Skylars parents were nervous when they woke up with their daughter gone, seeing a stool next to the open window, and they really started to panic when she didnt show up to work that day, as Skylar was always responsible. This is the true story of Brenda Spencer and her deadly attack. I'm not traumatized for life or anything. She attended Patrick Henry High School, where one teacher recalled frequently inquiring if she was awake in class. Shockingly, during this time Brenda also spoke with several reporters, includingThe San Diego Union Tribune. Testosterone is the most potent poison known to man. Hopefully these kids will get counseling." Across the street, inside a cluttered one-story home, Brenda Spencer, a junior at Patrick Henry High School, was alone. What many people don't realize is thatthere were a few school mass shootings in the nation beforehand. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. The song was number 1 for four weeks in the UK, though it did not break the top 40 in the US. Daryls memory wasnt the only one that bubbled to the surface. It's used mostly for teacher workshops. One quick note regarding comments. As one might expect, unfettered chaos ensued. Her parents were separated, and she lived in squalor with her alcoholic father, Wallace Spencer. Spencers deadly plot was far from the earliest attack on an American school, but it was one of the first modern school shootings that led to multiple deaths and injuries. 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. She started dressing as a boy and learned to hunt, under her father's influence. Police were quick to arrive on the scene and rushed to the Spencer household to arrest their suspect, yet even though they were hasty in their response, Brenda was faster and had already sealed herself indoors. When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. This livens up the day.. We stabbed her, Rachel said, and it immediately became clear that Skylars death was not accidental but premeditated and over a month in the works. Today, Brenda is in her 50s and serving time in the California Institution for Women in Corona as a member of the Golden Girls Club. The reveal of this information was just the tip of the iceberg pertaining to her fathers role in the situation. her father gave her a .22 semi-automatic rifle and ammunition as a . Thanks to the new Skylars Law, the procedures would happen differently. In reality its far more violent and brutal than your imagination or a TV documentary could ever possibly depict. Asked for some explanation for the attack, Spencer allegedly said, I just dont like Mondays. The school was closed in 1983, along with a dozen other schools around the city, due to declining enrollment. 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. Related Tags: I just started shooting. Brenda Spencer liked violent TV shows, shooting with her BB gun and engaged in petty theft. Thus, he had first- The rear sight folds flat when not needed. After releasing fire, Brenda put the rifle down and shut herself inside her home. This is over! Patricia cut in saying, My husbands trying to contain her. She grew up relatively poor and spent most of her early life with her father, Wallace Spencer, with whom she had a turbulent relationship. [5][2] Spencer has been repeatedly reminded of these statements at parole hearings. When . This livens up the day.With the shocking confession, Brenda was about to face justice. EMC EMC /T1_3 1 Tf EMC /T1_3 1 Tf ( )Tj 0.006 Tw 2.118 0 Td 6. Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. On Monday morning, January 29, 1979, a herd of children had gathered outside the gates of the elementary school. [5][7] Police officers found beer and whiskey bottles cluttered around the house but said Spencer did not appear to be intoxicated when arrested. Things got even worse for them when the police proved through surveillance footage that Shelia was the owner of the car in the security camera footage. She remembers that there was snow in the mountains on the morning of the shooting; her father, Norm (her mother died when she was 3), considered letting his kids play hooky so he could take them up to play in it. For example, Charles Cam Miller wears a scar across his chest, compliments of Brendas bullets. He wishes he had. It helps to get some perspective on conflicts such as these, and Daniel Hovatter, a classmate of Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel, revealed some of what was going on with the girls at this time. Spencer, who was charged in court as an adult, pleaded guilty in 1980 to two counts of murder. 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. Yet even though the property was reclaimed for a different purpose, the developer has installed a memorial at the corner of Lake Atlin and Lake Angela streets, honoring the lives of Burton Wragg and Mike Suchar. Thats because at that time in that place it would have been literally unimaginable to shoot up a school. In addition, she gets two state pillows, three blankets, two mattresses, and first dibs on the bottom bunk if she wishes. 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. Her attorneys continued to argue that the treatment she received from her father which allegedly included sexual abuse was the real reason for her act of senseless violence. The defense did their best to paint thepicture of Brenda as a victim of abuse and mistreatment, yet their efforts failed. When you get past the grotesque actions of the two girls, you are left with a grieving family who not just lost their daughter but took their daughters killers in and gave them love and hospitality. Shelia didnt even knock on the door when she came over. Real Life Three shots rang out. Her death was a tragedy, but her life, however brief it was, was a gift to everyone who was lucky enough to know her, and that fact is something that keeps the Neeses going. She repeatedly broke the windows at the Cleveland school with her BB gun. Luckily, no one was hurt at the time, but Brenda was put on probation for her crime. [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. In fact, the girls came up for the idea of killing their best friend while they were sitting in science class. This livens up the day. She informed him that she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets. And although nine counts of attempted murder were ultimately dismissed from the case, Spencer was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison for her crimes. 