WEL Eagleman Neuroscience;40.incx

O n the steamy fi rst day of August 1966, Charles Whitman took an elevator to the top fl oor of the University of Texas Tower in Austin. The 25-year-old climbed the stairs to the observation deck, lugging with him a footlocker full of guns and ammunition. At the top, he killed a receptionist with the butt of his rifl e. Two families of tourists came up the stairwell; he shot at them at point-blank range. Then he began to fi re indiscriminately from the deck at people below. The fi rst woman he shot was pregnant. As her boyfriend knelt to help her, Whitman shot him as well. He shot pedestrians in the street and an ambulance driver who came to rescue them. The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note: