Posted
by Patrick Quinn
January 31, 2006 at 6:20 a.m.
Goleta
AP reports this morning that a former postal worker with a gun entered a mail-processing plant in Goleta, California last night and shot seven people, killing six, before turning the gun on herself. Another victim was badly wounded and at this hour is listed in critical condition. Is this a first? I'm not as current on big-headline homicides as I once was--these days they all seem to run together--but mass murder is typically a man's work, unless the victims are family members in the home. When the country was mad with fascination for serial killlers there was some speculation that Aileen Wournos was the tip of a hitherto undetected Female Serial Killer Iceberg, but so far that has not proved to be the case, and anyway workplace shootings seem to be the product of a much different dynamic than serial murder.In any event we appear to have our first female workplace shooter. Can a female George Hennard be far behind?
and 3 others
Comments
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lazz (anonymous) says…
yeah man, I was thinking the same thing when I heard the shooter referred to as "she" ... wow.
but as for Hennard, no, I don't think so. The only sort of woman who would go into a Luby's for any reason would have to be at least 65, and I just don't think we'll see a blue-haired mass murderer any time soon ...
noaconstrictor (Noah Larsen) says…
Let's not forget our Mexican female serial killer from last week:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/america...
quinn (Patrick Quinn) says…
Good catch, noah--I missed the arrest.
A former professional wrestler....
Mucha Lucha! Strangling little old ladies is not buena!
noaconstrictor (Noah Larsen) says…
There was also the very famous "I don't like Mondays" killer, Brenda Spencer. She opened fire on her school killing 10 or 11 in the 1970s. The Boomtown Rats had a hit song about the incident.
lazz (anonymous) says…
Um, I think "I don't like Mondays" was the reason given by the guy who shot up the McDonald's outside San Diego.
Could be wrong.
lazz (anonymous) says…
Could be wrong, and am. Yet again!
NoaC, you're very right, Brenda Spencer, 16 years old, used a rifle to shoot up Cleveland Elementary, across the street from her house in San Diego, in 1979. Killed two men, wounded eight children and a cop. When asked why, she said, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." Other comments during the six-hour standoff: 'There was no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun''; ''It was just like shooting ducks in a pond''; and ''[the children ] looked like a herd of cows standing around, it was really easy pickings.''
She's up for her fifth parole hearing in 2009; she's gone from denying it, saying the children were shot by the police, to now admitting the shooting but blaming it on sexual abuse by her father and her own drug and alcohol addictions.
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/mon...
The San Diego (actually, San Ysidro, between San Diego and the border) McDonald's shooting happened in 1984, the first large-scale mass murder since, I guess, since 1966, when Charles Whitman killed 14 from the UT belltower in Austin. In San Ysidro, James Oliver Huberty walked into a McDonald's, and, armed with three guns, killed 21 people in a 77-minute spree ended by a police sniper. The McDonald's understandably never reopened; the site is now a community college with a small park with white stone markers for the victims. I think it remains the single largest death toll in any such incident in US history. Lovely.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/...
quinn (Patrick Quinn) says…
Brenda Spencer--another good call. Killed two, wounded eight in 1979. She was indeed the "I don't like Mondays" shooter. Wikipedia says Tori Amos (!) covered Geldof's song. Spencer was turned down for parole for the fourth time last year.
quinn (Patrick Quinn) says…
Huberty... how could I have possibly forgotten that guy?
The collection of American psychos grows ever larger.
lazz (anonymous) says…
Speaking of Boomtown Rats, back in the day the Rats came through Lawrence, and one of the local frats build a giant paper-mache rat in its front art; the Rats ended up staying in the frat that night, so the legend goes, and the next day the frat rats and the boomtown rats hitched up the rat and pulled in through downtown in an impromptu parade ...
back when fun was still legal ...
feeble (anonymous) says…
Gotta small quibble, mass murder and serial murder are *very* different acts, with different causes, perps and MO's.
That said, I imagine things like this are just a function of population size.
subsalr (Don Mittelstaedt) says…
Equality is slowly coming. Employment outside of the home is steadily increasing as well as duration of employment, even pay equality is improving. Drinking & drug use are up, cancer rates are increasing. Slowly but surely there will be parity in another male bastion or two, mass murder & shooting some son-of-a-bitch just because he deserves it! We may even be entering an era wherein sexual hassassment takes on a whole new dynamic!
A couple of 15 shot clips filled with 158 grain semi-jacketed hollow points will provide more talking points than thousands of hours spent in bullshit touchy-feelie awareness classes.
lazz (anonymous) says…
"I imagine things like this are just a function of population size."
Do 'splain.
(good catch on the mass murder/serial killer thing, feeble. thnx)
quinn (Patrick Quinn) says…
Wassup, Gunny--you getting my email?
Keith (anonymous) says…
While we're celebrating songs about famous mass murderers, don't forget current candidate for Texas Gov. Kinky Friedman's ode to the Austin Assassin, "The Ballad of Charles Whitman". Sample lyric "He didn't choke or slash or slit them, not our Charles Joseph Whitman, he won't be an Architect no more"
quinn (Patrick Quinn) says…
Excellent link, Marion. The stats suggest that poison is by far the preferred weapon employed by female serial killers.
I found the revised typology quite interesting. I've never entirely bought the "organized/disorganized" classification that caught fire in the '90s.
My only caveat was the note about Bonnie Parker. I've never seen a first-person account alleging that Parker "enjoyed putting a few extra bullets in the cops." They were both crazy violent, but I think Barrow was the real killer. As I recall, both of the accomplice confessions said that Parker was quick to jump into the gang's numerous gunfights, but I don't remember anything about Parker "enjoying" any of it. (Although one of the confessions--Methvin?--said that Parker once encouraged Barrow to murder a kidnapped police officer, but that Barrow was talked out of it by his brother.) Parker was a waitress who robbed banks; Barrow was a career criminal and by all accounts a superior gunfighter and complete sociopath--John Wesley Hardin minus the charm and the brains.
thomas13 (anonymous) says…
What does this have to do with the Tractatus?