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. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. However, if you took a closer look you could see that there was some conflict brewing amongst them, as you would expect from a group of high school girls. Stress still got to her, though, perhaps because of her job working at Wendys, not to mention the general conflicts that come with being a teenager. Her next opportunity for a parole hearing will be in 2025.[21][22][23][24]. That all changed on January 29, 1979. 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. 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. It happened when the girls arrived in the woods and came to the realization that they didnt bring their lighter with them, which prevented them from getting stoned. The parole board chairman said that, as she had not previously told anyone about the allegations, he doubted their veracity. 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. 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. 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. At the same time, Brenda was skulking behind the window of her home, across the street. She resembled Brenda. And despite her efforts to downplay her own crime, Spencer herself has admitted that her actions may have indeed led to other similar attacks. This seemed convincing enough for Skylar, who went along with questioning things. I recall one kid bringing a 1911 pistol to show off to his pals. Brenda had barricaded herself inside the home, warning police that she was armed - and after the shooting, there was no denying what she was capable of doing. Now,imprisonment with an indeterminate sentence is considered unconstitutional in the United States. We talk about it all the time. This was west of Morgantown and Star City, but Shelia and Rachel both made the claim that they went east. Eventually, Spencer surrendered peacefully. However, Rachel was not able to pinpoint exactly where they buried her, and the January snowfall didnt help either. Despite being under scrutiny from the police, Shelia remained calm in a way that just seems creepy. 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. The story was they had dropped her off at the end of the road because she didnt want to wake us up sneaking back in.. For Christmas in 1978, her father, Wallace Spencer, gave her a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle. He was only nine years old when the bullet pierced him from back to front. 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. Brenda alleged that her father Wallace both beat and sexually abused her. Brendas former attorney, Michael McGlinn, had decades' worth of experience working with juvenile offenders. She started her killing spree to 'liven up the day.' Spencer's murderous rampage might have claimed more victims had the police not obstructed her line of fire using a garbage truck. Rachel was charged with second-degree murder, and for that she was given a sentence of 30 years. CAPTION: Police help children after a sniper attack on an elementary school in California 20 years ago; for Cam Miller, shot in the back, the nightmares never stopped. 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. By the time the country's first high-profile school shooting was over that morning, the principal and a custodian were dead, and eight children were wounded. Spencer pled guilty to two counts of 1st-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Another clue emerged from Skylars actual journal, which provided proof of something that had been rumored at school: Shelia and Rachel had become more than friends and Skylar found out. In the 19th century, shed have been hanged and buried in an unmarked grave!! You dont ! Head scans later revealed permanent damage to one of her temporal lobes that likely contributed to the aberrant behavior that was to follow. Considering Brendas temperament, this shouldve been a big red flag, but the warning signs were overlooked - until it was too late. Like Cam Miller, she never sought professional help to cope with the trauma's aftermath. In Shelias story, they got Skylar around 11 PM and dropped her off by midnight. Brenda Spencer pled guilty to the charges against her. 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. "It was frightening. . The Spencer family made a concerted effort to keep the song off the air on this side of the pond, but it received fairly extensive airplay regardless. She says, I know there was a lot of turmoil in the family every time Brenda was up for parole. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal, and the movie Aliens., Previous post: Armed Customer In Philly Kills Would-Be Robber, Your email address will not be published. Based on Michael's beliefs, Brenda was sexually abused by her father. Once there, Spencer decided to withdraw her bid for parole. That summer, Spencer, who was known to hunt birds in the neighborhood, was arrested for shooting out the windows of Grover Cleveland Elementary with a BB gun and for burglary. Sure enough, it was no coincidence that Rachel went to summer camp the day after Skylar disappeared, as they planned the murder around her leaving. This is over. Though she recovered physically she was never quite right after that. Before her life was taken, she spoke her final words, asking Shelia and Rachel, Why?. Which is not a good thing to live with., CBS 8 San Diego/YouTubeIn 1993, Brenda Spencer told CBS 8 San Diego that she didnt remember saying, I dont like Mondays.. The principal of the school, Burton Wragg, responded quickly and rushed to help the kids through the gates. In late January 1979, Brenda Spencer killed two adults and injured eight children and one adult because of her hate for Mondays. What on that day had been unimaginable -- that a school could become a killing field -- is grimly familiar. According to The Daily Beast, she would later claim that her father was abusive toward her and that her mother just wasnt there.. Father of Brenda Spencer. Cam is 29 now, a strapping, dark-eyed man with scant resemblance to the fourth-grader with a bowl haircut whose picture appeared in the newspapers above the word "victim" so long ago. [25] In the ensuing decades, it was leased to several charter and private schools. We feel a life sentence is only fair for someone guilty of all those things. While society continued to condemn Brendas actions, she hasbeen inducted into the Golden Girls club. 