brenda spencer father

Suddenly all the kids were gone. [27] In 2018, the school was demolished to construct a housing development, and the plaque was relocated to the former school's southern edge, at the corner of Lake Atlin Avenue and Lake Angela Drive. On January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine when she fired on San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School with a .22-caliber rifle from her family's house across the street. When they went to get Skylar, they told her that they were just out driving for the night and were going to a town close by called Brave where they would go into the forest to smoke marijuana. "It was frightening. Figuring out whether you were a boy or a girl used to seem a fairly straightforward chore. If Skylar was the grounded one, Shelia was the one who kept things exciting. 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. The Spencers were divorced, with Brenda and her older brother living with their father. Its like the ripple in a pond that goes through generations and a community. To this day, the school has continued to honor the victims of the shooting. Brenda Spencer was 16 when she opened fire at a San Diego elementary school from a window in her home, leaving two dead and nine more injured in 1979 . Spencer told the reporter she had shot at the school children and adults because, "I don't like Mondays. Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. Finally, there was something concrete to suggest that the girls were lying. His name was Coach Smith. 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. Skylar Neese was the picture of youthful innocence and beauty, and the 16-year-old appeared to have a bright future ahead of her. Brenda Spencer wanted a radio for Christmas in 1979. She keeps a scrapbook of newspaper articles and photos, and still has the jacket she wore that day stashed away somewhere. According to Brenda, I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun. After learning about Brenda Ann Spencer, discover the true stories behind Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the infamous Columbine shooters. The unit was getting more and more isolated. For Christmas 1978 her father, Wallace, had given her a .22 rifle as a present. Wragg and custodian Michael Suchar were killed. After killing the schools principal and custodian and wounding eight children and a first responder, Spencer barricaded herself in her home for more than six hours until she finally surrendered herself to the authorities. No! She was using a rifle that her father had . Especially California state prisons. The sandbox, she thinks -- she will push them to the ground in the sandbox and shield them with her own scarred body. A tiny brass plaque by the flagpole commemorates the principal and custodian who died trying to rescue fallen children and herd the others to safety that day. Another 9-year-old, Christy Buell, was pretending to ice-skate on the frosty grass before the final bell rang. Please hurry.. 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. [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. 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. Required fields are marked *. He was particularly struck by Spencer's claim that she did it because she did not like Mondays, and began writing a song about it, called "I Don't Like Mondays". Charged as an adult, she pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years. Theres no logic in buying a suicidal teen a gun, yet Brendas father did so anyway. And despite her efforts to downplay her own crime, Spencer herself has admitted that her actions may have indeed led to other similar attacks. The next day, though, Skylars parents were unaware of what happened, so they searched for her and filed a missing person report. . [5], Further casualties were avoided only because the police obstructed her line of fire by moving a garbage truck in front of the school entrance. The program, which strives to address the emotional and physical needs of the older population, offers many perks that are usually unattainable to the general population. The Neeses could never get their girl back but they may live with the satisfaction of knowing that they may have saved the lives of others. to guns and to stories of violence. One week after that, the police were able to find a body out in the forest. A plaque and flagpole were erected at Cleveland Elementary in memory of the shooting victims. Christy Buell, a survivor of the 1979 shooting, said that she was "shocked, saddened, horrified" by the headlines concerning the 1989 shooting. The reason murder rises to the level of a capital crime is because you cant restore what you have stolenanothers life. [5][7] Spencer later said, "I asked for a radio and got a rifle." 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. 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. 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. tiny homes reno nv; how boeing is implementing kaizen concept in their manufacturing According to court documents she would open fire from her home aiming at young children waiting to get into the school. The arrest of school shooter Brenda Spencer, shortly after her infamous I dont like Mondays quote. Which is not a good thing to live with. In many ways, the song has continued Brendas notorious legacy for committing such a travesty. Cam would insist on touching each pane of glass, to assure himself that none was broken, that "she" hadn't slipped inside. Though the cops sent negotiators to speak with her, she refused to cooperate with them. Nine counts of attempted murder. Brenda Ann Spencer (16 y.o) in Santa Ana, Ca, after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in a sniper attack, 1979. . In 1966, a gunman opened fire at the University of Texas and killed 17 people, and wounded 21 individuals. In December a psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer recommended Spencer be admitted to a mental hospital due to her depressed state, but her father refused to give permission. Her next opportunity for a parole hearing will be in 2025.[21][22][23][24]. Mentally she plots an escape route, how she will get the children to safety. [16] Crime-scene photos contradict these accounts. No! 