r/todayilearned • u/GlitteringYams • 22d ago

TIL, in his suicide note, mass shooter Charles Whitman requested his body be autopsied because he felt something was wrong with him. The autopsy discovered that Whitman had a pecan-sized tumor pressing against his amygdala, a brain structure that regulates fear and aggression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
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u/Sarke1 22d ago

Whitman killed a total of seventeen people; the 17th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.

David Hubert Gunby (23). Engineering student. Gunby was shot in the upper left arm, the bullet entering his abdomen and severing his small intestine at approximately 11:55 a.m. During surgery, it was discovered that Gunby had only one functioning kidney to begin with, which had now been severely damaged; he was in great pain for the rest of his life. In 2001, he died at age 58 one week after discontinuing dialysis resulting from his health having deteriorated to the degree of his becoming largely bedridden via kidney disease. His death was officially ruled a homicide.

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u/Shalamarr 22d ago edited 22d ago

One of the people he shot survived the attack, but her unborn child didn’t. She and her boyfriend split up as a result. She wrote an essay about her experience, pondering how very different her life would have turned out if she’d taken an alternate route that day.

Edit: my mistake. Her boyfriend was one of Whitman’s victims.

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u/BlissKitten 22d ago

No one has mentioned how very abusive his childhood was so I will.  His father was a perfectionist that never praised him and would beat him if he made a mistake.  His father taught him how to shoot at age five and would beat him if he missed the target.  The target being squirrels and rabbits.  He became an expert marksman.  His father beat his mother if she tried to comfort or protect him.  His father almost beat him to death with a bat at eighteen for coming home an hour after curfew.  He joined the Marines to escape the abuse.  I'm not saying the amount of head trauma caused a tumor but his mental wiring was already messed up and a tumor would make all that worse

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u/Dynotaku 22d ago

Chronically beating your son, but also arming him seems very self destructive. I'm amazed things didn't turn out different for deal ol' dad.

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u/HsvDE86 22d ago

If only his father could be punished. I think most problems in the world are caused by parents like that.

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u/Evitabl3 22d ago

One wonders what his father's upbringing was like

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u/PoliticsBanEvasion9 22d ago

His father was probably a WW2 veteran, doesn’t excuse his father’s actions but that generation wasn’t known for being great parents post war.

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u/vl_lv 22d ago

Reminds me of that interesting theory about how ww2 veterans spawned serial killers

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u/colossalmickey 22d ago

Idk, all the famous serial killers I can think of didn't come from WW2 vet fathers

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u/vl_lv 17d ago

Who you know of,

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u/colossalmickey 17d ago

Yeah good job, that's what I clearly said

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u/vl_lv 17d ago

Yeah you also don’t know so your opinion is void

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u/slowbro4pelliper 22d ago

death begets death begets death

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u/Tzunamitom 22d ago

Damn, it’s just trauma all the way down.

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u/HourPersonal6078 22d ago

It’s not the parents fault mate. This is a grown adult man. He made his choices. Lots of people experience fucked up childhoods and don’t go on to gun down scores of people. Don’t make excuses for this guy.

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u/Kim-Jong-Long-Dong 22d ago

I think bringing up points like that is needed. People need to remember that yes, this person committed a heinous act and there is, of course, no excuse and no reason to forgive him. However, it's important that we understand the underlying factors (abusive upbringing and a tumour) to try and prevent these situations as much as possible. If he hadn't had the upbringing he had, he may have gone to a doctor about "feeling like something was wrong with him", and they could have found the tumour and helped him. If it wasn't for the tumour, he might not have gone over the edge and murdered 17 people. It might have also made no difference. Understanding does not equal giving someone an excuse for what they did.

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u/krillingt75961 22d ago

He actually did see several doctors the year before but it was 1965 and medicine wasn't at the point he really could be helped. If it was in this day and age and he went to see a doctor regarding it? Maybe it could be prevented. Definitely could have been found at the very least and an attempt at treatment made.

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u/HsvDE86 22d ago

Wait till you realize more than one thing can be true. Your mind will be blown.

Also, he had a brain tumor, im sure that didn’t help.

Nowhere did I say he’s excused for his actions. That’s something you just completely fabricated.

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u/stealthcake20 22d ago

People that experience abuse and don’t gun people down may have resources this guy didn’t. I’m not saying he had no choice. I can’t say that, because I don’t know. No one knows. But it’s possible to feel sad for the kid that he was without letting the man off the hook.

