However, Rachel was not able to pinpoint exactly where they buried her, and the January snowfall didnt help either. He wore T-shirts when swimming to cover his scar. "I think it's really sad all those kids are going to have to go through what I've gone through all my life," he says. Facing Brenda, authorities asked the question that had been hanging on everyones lips - what caused her to commit such heinous actions? Brenda Spencer was sixteen years old when she shot and killed two people at a school in California. Related Tags: This is the true story of Brenda Spencer and her deadly attack. In her hands, she held a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle. As one might expect, unfettered chaos ensued. 1979 mass shooting in San Diego, California, U.S. For the shooting in Northern California, see, Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego), Cleveland Elementary School shooting (Stockton), "School Sniper Suspect Bragged Of 'Something Big To Get On TV', "Look back in sorrow: in 1979, a teenage girl opened fire on a suburban San Diego elementary school; today, as the nation reels from a rash of similar tragedies, the survivors still struggle to understand why it happened", "Girl Sniper Kills 2, Wounds 9 at San Diego School", "Classmates Say Alleged Sniper Seemed Lonely, Friendless Girl", "40 years ago, Brenda Spencer took lives, changed lives in a mass shooting at a San Diego elementary school", "School Shooter Brenda Spencer Denied Parole", "School rifle attack nets 25 years to life", "No parole granted for 'I don't like Mondays' school shooter", "She didn't like Mondays, they don't want plaque moved", "Tragic past, uncertain present, bright future of Cleveland Elementary", "Victims of San Diego School Shooting Are Forced to Cope Again 10 Years Later", "Watch Deadly Compulsion Full Episode - Killer Kids | Lifetime", "Killer Kids - Season 3 Episode 19 Deadly Compulsion", "Deadly Women | Season 2 Episode 1 Thrill Kills", "40 Years Ago, Brenda Spencer Took Lives At Elementary School", "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 1", "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 2", "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 3", "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 4", Murder Historian - I Don't Like Mondays Blog, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Liberty Point International Middle School, Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, "'No Way to Prevent This', Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens", List of school shootings in the United States by death toll, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(San_Diego)&oldid=1150206840, Attacks on buildings and structures in the United States, Elementary school killings in the United States, Elementary school shootings in the United States, Articles with dead external links from August 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Articles with dead external links from November 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Students and faculty at Grover Cleveland Elementary School, This page was last edited on 16 April 2023, at 21:46. Best explanation why the death penalty for deliberate murder is not only just but the society that disregards it deserves to fall. You can navigate days by using left and right arrows, Brenda Spencer kills two men and wounds nine children as they enter the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. Just a few months after the BB gun incident, Spencers probation officer had suggested that she spend some time in a mental hospital for depression. how to disable moto app launcher; moose pond maine water quality. He wishes he had. The standard .22LR rifle feeds from a flush-mounted 10-round helical-feed magazine, though aftermarket magazines and drums carry fifty rounds or more. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. Spencer shot and wounded eight elementary school kids. This seemed convincing enough for Skylar, who went along with questioning things. What on that day had been unimaginable -- that a school could become a killing field -- is grimly familiar. She was a problem child who was widely known as a drug abuser with a violent streak. Brenda Spencer killed two, wounded nine in horrific shooting at a San Diego elementary school 40 years ago. In high school, Skylar and Shelia added a third person to their group, and that was Rachel. The report stated that she had clawed the words Pride and Courage into her flesh. Both father and daughter slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles from alcoholic drinks. No! She was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. Christy Buell never left the old neighborhood, still living in her childhood home just a few blocks from the school, and from the ranch-style house where Brenda Spencer's father still lives. School custodian, Mike Suchar, was also killed while trying to pull a student to safety, and incredibly, all of the children survived, although eight of them were injured alongside a responding police officer. Spencer spent the next several hours barricaded in her house talking to police negotiators. When someone posts an ill advised accusation against you or your weekly audience, please allow us to respond in a timely manner. Why do we continue to house and feed these animals. Before 1979, school shootings were few and far between. . Spencer pled guilty to two counts of 1st-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. If Skylar was the grounded one, Shelia was the one who kept things exciting. Because thats what they are, theyre animals, he went on, and it would be difficult to argue with him there. To this day, Cam Miller hesitates before dressing in blue. In 2016, he took his final breath at 87 years old. Somebody saw it in his locker and alerted the headmaster, himself a Naval officer who had served in the Pacific during World War 2. She even had a few violent instances on her track record, including firing a BB gun into the windows of the elementary school campus, shattering the windows. He just said we'll deal with it as a family. On January 29, 1979, in San Diego, California, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who lived just across the road from the Cleveland Elementary School, opened fire on the students and school personnel with a .22-caliber rifle. Though she damaged the windows, she didnt hurt anyone that time around. A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. The sentence is a harsh one, but it is hard to argue for anything else after what she did. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. It is hard to fathom how these girls committed such a vile act and had it in their souls to post cryptic messages about it, and it just makes it all even more disturbing that Shelia posted on social media, We really did go on three, referring to the countdown she and Rachel had for killing Skylar. Principal Wragg rushed into the line of fire to drag children to safety and was shot down as well. Yet Brenda didnt appear to be intoxicated. For Christmas in 1978, her father, Wallace Spencer, gave her a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle. Rachel, on the other hand, was quite quite different from Shelia. You learn to basically cope. On April 4, 1980, a day after her 18th birthday, she was sentenced to 25 years to life. More than four decades have passed since Brendas attack, and shes had plenty of time to reflect on her shocking actions. What she did was so awful, shooting at children. Another tweet around that time spoke of a similar feeling of betrayal. At 16 and using a .22 rifle her father had given her as a Christmas present she started shooting, wounding 8 and killing 2. On Monday morning, January 29, 1979, a herd of children had gathered outside the gates of the elementary school. When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. The prevalence of school shootings has been studied by a professor at the University of Southern California who suggests that widespread media has contributed to the increase. Disturbed teens are just as capable of committing the most heinous crimes as their adult counterparts, and Skylar Neese's story proves that even further. It was Jan. 29, 1979, and in a tranquil San Diego suburb, Grover Cleveland Elementary School had just become ground zero in an undeclared war. [17] In prison, Spencer was diagnosed with epilepsy and received medication to treat epilepsy and depression. The principal of the school, Burton Wragg, was killed during the attack. In fact, the girls came up for the idea of killing their best friend while they were sitting in science class. He was only nine years old when the bullet pierced him from back to front. The unit was getting more and more isolated. "I saw the principal in the sticker bush, moaning," she flashes back. For years, Haley was taught to fear Brenda Spencer and stay silent. Standing 52 tall and weighing 89 pounds, Brenda Spencer was once described as too small to be scary., true stories behind Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. In Norway in 2011, a man killed 77 people in a mass shooting. No! I did this because its a way to cheer up the day. [13] She injured eight children; she began with nine-year-old Cam Miller, since he was wearing Spencer's favorite color blue. Eight students and a police officer were wounded. After an emotionally intense trial, Brenda Spencer was found guilty of two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 25 years to life. Brenda Ann Spencer was born in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962. A week before she carried out the shooting that would make her infamous, she allegedly told her classmates that she was going to do something big to get on TV.. Perhaps she noticed, though, how strange it was that on a hot summer night the two girls were wearing hoodies. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. After releasing fire, Brenda put the rifle down and shut herself inside her home. Brenda Ann Spencer was born in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962. By the time that she eventually left the house, police were desperate to find out the motivation for her morbid actions - but nothing couldve prepared them for her response. I just did it for the fun of it, explained Spencer. He and his wife drove the hour and a half through the desert to the California Institution for Women, arriving much too early. Brenda Spencer in 1979 The Shot Heard Around the World It was January 29, 1979, when one of the first school shootings took place in a suburb of San Diego. Still, she finds herself thinking about it in the abstract at the preschool where she teaches, especially when she's outside with the children. 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. In 1966, a gunman opened fire at the University of Texas and killed 17 people, and wounded 21 individuals. Head scans later revealed permanent damage to one of her temporal lobes that likely contributed to the aberrant behavior that was to follow. With all of this information from Rachel which corroborates things that happened in the real world, it became time for the police to get Shelia to speak. Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats was inspired by the tragic shooting, and Brendas bizarre motivation, and wrote the songI Dont Like Mondays. Stunned by the tragic shooting, Bob Geldof, the lead singer of the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, wrote a song titled I Dont Like Mondays. Released just months after the attack, the tune topped the U.K. charts for four weeks, and it also received extensive airtime in the U.S. And according to The Advertiser, the song did not go unnoticed by Spencer. After all of the shooting was over the Principal and Janitor were dead, eight students and one police officer was injured. One quick note regarding comments. Was this just normal teenage drama, or was something deeper and more disturbing going on? When the police ventured inside the Spencer home, they were shocked at what they found. Our drivers ed teacher was a compulsive hunter. Mary Neese said, She proceeded to tell me that her, Skylar, and Rachel snuck out the night before and they had driven around Star City, and getting high, and that the two girls dropped her back off at the house. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. Blue made him a target. Spencer barricaded herself in her house for hours before an offer for a Burger King meal from negotiators convinced her to surrender. Thats because at that time in that place it would have been literally unimaginable to shoot up a school. Real Life Three shots rang out. It seems the woke western world cares more about the rights of criminals than the rights of victims and society. During the night, she snuck out of her window, which they discovered later on in a black and white video that showed her leaving, carrying her purse, and entering a vehicle that was waiting for her to make her getaway. The Grover Cleveland Elementary School was demolished in 2018. Every 10/22 rifle is tapped for a scope mount that comes with the gun. From the outside, the three girls were an unbreakable pod that shined like the sun. Eventually, Spencer surrendered peacefully. Theres no logic in buying a suicidal teen a gun, yet Brendas father did so anyway. We typically left them in gun racks in the back windows of our pickup trucks or in car trunks in anticipation of after-school hunting trips. Sadly, there has been a number of school shootings since Brenda Spencer's rampage, yet she is often considered the first person to ever target the (many) vulnerable victims at a school. Because the process (accountability, repentance, and restitution) requires it. The principal of the school, Burton Wragg, responded quickly and rushed to help the kids through the gates. Figuring out whether you were a boy or a girl used to seem a fairly straightforward chore. (Disturbingly, Wallace Spencer later married one of his daughters 17-year-old cellmates who bore a striking resemblance to her.) She resembled Brenda. This livens up the day." Trivia (3) On January 29, 1979, sixteen year old Brenda Spencer pointed her .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle that she had received as a Christmas present from her father out her bedroom window to San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School across the street. After learning about Brenda Ann Spencer, discover the true stories behind Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the infamous Columbine shooters. I have an issue with a 16-year-old daughter of mine. After six long hours, Brenda threw in the towel and surrendered herself. 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. "My wife saw her through the window and said, `There she is.' There were no Monday blues at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, on the morning of January 29, 1979. She was frequently absent from school. Unfortunately, thats exactly what happened. [28], Bob Geldof, then the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, read about the incident when a news story about it came off the telex at WRAS-FM, the campus radio station at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Eventually, Brenda grew peckish. She just came on in, said Skylars mom. She was like, Listen to this. Shelia and Skylar were fighting, but Skylar didnt know Shelia had put her on three-way calling, and Rachel was listening in, he said. I dont know how Californias female prisons are. Born in 1962 in San Diego, California, and raised across the street from the Grover Cleveland Elementary School, by her sixteenth birthday Brenda stood all of 52 and sported bright red hair. The Grover Cleveland Elementary School massacre is truly one of the most disturbing stories ever told, as both the assailantand most of the victims - were children. One negotiator remembers promising her a Burger King Whopper before she finally came outside. 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. 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.. Brenda shot the first police officer to respond in the neck with her rifle. At the same time, Brenda was skulking behind the window of her home, across the street. But Wallace Spencer reportedly refused to admit her, claiming that he could handle his daughters mental health issues on his own. There may come a time when the shooting will be a blip in the memory of the neighborhood community in San Diego, yet that is a long time coming. In the aftermath of the attack, it was revealed that Brenda Spencer had shot at the school one year earlier with a BB gun. . [4][5][6][7] After her parents separated, she allegedly lived in poverty with her father, Wallace Spencer. She lived with her dad, who worked as a university technician. First introduced in 1964, the Ruger 10/22 is likely the most successful .22 rifle ever devised. The house I graduated high school from looked over at San Quentin State Prison. Of course, none of that forgives what she did, and nothing ever could. "[30] Spencer disputes ever contacting Geldof. [5][7] Police officers found beer and whiskey bottles cluttered around the house but said Spencer did not appear to be intoxicated when arrested. Since her incarceration, indefinite imprisonment has been made illegal after the United Nations adopted the Conventions Against Torture Act in 1984. This seemed to inspire Spencer into more grandiose plans, and she started telling her classmates that she was going to do something to get on TV. When Monday morning rolled around, Burton Wragg, the principal of Cleveland Elementary, was opening the gates of the school when Spencer started firing her rifle from across the street. In Skylars case, there was nothing to suggest that she had been kidnapped, and by all appearances, it looked like she ran away, so there was a delay in the report being filed. 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. The reason murder rises to the level of a capital crime is because you cant restore what you have stolenanothers life. According to Brendas friends and classmates, she had hinted at doing something big to get on television. I dont like Mondays, she said. Miraculously, none of the children were killed, though eight of them were injured. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Across the street, Brenda Ann Spencer was watching them from her house, which was filled with empty whiskey bottles and a single mattress that she shared with her father.
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