50th Anniversary of the UT-Austin Clock Tower shooting (8/1/66)

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young student and scoutmaster, firing with a Marine sniper's cold and deadly accuracy, killed 13 persons Monday from high in the University of Texas tower after slaying his wife and mother with knife and gun.

In an hour and a half of terror in the Texas capital, he also wounded 31 persons.

Two policemen ended the carnage by climbing to a platform above the sniper, Charles Joseph Whitman, 24, and killing him with six shots from a revolver and two blasts from a shotgun loaded with deer slugs.

Counting the sniper, the dead totaled 15. A sixteenth victim was the unborn child of a woman who was wounded. She was in her eighth month of pregnancy.

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Ramiro Martinez, 29, an off-duty policeman, heard what was going on, left his steak on the fire, jumped into uniform and rushed to the campus.

On his own, Martinez crawled and ran to the main entrance of the building, where he handed a rifle to Allen Crum, an employee of the university cooperative store. The two men made their way to the observation deck. As Martinez rounded a corner and saw Whitman, Martinez fired and Whitman returned one shot. Martinez emptied his revolver at Whitman.

Then officer George McCoy, 26, who had followed Martinez and Crum rushed onto the platform and emptied his shotgun at Whitman.

One of Martinez's pistol bullets smashed Whitman's rifle and another hit him in the neck. A buckshot pellet from McCoy's shotgun hit Whitman between the eyes from about 25 feet, and police said that was undoubtedly the shot that finished him off.

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