In fact, he only served to worsen them when he bought Brenda the rifle for Christmas. The Archangel Nomad kit is a drop-in polymer chassis that makes the 10/22 into a proper facsimile of an HK G36 assault rifle. Suddenly all the kids were gone. Brenda Spencer School Shooting: I Don't Like Mondays The police thought they would just get an elaboration of the overdose story that was much-rumored, but they were in for a totally different tale altogether. Brenda Spencer was only 16 years old at the time of the shooting, but the severity of her crimes led to her being tried as an adult. Loading your audio article. Despite this gross gender imbalance among the worlds criminals, when it came time for Satan to kick off the ghastly phenomenon that is the modern school spree shooting it was a woman who first squeezed the trigger. The justice of a murderer getting life, while their victims get death, is lost on me. Back in January 29, 1979, at 8.30am Spencer, then a geeky looking ginger-haired 16-year-old, took out the .22 rifle her father had bought her as a Christmas present and pointed it through her . To this day, 60-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer remains locked up in prison at the California Institution for Women in Corona. She grew up relatively poor and spent most of her early life with her father, Wallace Spencer, with whom she had a turbulent relationship. Mary recalls, I remember that fear; you dont know whats going on. My question to all of you is, If you are religious at all and believe it is a sin to kill a living person, how in the world can you believe that its OK to kill someone under the premise that it was the law that sanctioned it! One woman is forced to take drastic measures, while another is in for a big shock plus, Felicia delivers bad news, Laura is horrified, and Dex is thrown for a loop! When this part of the story was discovered, the thought that the girls had something to do with Skylars disappearance started to make more sense. There were many stories going around, and rumors spread across the school, most notably that Skylar died of a heroin overdose at a party. Its quite unfortunate however, to let stand for 24+ hours the comment from LeRoy, without posting the rebuttals it inevitably generated from your more informed readers. Therefore, the murderer must be held fully accountable. Kids in the comfortably middle-class neighborhood would later say Brenda was known to torture cats, and had dug a series of tunnels in her back yard; adults would describe her as a quiet loner. Cam Miller was wearing the down vest he had just gotten from Santa Claus. For example, it was revealed that Brenda had tried to shoot the school one year prior, using a BB gun. Enter a date in the format M/D (e.g., 1/1), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/school-shooting-in-san-diego, George W. Bush describes Iraq, Iran and North Korea as "axis of evil", Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter sign accords, Future president William McKinley is born, U.S. It is actually a prison within a prison, within a prison. For 20 minutes, Spencer continued to fire about 30 rounds into the crowd. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. When they went to get Skylar, they told her that they were just out driving for the night and were going to a town close by called Brave where they would go into the forest to smoke marijuana. After all of the shooting was over the Principal and Janitor were dead, eight students and one police officer was injured. Today, Brenda Spencer has been inducted into the Golden Girls Club at the California Institution for Women. She was not aware that Rachel came clean, and the police came up with the idea of wiretapping Shelia so they could get it from her lips that they actually killed Skylar. On three, Rachel said, and they went in for the kill. [dead link][5][7] [8], Acquaintances said Spencer expressed hostility toward policemen, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. Skylars tweets were basically a diary of what she was going through prior to her disappearance. Principal Wragg rushed into the line of fire to drag children to safety and was shot down as well. Because there was no trial, few details about her family or her past ever came to public light. Patricias call led to authorities coming to carry Rachel off to a mental institution where she remained for three days. I didnt know the story. At that point, there were few identifying features left, but on March 13 the crime lab made a confirmation that could finally put any doubts to an end. TIL In January 1979, 16 year old Brenda Ann Spencer was - Reddit Skylar walked back to the car to get the lighter when her friends snuck up on her. The Baffling Disappearance Of Jodi Huisentruit, The News Anchor Who Vanished Forever Just Before A Broadcast, The Disappearance Of Kristal Reisinger, The Colorado Mother Who Went Missing From A Drum Circle, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Spencer spent the next several hours barricaded in her house talking to police negotiators. As of 2015, there had been more than seven million copies sold. No! Aged 16 at the time of the shooting, she was 5'2" (157cm) and had bright red hair. Over time, shes started to express remorsefor the school shooting. For Christmas 1978, he gave her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition. She had no problem accepting that their sexuality differed from hers, but it was still uncomfortable to watch them, and even worse, it made the two of them closer with each other than they were with her. She attended Patrick Henry High School, where one teacher recalled frequently inquiring if she was awake in class. The Devil Conspiracy - Wikipedia It was time for Brenda to be held responsible for her actions and she was charged with two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. In addition to being reliable, accurate, and customizable, the 10/22 was also designed from the outset for ease of manufacture. One strange post of Shelias from November that year said, No one on this earth can handle me and Rachel if you think you can, youre wrong.. It should be an eye for eye and the debt gets paid. The probation officer also noted that Brenda was showing signs of being suicidal while attending a school for troubled kids. Figuring out whether you were a boy or a girl used to seem a fairly straightforward chore. Because thats what they are, theyre animals, he went on, and it would be difficult to argue with him there. 