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. . There are emotional scars, as well. Thanks again for the article, and please keep em coming! Spencer later said: "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." When asked why he might . Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. [31], The 1982 JapaneseAmerican documentary film The Killing of America depicts the incident. At Christmas of that year, he gave Brenda a Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic .22 rifle, a riflescope, and a 500-round brick of ammunition. There was no confusion about where the shots had originated from. Nowadays things are a bit more opaque. 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. 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. She was constantly posting on social media about her missing friend, with one of her posts saying rest easy, Skylar, youll ALWAYS be my best friend. He had wanted to confront her, finally. Two saplings planted in their memory took root in the bloodstained earth and have grown into trees now, sentries that stand tall and strong over an empty playground. What if they got the idea from what I did?, About the author: She also wandered the neighborhood killing birds with a BB gun. Somebody saw it in his locker and alerted the headmaster, himself a Naval officer who had served in the Pacific during World War 2. Just think of how many people have been executed and then later found to be innocent. Once the profiles were set up, he friended Rachel and Shelia on Facebook and followed them on Twitter. Eventually, Brenda grew peckish. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesBrenda Spencer had a reputation for being a problem child who struggled with numerous health issues. We didnt understand why she was shooting at us. It wasnt until Mary was reunited with her mother that the bullet hole through her zipper jacket was discovered. It stars Alice Orr-Ewing, Joe Doyle, Eveline Hall, Peter Mensah, Joe Anderson, Spencer Wilding, Brian Caspe and James Faulkner.. Filmed in the Czech Republic it was released at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival on September 10, 2022, and in theaters on . 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. A 7-year-old girl led him around a corner to a teacher. 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. Nobody likes Mondays.. In fact, he only served to worsen them when he bought Brenda the rifle for Christmas. Why didn't you just pull the gun on yourself? He bizarrely married Brendas 17-year-old prison cellmate after her release, and they had a daughter together. The modular nature of the design lends itself to creativity. Spencer shot and killed Wragg as he and teacher Daryl Barnes tried to help children. Brenda later said of the gift, I asked for a radio and he bought me a gunI felt like he wanted me to kill myself.. 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. Cam would insist on touching each pane of glass, to assure himself that none was broken, that "she" hadn't slipped inside. History, 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. Because the process (accountability, repentance, and restitution) requires it. Yet after years of holding her tongue, she decided to break the silence and tell her grandfathers story, helping to develop school safety curricula and guides for parents. Her father went on . She resembled Brenda. I may not have grown up with a grandpa, but many children grew up to have their own families. As Haley has come forward with her story, others have shared their own experience from the day. Being on the wild side, Shelia was seen as influencing her best friend in a negative way that made people uncomfortable. Skylars role in the group is exemplified by what Skylars mom said about Skylar and Shelia. Spencers hatred for the first day of the school week was later memorialized by Bob Geldof, the leader of the rock group The Boomtown Rats, in the song, I Dont Like Mondays.. Brenda was known as a misfit and wasnt particularly friendly or kind, instead of focusing on her studiesand dabbling in drugs. Still, her father gave her a .22 semi-automatic rifle and ammunition as a Christmas gift at the end of 1978. It was so bad that the two of them slept on a common mattress in the living room surrounded by empty beer and liquor bottles. Of course, she never could have guessed that they were hiding knives inside and that by going with them she sealed her fate. It happened at a sleepover where they took some alcohol from the adults, and Shelia and Rachel started making out. And some believe that she helped inspire future school shootings in later years, such as the Columbine High School massacre, the Virginia Tech shooting, and the Parkland mass murder. "I didn't talk about it. 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. She grew up relatively poor and spent most of her early life with her father, Wallace Spencer, with whom she had a turbulent relationship. Brenda shot the first police officer to respond in the neck with her rifle. The janitor used to give me erasers. "He said to go away, and I respected that," Norm recounts. One time sophomore year, me and Rachel were at practice for Pride and Prejudice, and Rachel had her phone up to her ear, and she was laughing. Spencer was only 16 years old at the time of her murderous attack. Every 10/22 rifle is tapped for a scope mount that comes with the gun. 