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. 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. In 2016, he took his final breath at 87 years old. Why do we continue to house and feed these animals. Brenda was known as a misfit and wasnt particularly friendly or kind, instead of focusing on her studiesand dabbling in drugs. While there, she spoke by telephone to a reporter from The San Diego Union-Tribune, who had been randomly calling telephone numbers in the neighborhood. I agree. 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. Today, Cam Miller is a probation officer who still feels nervous around guns, leaving the room even if it's just a friend showing off a new hunting rifle. In high school, Skylar and Shelia added a third person to their group, and that was Rachel. The last time Spencer came up for parole, the district attorney's office contacted the victims it was still able to locate and asked them to write impact statements. I knew the song. Murder, rapes, gang rapes, assaults, forced prostitution, etc, etc. In addition to being reliable, accurate, and customizable, the 10/22 was also designed from the outset for ease of manufacture. Knowing that Brenda already had a black dot next to her name gave people chills. I asked for a radio, and he bought me a gun, Brenda Ann Spencer later said. 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. Spencer, then 16, armed with the rifle and scope her father gave her for Christmas, started picking off students heading to the elementary school directly across the street from her Lake Atlin. It is actually a prison within a prison, within a prison. For years, Haley was taught to fear Brenda Spencer and stay silent. Eventually, Spencer surrendered peacefully. Because there was no trial, few details about her family or her past ever came to public light. I remember feeling weird, but no pain. Then, she aimed it out the window and began firing at the kids. Prior to this law, missing persons reports were filed too slowly. Since her incarceration, indefinite imprisonment has been made illegal after the United Nations adopted the Conventions Against Torture Act in 1984. Dwindling enrollment forced Cleveland Elementary to close years ago and the place seems small and forlorn now. On December 28th, 2012, things came to a breaking point for Rachel, and her mom Patricia called the police. 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. Spencer blazed away with rifle shots from her home directly across the street from the school. The red-headed shooter had a troubled childhood and at the time of the sick crime was living opposite the Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, sleeping on a mattress on the floor with her alcoholic father. Her father went on . She was sentenced to 25 years to life on the day after her 18thbirthday. In 2005 Brendas prison girlfriend was released and she was reported for an incident of self-harm. Death would have been welcome. Brenda Ann Spencer (born on April 3, 1962) is an incarcerated American murderer who in 1979, committed a school shooting at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District in the San Carlos neighbourhood of San Diego, California, U.S. At the time, Brenda lived in a house across the street from the school. She replied sayingI dont like Mondays. Both father and daughter slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles from alcoholic drinks. Despite the lack of a body to be found, Rachels confession gave the police enough evidence for a murder charge. Almost a year after receiving the semi-automatic weapons of the 22nd caliber, namely . He famously kept a shotgun and a garbage bag in the trunk of the drivers ed car in case he came across something that needed shooting. Eleven others were injured, including eight children, two adults, and a police officer. The song was number 1 for four weeks in the UK, though it did not break the top 40 in the US. 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. She was the most seriously hurt of the children shot, hit in the abdomen and buttocks; part of her intestine was removed and she had a colostomy bag for four months. He still has occasional nightmares about Spencer. Skylars tweets were basically a diary of what she was going through prior to her disappearance. On Monday morning, January 29, 1979, a herd of children had gathered outside the gates of the elementary school. The police parked a garbage truck in the road to shield the school and evacuated the injured children to safety. According to Brendas friends and classmates, she had hinted at doing something big to get on television. Brenda Spencer pled guilty to the charges against her. In her 2001 parole hearing, Brenda would claim, for the first time, that her father sexually molested her almost nightly from the time that she was nine years old until the shooting when she was 16. All that Mary remembers is a quick pain that subsided as she was rushed into the cafeteria and toward safety. One day the little girl announced to her: "My sister's in jail. Spencer later said: "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." When asked why he might . However, Rachel was not able to pinpoint exactly where they buried her, and the January snowfall didnt help either. Though the name Brenda Ann Spencer may not ring any bells today, her story and the phrase that she became known for have lived on in infamy. Not long after Brenda Spencer went to jail, her father married his daughter's teenage cellmate. Chris Berry, who was the state trooper assigned to the case, assumed that the story would come out eventually, and the people responsible would come clean sooner or later. Spencer was a predictably poor student with truancy issues, but she had a talent for photography. I felt like he wanted me to kill myself., Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesStanding 52 tall and weighing 89 pounds, Brenda Spencer was once described as too small to be scary.. The reveal of this information was just the tip of the iceberg pertaining to her fathers role in the situation. 