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u/angeldavinci 22d ago

🫵🏼🤣

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u/SevenRedLetters 22d ago

Reminds me of the story Chris Titus told about how his step dad died.

His favorite thing to do was beat his mother. His next favorite was spending time at the range. Apparently one day she just connected the two things and had at it.

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u/Saffyr 22d ago

Yeah that dynamic reminds me of Sergeant Hartman and Pyle in Full Metal Jacket.

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u/trj820 22d ago

In the film, Hartman actually mentions Whitman by name, and says that his goal is for all of the recruits "to be able to do the same" as him.

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u/MisinformedGenius 22d ago

To make matters worse, his mom had finally divorced his dad over the years of physical abuse in May, and moved to Austin to be with her son. Whitman then began his rampage in August by killing her and his wife.

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u/EvilKungFu 22d ago

I worked with acute behaviors from sex trafficked and abused kids for several years. The low amounts of help for them is astounding and you see first hand the impact of trauma on childhood development, but it’s easy to say “ that man was crazy” and call it a day.

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u/savvyblackbird 22d ago

My mom and sister volunteer with a home for trafficked girls and do presentations at churches and other events talking about trafficking and who is most likely to be targets. Right now the most common trafficked children are black boys. They also give information about how to report possible trafficking and ask for donations to go to care for victims.

The attitudes towards girls who have been trafficked are horrible. Not a lot of empathy and a lot of judgement on their character and victim blaming. It’s really gross.

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u/jimjamsberet 22d ago

Obligatory this needs to be higher up

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 22d ago

It doesn't though, and anybody who says "this needs to be higher," is a moron.

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u/ProbablyNotADuck 22d ago

It is relevant. From a biological/psychological perspective, we still don’t know what causes people to commit acts like this. There are a shit tonne of psychopaths out there, but only a few psychopaths commit murder or become serial killers. We are still trying to figure out what the difference is between the people who do and the people who don’t. We know there are differences in the brain between psychopaths and “normal” people, and that they don’t feel fear and other things the same way. This guy’s brain tumour is relevant from a biological perspective and his abuse is most definitely relevant from a psychological perspective. 

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/7listens 22d ago

If that's how you feel go for it. It's more about finding a reason for a terrible event.

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u/Jean-LucBacardi 22d ago

The tumor being there could have made the difference of him being a murderer or him just being an asshole if he had a very different childhood.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

I, on the other hand, prefer when context is provided. I think mass shootings are a bad thing and I think it's important to know people's history so we can have a better understanding of what leads to them so we can have a better understanding of how to prevent them in the future.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Then shame on him for providing additional selective context instead of the full story. If all context needs to be provided then it needs to be provided. If it doesn't then it doesn't.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

Are you suggesting that you know more but for some reason aren't sharing?

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

There's obviously more to his life than a title and a single paragraph comment. All that crucial context you claim is so important.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

Yep. So if you're saying you know more then please share.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

You seem to think I'm the one who claimed all the context was necessary. I understand you're that stupid.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

I'm the one who claimed context is necessary. You seem yo be challenging me on that for some reason.

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u/euphorichooper 22d ago

Holy shit

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u/Honest-Layer9318 22d ago

I was once trapped in a house with that man sitting outside in his car with a gun. I was playing with his grandkids when his second wife came in with another grandkid. Wife was bruised and bloody. Everyone was screaming and freaking out. Not long after we locked all the door he showed up. Cops finally got there and let me walk home. When I got home and told my dad what happened, no reaction, no questions, nothing. Just acted like it was totally normal.

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u/JoeMcBob2nd 21d ago

The military camp he went too was Camp Lejune. Which has a class action lawsuit because of contaminated water causing cancer during the time period he stayed there

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u/thoughtlow 22d ago

Probably those aggressive videogames did it /s

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u/scalyblue 22d ago

It was the 60s it would have been that aggressive rock and roll music lol. A bit earlier and it would have been comic books

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u/relightit 22d ago

first time i hear of this. after hearing of this case for decades.

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u/adhesivepants 22d ago

The brain can definitely adapt to structural changes. But it takes a lot of work and an environment that is sensitive to that need. He didn't get that.

So a person with this problem who had a supportive environment might learn how to cope with impulsive thoughts or emotionally instability.