40 years after school shooting - PressReader On Monday morning, January 29, 1979, a herd of children had gathered outside the gates of the elementary school. Mary and Shelia got so close and even had cried together in bed, and David told the police to leave the girls alone. The Grover Cleveland Elementary School was demolished in 2018. He just said we'll deal with it as a family. What on that day had been unimaginable -- that a school could become a killing field -- is grimly familiar. What Shelia told Skylars parents sounded plausible, but a few things just didnt add up once more info came in. When another neighborhood is on the evening news, and Buell's father sees the stunned faces of parents in Jonesboro or Paducah or Littleton, he finds himself hungry for any scrap of information about the families of these children who kill, hoping, as he still does with Brenda Spencer these 20 long years later, to put all the pieces together and finally make sense of it. Required fields are marked *. school shootings. For Christmas 1978 her father, Wallace, had given her a .22 rifle as a present. She took first prize in a local Humane Society photography contest. As 53-year-old Principal Burton Wragg walked out to open up the facility Brenda opened fire with her 10/22. Brenda-Spencer - San Diego Police Historical Association Brenda repeatedly broke the windows at the Cleveland school by shooting them out with her BB gun. This only led the two girls to become more isolated from everyone other than themselves. The other best friend who completed the trio was Rachel Shoaf, who was at summer camp at the time. Brenda Spencer shot and killed two adults, wounded eight children and a San Diego police officer at Cleveland Elementary School in San Carlos on Jan. 29, 1979, 40 years ago. Things always get complicated among friends when one of them starts to change, and in high school, Skylars friends accused her of changing, and they blamed Shelia as the reason for it. "It was frightening. When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. [16] Crime-scene photos contradict these accounts. They met when they were just in their freshman year, and despite being a newcomer into a pair of old friends, she fit right in and the trio of BFFs spent all of their time together. Skylar never got a chance to grow up, and she would always be the intelligent, lovely blue-eyed girl that he knew before she died. What if they got the idea from what I did?. His name was Coach Smith. Though she worked hard during the school year, she was free over the summer and was able to spend hertime with her friends. He continued to say, She claimed she wasnt trying to kill anybody, she was just shooting. From 2005 to 2017, it housed the Magnolia Science Academy,[26] a public charter middle school serving students in grades 68. Brenda Spencer liked violent TV shows, shooting with her BB gun and engaged in petty theft. Suggest an edit or add missing content. Brenda Spencer: The 'I Don't Like Mondays' School Shooter - All That's Aftermarket dress-up kits span the spectrum. She remembers how her dad used to walk her slowly through the hospital corridors, and how they would stand in a breezeway and watch the lights of passing cars on the freeway below. When she left, she went for a police interview where the truth of what happened to Skylar was finally revealed. All Rights Reserved. Feature Articles, She injured eight children and a police officer, and killed the principal and a custodian. She was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. Brenda Spencer, aged 16, fired rifle shots into a school playground in California in January 1979, killing the head teacher and caretaker and wounding eight children and a police officer. [17] In prison, Spencer was diagnosed with epilepsy and received medication to treat epilepsy and depression. However, the .17HMR and .22 Win Mag versions were only available for a couple of years. As if Skylars death was not twisted enough, the derangement of Shelia and Rachel makes it worse. Why do you think you should deserve a second chance when the principal and the custodian had none? The Neeses could never get their girl back but they may live with the satisfaction of knowing that they may have saved the lives of others. She was sentenced to 25 years to life on the day after her 18thbirthday. A tiny brass plaque by the flagpole commemorates the principal and custodian who died trying to rescue fallen children and herd the others to safety that day. Brenda Spencer: "I Don't Like Mondays" - Medium Both Shelia and Rachel were only 16 when they murdered Skylar, but they were tried as adults for what they did. "Six months after I got my jacket back, I found a hole in the hood," she recalls, surmising that a third bullet passed through it without striking her. Then, read about the Dunblane Massacre, the deadliest school shooting in the U.K. Before The Columbine Massacre Or Parkland Shooting, There Was Brenda Ann Spencer. SCHOOL SHOOTER - BRENDA SPENCER - CMM-Crime, Mystery & Mayhem I came to the conclusion that it all depends on how much you want the convicted to suffer. This is known as restitutiongiving back what was taken unlawfully. This was west of Morgantown and Star City, but Shelia and Rachel both made the claim that they went east. In fact, the girls came up for the idea of killing their best friend while they were sitting in science class. Brenda Ann Spencer was born in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962. In 2009, the board again refused her application for parole, and ruled it would be ten years before she would be considered again. Death would have been welcome. By this point, she had fired a sum total of thirty rounds. Spencer eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, where California law forbids her to grant interviews. More than four decades have passed since Brendas attack, and shes had plenty of time to reflect on her shocking actions. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. Then, she put the rifle down, barricaded herself inside her home, and waited. Skylars role in the group is exemplified by what Skylars mom said about Skylar and Shelia. Police were forced to send negotiators to speak with her, but she refused to cooperate. And despite her efforts to downplay her own crime, Spencer herself has admitted that her actions may have indeed led to other similar attacks. Neighbours reported that she repeatedly abused Jumping into action, Daryl managed to pull a few kids to safety, narrowly missing being shot himself. The story was sensational and inspired several recounts of the tragedy in the form of documentaries, newspaper headlines, and even a popular song. At her first hearing, in 1993, Spencer said she had hoped police would shoot her, and that she had been a user of alcohol and drugs at the time of the crime, although the results of drug tests done when she was taken into custody were negative. At least once a night, he remembers, he would wake his mother and have her walk him around the house, to the back where there was a wall of windows. In lesser crimes, such as stealing property, the thief can restore what was stolen, in most cases. Hed seen murderers openly boast about what they did, and he felt that it would not be long before Shelia or Rachel came clean to someone, whether out of guilt or just by letting their secret slip out. She actually said, It was a lot of fun seeing children shot. She also explained that it was her intent to leave the house guns ablazing. As of 2022, Spencer has been unsuccessful at six parole board hearings. When queried concerning her motivations she said, I dont like Mondays. Sometimes Wallace Spencer would say hello when he came to pick his daughter up, and Buell is certain that he knew who she was, and she wonders now what he thought. Spencer barricaded herself in her house for hours before an offer for a Burger King meal from negotiators convinced her to surrender. Perhaps you should check out the first several verses in Romans, chapter 13. Spencer later said: "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." When asked why he might . Even though Id be just as sad for her death as for those two men she killed and the many youngns she wounded, it would be justice served and not delayed. The 9-acre site has been repurposed for housing, under the KB developer team, with units available starting at $700,000. This livens up the day. She informed him that she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets. Major Dabbs eventually resigned his commission in favor of medical school where he delivered 60 babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. After six long hours, Brenda threw in the towel and surrendered herself. While at the California Institution for Women in Chino, she worked repairing electronic equipment.[7][18]. Unfortunately, Brendas father wasnt able to help his daughter with her struggles. Bob Geldof, lead singer for the rock group theBoomtown Rats,read about the incident and wrote a song titledI Dont Like Mondaysthat was released in July of 1979. Asked why he had done that, she answered, "He bought the rifle so I would kill myself. Brendas actions may have been rapid, but they had an everlasting impact on the community and family of the victims. You learn to basically cope. A Case of the Mondays: Brenda Spencer and the Cleveland Elementary Across the street, inside a cluttered one-story home, Brenda Spencer, a junior at Patrick Henry High School, was alone. Blank, empty stare. I dont know how Californias female prisons are. It helped that she cooperated with authorities, considering that she confessed, helped the police find Skylars body, and contributed to the evidence against Shelia as well. He took a month-long training course to learn how to handle a weapon himself with more confidence. She has been formally inducted into the Golden Girls Club, an organization of female inmates aged older than 55. For example, Charles Cam Miller wears a scar across his chest, compliments of Brendas bullets. Prison should be reserved for those guilty of minor or first time felonies, where there is a chance of rehabilitation. In 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer shot up an elementary - Reddit Brenda Spencer was born on April 3, 1962 in San Diego, California, USA. Skylar thought she could save her, she stated. Her father had given her the gun as a Christmas gift, and she was itching to use it. Hart was a private investigator involved in the case and interviewed Spencer's mother, father, brother, sister, friends, and neighbors within months of the attack. First, on the television news from his hospital bed, which showed police leading away a petite freckled girl with long red hair and aviator glasses. There is a memorial to Skylar at a tree in Pennsylvania that David Neese visits to mourn, and even if it may bring him some peace, the sadness never goes away. In Shelias story, they got Skylar around 11 PM and dropped her off by midnight. They also noticed that while Shelia did make posts searching for answers for her friends disappearance, her and Rachel posted many unrelated things that made it seem like they moved on. CAPTION: Brenda Spencer said she opened fire at the school because "I hate Mondays.". The stories that came out of there are epic. Whether these theories are true or not, Brenda Spencer was tried as an adult and pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and nine counts of assault. The. Thats because at that time in that place it would have been literally unimaginable to shoot up a school. In his opinion, Brenda didnt know what she was doing when she opened fire on the school and claims that sheno longer presents a threat to society. From the outside, the three girls were an unbreakable pod that shined like the sun. Photos of Brenda Ann Spencer, 16, who killed two adults and wounded eight children in a 1979 sniper attack on a San Diego elementary school. When another school shooting is on the evening news, be it Jonesboro or Paducah or Pearl or Littleton, Cam Miller finds himself watching for the fearful faces of young survivors.
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