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. She was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. I held it in. She was sentenced to 25 years to life on the day after her 18 th birthday. The number of young shooters whose first taste of a trigger was that of a 10/22 defies counting. As the children lined up outside of the gates, Spencer took out the .22 semiautomatic rifle that shed received as a Christmas gift from her father. Soaps.com has the latest, new General Hospital spoilers for two weeks ahead from Monday, May 1, to Friday, May 12. Then, she put the rifle down, barricaded herself inside her home, and waited. He has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 oclock in the morning and summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six timesalways at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Based on Michael's beliefs, Brenda was sexually abused by her father. "I don't like Mondays," 16-year-old Brenda Spencer calmly explained to a reporter who reached her by phone during a siege that would last six hours. Despite these earlier shootings, Brendas has gone down in history and is said to have created a deadly trend in America. This livens up the day. She informed him that she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets. The average person thinks they know what its like behind the wall of Max Fed pen. Thanks, friends, love hanging out with you all too. One day before that she wrote, You doing s*** like that is why I can NEVER completely trust you. It definitely hints that something bad was brewing between her and her friends. Rachel is scared to death, she said. brenda ann spencer father. This story was even told to the police, and Corporal Ronnie Gaskins was told that people there panicked, and they disposed of the body. While most people fell for this story, Jessica Colebank, an officer with the Star City Police, had a hunch something else happened. In all, the standoff lasted over six hours. "I didn't talk about it. Blue was Brenda Spencer's favorite color, he later heard. Shelia did not resist any longer, and in January 2014 she gave a guilty plea. She remembers how her dad used to walk her slowly through the hospital corridors, and how they would stand in a breezeway and watch the lights of passing cars on the freeway below. In 2009, the board again refused her application for parole, and ruled it would be ten years before she would be considered again. Perhaps she noticed, though, how strange it was that on a hot summer night the two girls were wearing hoodies. Brenda Spencer said that when she asked for a radio for Christmas from her alcoholic dysfunctional father, he ended up getting her the 10/22 . SAN DIEGO (AP) Authorities say they are investigating the marriage of Wallace Spencer, the 41-year-old father of convicted San Diego schoolyard sniper Brenda Spencer, to his daughter's former 17-year-old cellmate. I didnt know the story. This is over. This is a law that is as old as mankind itself and is not to be trifled with, but . One of these individuals was nine-year-old Mary Clark who was shot through her lower torso and didnt even realize that she had been hit. Soon after the police arrived on the scene, they realized that the shots had come from Spencers home. Therefore, the murderer must be held fully accountable. Brenda shot the first police officer to respond in the neck with her rifle. They were practically family, and it was totally normal for them to stroll right into each others houses with no questions asked from their parents. I came to the conclusion that it all depends on how much you want the convicted to suffer. Spencer has claimed that she was sexually abused by her loner father as a child - allegations he strongly denied when he was alive. She had skipped class that day and later claimed that she had washed her epilepsy medicine down with alcohol. 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.. She just sat there and glared at me," Miller says. Prison should be reserved for those guilty of minor or first time felonies, where there is a chance of rehabilitation. 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. Brenda Spencer was a problem child. 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.. The Brenda Spencer Murder Case, which was published in 2012, and is the single best source I am aware of regarding Spencer. [4][5][6][7] After her parents separated, she allegedly lived in poverty with her father, Wallace Spencer. The justice of a murderer getting life, while their victims get death, is lost on me. Aiming her gun at the largest targets, Brenda opened fire and released 30 rounds of ammunition. At her 2001 parole hearing, Spencer claimed that her father had been subjecting her to beatings and sexual abuse, but he said the allegations were not true. The program offers privileges to incarcerated individuals that voluntarily join the program after the age of 55 years old. 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. [18] Early reports indicated that Spencer had scratched the words "courage" and "pride" into her own skin; Spencer corrected this during her parole hearing as reading "unforgiven" and "alone". Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. CAPTION: (Photo ran in an earlier edition) Police rush to the scene of a sniper attack on Grover Cleveland Elementary School in a San Diego suburb 20 years ago. Real Life Three shots rang out. Rachels friends had the same exact concern about Shelia, who they felt was turning their friend into a new person. Her memories of that morning form a terrible collage: the principal dying; doctors cutting off her bloody Winnie-the-Pooh shirt; nurses calling her name but Christy finding it impossible to open her eyes until she hears her father's voice. As a consequence of her actions, Brendas probation officer suggested that she spend some time in a mental hospital to treat depression. 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. . Everything in my gut was, Shelia is acting wrong. The modular nature of the design lends itself to creativity. She was always silly and doing crazy stuff.. Despite this gross gender imbalance among the worlds criminals, when it came time for Satan to kick off the ghastly phenomenon that is the modern school spree shooting it was a woman who first squeezed the trigger. Evena SWAT team was also called in, yet the standoff lasted more than six hours. [14], After firing thirty-six times,[12] Spencer barricaded herself inside her home for several hours. They thought things through, bringing cleaning supplies as well as an extra set of clothing in case things got bloody. EMC EMC /T1_3 1 Tf EMC /T1_3 1 Tf ( )Tj 0.006 Tw 2.118 0 Td 6. 