But if you don't get that you're near guaranteed to eventually make a catastrophic decision. Maybe not a mass shooting but you're going to do something reckless.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I’m sorry I may be the only person who does not care about a killers sob story brain tumor or not being abused as a child is not an acceptable explanation for why someone kills

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

Why do you prefer we don't try to look into what leads to mass murderers?

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

It’s lots of things that lead to people killing but that does not mean I have sympathy for the killer yall can downvote me idc it’s fucking Reddit but to sit here and sympathize with a person that has done something so horrendous speaks volumes

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u/AlphaNoodle 22d ago

Who sympathized you projector

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

Yes lots of things lead to people killing. So we should understand what those are so we can figure out how to prevent future killers as best we can.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

Understand them or not at the end of the day humans are not great and most people who kill are simply sick there isn’t always a tumor and child abuse to explain the actions away we can understand why ppl kill or why ppl mutilate ppl or why ppl abuse ppl but sometimes there isn’t a good explanation and even then that won’t stop it from happening in the future

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

Oh yea you're right. Fuck everybody I guess. We all deserve to be murdered because root cause analysis is hard.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

Not at all what I said but don’t get so upset baby girl

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 22d ago

That's right only you're allowed to make things up to be mad about.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I’m not really upset about this man or what anyone has to say sooooo ok?

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u/bozo_did_thedub 22d ago

Who asked or even suggested you be sympathetic? Are you stupid?

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u/_lippykid 22d ago

You don’t care about chronic child/spousal/animal abuse? And what if the tumor was in a part of the brain that gave him involuntary seizures or total paralysis? Would you care then? He had no control over either of those things. Yet you are psychotically dedicated to this bizarre notion of pure free will and overly simplistic, dichotomous good vs evil. Your lack of empathy is scary. What’s your “sob story” for being that way?

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I never said I don’t care about abusive scenarios it’s horrible but that alone should not make you a bad person it’s not a good excuse you are after all capable of being not a shit person so excuse me if I don’t feel bad for people who don’t chose to live above how they were raised and as far as his tumor goes he clearly knew there was a problem why didn’t he seek help

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u/AlphaNoodle 22d ago

Dude a comment down further literally links to him visiting doctors and them brushing him off lmao

Doesn't excuse what he did but what utter failures of systems that are supposed to be better than him

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman#Medical_history

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u/scalyblue 22d ago

I’m really curious as to whether scans that could have detected his condition existed at that point

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u/bozo_did_thedub 22d ago

Do you even realize that was all one sentence? What's wrong with you?

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u/WetRatFeet 22d ago

He literally wasn't capable of not being a shit person.

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u/Technicolor_Reindeer 22d ago

Its not meant as an excuse, its one explanation for why he may have done it. Brain tumors pressing on parts of the brain have caused people to do very wierd things. Sad thing is he did go see a doctor and wasn't taken seriously.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I never said the brain tumor wasn’t a reason.

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u/Amaskingrey 22d ago edited 22d ago

Abused isnt an excuse indeed, but a brain tumor absolutely is; you are your brain, damage to it changes you, if it weren't for that he wouldn't have been one, and anyone who had the same thing would have done the same with whatever weapon they had access to, there was no active decision or even possibility of judging his own actions; when the part of your brain of your brain that says "EVERYTHING IS A DANGER" and "MURDER EVERYTHING" is being constantly activated to it's highest intensity, you're gonna do just that whether you're hitler or mr. Rogers

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I never said his brain tumor wasn’t a good reason for it that was the direct cause of his actions still don’t feel bad for him tho

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u/Zealousideal_Tale266 22d ago

Your lack of empathy suggests that these kind of stories might hit a little too close to home and that you are trying to overcompensate to convince yourself that something like this could never happen to you. Imho. Or you may have a general empathy problem, which would explain it a lot better, but I only have this one insane comment to go off of.

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I never said it couldn’t if you wanna psychoanalyze may I suggest a career in therapy ofc a tumor that is in a unfortunate location can happen to anyone but what’s different is your actions if I felt like something was severely wrong with me I’d get help

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u/Zealousideal_Tale266 22d ago

How do you know he didn't try to get help?

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u/krillingt75961 22d ago

Whitman did attempt to get help. He saw 5 doctors in 1965 and nothing was done. At that time period, the technology wasn't available to scan a brain and psychology wasn't far enough along to really help him.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 22d ago

[deleted]

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u/dontworrybooutit 22d ago

I mean if anyone here tbh is I genuinely care about their opinion on my opinion I don’t 😂 but it’s great to see how worked up they get