a very tough pair. Again he paid part of his debt by check but before it could be cashed Charlie put a stop on it; he claimed he had been cheated. Less than a day later, the men were at his dorm room threatening him with a knife. Charlie had been frightened enough to seek the advice of his former roommate, John Drolla, a first-year law student, who suggested going to the district attorney's office to report the matter. There Charlie swore out a "peace bond" against the ex-cons. He also wore a 357 magnum in a holster under his coat until he learned that his predators were incarcerated in the Dallas area for auto theft. Schuck later remembered: "It didn't take long after this incident and the urging of myself and Kathy, whom he was now dating steadily along with another girl . . . to stifle Charlie's interest in card playing.
¹⁴

Not all instances of Charlie's immaturity were so sinister, though some could be cruel. David Pratt, a dorm resident, related that after a night of drinking, Charlie decided to try to get Nikita Khruschev on the phone in order to tell the Soviet General Secretary that he did not like him. He then engaged in a ridiculous exchange with a telephone operator.
¹⁵On another occasion, Charlie and a friend named Jim were involved in an automobile accident. Charlie, bloodied, dirtied, and wet, returned to the dorm at about 5:00
A.M.
Other dormmates had been playing poker when he arrived to announce that Jim had been "killed."


Everyone was speechless. We called Jim's girlfriend on campus even though it was before dawn. Then we sat shaking our heads in disbelief. Suddenly Jim appeared around the corner of the door and said, "The ghost walks!" Charlie lay on the floor and couldn't move, he was so convulsed with laughter. ¹⁶

Lost in their foolishness was the unnecessary grief that Jim's young girlfriend must have experienced. Charlie thought that was funny.

After a number of cruel jokes, gambling, instances with firearms, and butchering a deer in a shower, dorm residents concluded that there was little that Charlie could do anymore to surprise anyone. Consequently, Francis Schuck, Jr., while seated on the balcony of Charlie's dorm room, thought nothing of a remark Charlie was to

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