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. However, Spencers drug and alcohol tests were all negative. She was sentenced to 25 years to life on the day after her 18thbirthday. Since he/she cannot give back that which was stolen, he/she must do the next best thingthat is forfeit his/her own life. [15] Ultimately, she surrendered and left the house, reportedly after being promised a Burger King meal by negotiators. Eleven others were injured, including eight children, two adults, and a police officer. . Brenda Spencer was one of the first massschool killers and fired30 rounds of ammunition in the schoolyard on the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979. When challenged she claimed the words were actually Unforgiven and Alone. She is currently 59 years old and resides at the California Institution for Women in Chino. She took first prize in a local Humane Society photography contest. Though the cops sent negotiators to speak with her, she refused to cooperate with them. Now 30, Christy is a sunny preschool teacher who is reluctant to talk about the shooting, because she considers it just "part of my life," and has moved on. 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. Therefore, the murderer must be held fully accountable. Contribute to this page. Her father and two brothers had left for the day, but she had called in. Another 9-year-old, Christy Buell, was pretending to ice-skate on the frosty grass before the final bell rang. 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. Chris decided his method of investigation into the case would be through social media, and he did so by making online accounts based on a persona he invented of a good-looking teenager who went to West Virginia University in Morgantown. For 20 minutes, Spencer continued to fire about 30 rounds into the crowd. Which is not a good thing to live with. In many ways, the song has continued Brendas notorious legacy for committing such a travesty. Even more shocking than the fact that she took two lives, and injured nine others, is the reason for her actions that she gave to the police. . Wallace Spencer was previously married to Dot Spencer. "If I go somewhere, like to a restaurant, I have to sit where I can avoid having my back to the window," he says. Eight students and a police officer were wounded. It was attributed to an accident on her bicycle. Theyre both sickos, said David Neese, Skylars father, and we have to agree with him with everything he said about the two girls. In fact, in 2001, she told the parole board, With every school shooting, I feel Im partially responsible. This might be why she put out a tweet on July 4th, 2012 saying Stress will be the death of me. Little did she or her parents know that she would soon be gone, and stress would have nothing to do with it. Over time, shes started to express remorsefor the school shooting. 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. She was using a rifle that her father had . Aftermarket parts and accessories are so prolific that you can actually build a Ruger 10/22 nowadays that doesnt include a single Ruger part. He could hear the gunfire while he was taking his morning shower, and raced down to the school to see what was happening, crying out his daughter's name from behind the SWAT team cordon. Skylar and Shelia had a friendship that went back to when they were young kids. "My wife saw her through the window and said, `There she is.' Armed Customer In Philly Kills Would-Be Robber. Her guilt became increasingly apparent, with her crying frequently at her 2016 parole eligibility hearing. Since Brendas outburst, the school has been sold and the ground has been leveled. She spent 42 days in the hospital and underwent two operations that left a foot-long scar across her stomach. Miller decided to deliver his in person. She hurt so many people and had so much to do with starting a deadly trend in America, said Richard Sachs, a San Diego County deputy district attorney, in an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune. Brendas actions may have been rapid, but they had an everlasting impact on the community and family of the victims. 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. 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. Shelia did not resist any longer, and in January 2014 she gave a guilty plea. Though she damaged the windows, she didnt hurt anyone that time around. Spencer blazed away with rifle shots from her home directly across the street from the school. The young woman eventually left him, but he lived in the same house across the street from the school until his death in 2016. The 9-acre site has been repurposed for housing, under the KB developer team, with units available starting at $700,000. Her parents were dealing with a shock they never expected, but they had someone with them to comfort them and be a part of their search, and that was Skylars best friend Shelia Eddy. His name was Coach Smith. In 16-year-old Brenda Spencer, we find the genesis monster. After six long hours, Brenda threw in the towel and surrendered herself. A plaque and flagpole were erected at Cleveland Elementary in memory of the shooting victims. Brenda Spencer facts like Brenda Spencer, who shot up an elementary school at age 16, killing two and injuring eight children and a cop. It is actually a prison within a prison, within a prison. In addition to the tweet talking about how stressed she was, she also tweeted the day before she disappeared that she was sick of being at fu**ing home. The 2006 British documentary I Don't Like Mondays also revisits the case. Classmates alleged that the week before the shootings . According to her father, he was able to deal with Brendas suicidal thoughts and depression in his own capacity.