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. Once the profiles were set up, he friended Rachel and Shelia on Facebook and followed them on Twitter. Major Dabbs eventually resigned his commission in favor of medical school where he delivered 60 babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. Mary recalls, I remember that fear; you dont know whats going on. Brendas actions may have been rapid, but they had an everlasting impact on the community and family of the victims. At the time, she lived in a house across the street from the school. Brenda Spencer, aged 16, fired rifle shots into a school playground in California in January 1979, killing the head teacher and caretaker and wounding eight children and a police officer. Murderer Brenda Spencer opened fire at a San Diego elementary school from a window in her home, leaving two dead and nine more shot Famously told reporter her motive was that she 'didn't like. She resembled Brenda. I can still hear it. He wore T-shirts when swimming to cover his scar. One woman is forced to take drastic measures, while another is in for a big shock plus, Felicia delivers bad news, Laura is horrified, and Dex is thrown for a loop! Since her incarceration, Brenda has made several attempts to face the parole board, but wasdenied every time. They need to talk about their fears, he says. 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. Back in January 29, 1979, at 8.30am Spencer, then a geeky looking ginger-haired 16-year-old, took out the .22 rifle her father had bought her as a Christmas present and pointed it through her . Her divorced parents put their differences aside to move into the same home and take care of their troubled girl. 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. When out of earshot we called him Poach Smith. 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. 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. He remembers his mother dropping him off that morning, and suddenly feeling something like an electric shock next to his heart. This was west of Morgantown and Star City, but Shelia and Rachel both made the claim that they went east. As soon as she came of age, Brenda jumped at the opportunity to join the club and has proudly showcased a Golden Girl placard, with a sneaky smile on her lips. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. For 20 years now, Wallace Spencer has maintained a public silence about his daughter's crime. Word had spread that the two lovers wanted to keep Skylar from going public. In addition, she gets two state pillows, three blankets, two mattresses, and first dibs on the bottom bunk if she wishes. 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. "My wife saw her through the window and said, `There she is.' 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. One thing they found out was that Shelias outgoing nature was in contrast to Rachels shy, restrained personality. In fact many inmates attempted suicide to escape the situation. According to Rachel, Skylar ran, but she was stabbed in the knee and they quickly caught up to her. Her father and two brothers had left for the day, but she had called in. Eight students and a police officer were wounded. The 9-acre site has been repurposed for housing, under the KB developer team, with units available starting at $700,000. By this, she was referring to the fact that she had just fired 30 rounds of ammunition into a San Diego elementary school, using a semiautomatic rifle. I was so young I didnt really understand it. Why? In junior high, a neighbor went around telling people, `There's Cam, he's shot,' and I'd deny it." The schism between the friends had begun. On the other end was a reporter from the San Diego Tribune.He asked a few short questions to confirm that the young girl . It's used mostly for teacher workshops. The school was closed in 1983, along with a dozen other schools around the city, due to declining enrollment. She says, My grandfather and the janitor threw themselves at the kids that were being shot at that morning, to save their lives, and in the process, lost their own. 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. Her post that said, They say you remember the past better than it was also raised eyebrows in light of everything that happened. Brenda Spencer leaves court, Oct. 1, 1979, in Santa Ana after pleading guilty to charges stemming from her shooting spree. Classmates alleged that the week before the shootings . According to the San Diego Police Museum, she warned authorities that she was still armed and threatened to come out shooting if she was forced to leave her house. Spencer, who was charged in court as an adult, pleaded guilty in 1980 to two counts of murder. When introduced in 1964 the 10/22 sold for $54.50. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. One quick note regarding comments. In late January 1979, Brenda Spencer killed two adults and injured eight children and one adult because of her hate for Mondays. Facing Brenda, authorities asked the question that had been hanging on everyones lips - what caused her to commit such heinous actions? 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. At Christmas of that year, he gave Brenda a Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic .22 rifle, a riflescope, and a 500-round brick of ammunition. The standard Ruger 10/22 features a blued finish and walnut stock, though there are plenty of factory options available. Theyre both sickos, said David Neese, Skylars father, and we have to agree with him with everything he said about the two girls. Her father had given her the gun as a Christmas gift, and she was itching to use it. The story was sensational and inspired several recounts of the tragedy in the form of documentaries, newspaper headlines, and even a popular song. She started dressing as a boyand learned to hunt, under her fathers influence.

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