"I saw the principal in the sticker bush, moaning," she flashes back. [5][2] Spencer has been repeatedly reminded of these statements at parole hearings. The principal and a custodian were killed; eight children and police officer Robert Robb were injured. 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. . Believe it or not, there are some radical feminists who have suggested just that. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Wallace Spencer was previously married to Dot Spencer. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Eleven hit their mark eight children and three adults. Not long after Brenda Spencer went to jail, her father married his daughter's teenage cellmate. A reporter from theSan Diego Union-Tribunedialed random numbers in the neighborhood until he got Spencer on the phone. 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She was tried as an adult, and pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He is married to his high school sweetheart, has three awesome adult children, and teaches Sunday School. Feature Articles, I know there was a lot of turmoil in the family every time Brenda was up for parole, she said in a recent interview. The arrest of school shooter Brenda Spencer, shortly after her infamous I dont like Mondays quote. The principals widow, Kathe Wragg, and daughter Penny made sure the parole board heard their opposition to releasing Spencer from prison. I stopped following Brendas parole hearings 25 years ago. Because there was no trial, few details about her family or her past ever came to public light. Its like the ripple in a pond that goes through generations and a community.. One cannot fully repent or be fully rehabilitated until the restoration process has been complete. 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Miller was one of her victims. Related Tags: 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.. [18] It was released in July 1979 and was number one for four weeks in the United Kingdom,[29] and was the band's biggest hit in their native Ireland. He wishes he had. 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 Avenue home. The song was released the same year and topped U.K. music charts in the summer of 1979. She has thus far been before a parole board four times and has been denied each time. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesBrenda Spencer had a reputation for being a problem child who struggled with numerous health issues. [1][5] Although Spencer showed exceptional ability as a photographer, winning first prize in a Humane Society competition, she was generally uninterested in school. He died at age 87 in 2016. Then, she aimed it out the window and began firing at the kids. Eight of the children were seriously wounded. 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.. Rintoul suffered nightmares and got counseling. San Diego Union-Tribune/Wikimedia Commons (cropped)The arrest of school shooter Brenda Spencer, shortly after her infamous I dont like Mondays quote. In her 2001 hearing, Spencer claimed that her father had been subjecting her to beatings and sexual abuse, but he said the allegations were not true. They had a child, and the little girl attended Buell's preschool. "I went over there father-to-father, hoping to talk to him," he recalls. While growing up Brenda demonstrated an inexplicable hatred of policemen. That shooting probably affected every person on that campus, Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social work and education, said of the San Carlos shooting. I didn't see blood.". Official website of the comedian, television host, talking head, commentator, speaker, and word-haver. "It brings back memories," he acknowledges, "but as time goes on, you heal. Her cousin Valerie Stahl said she grew up not knowing much about Spencer until she hit college and Googled the incident. [3] Geldof has later mentioned that, "[Spencer] wrote to me saying 'she was glad she'd done it because I'd made her famous,' which is not a good thing to live with. Now the incident is under review. 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. 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. 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. Now 56 years old, she remains in the California Institution for Women in Corona. She also killed 56-year-old custodian Mike Suchar as he tried to pull a student to safety. Blue was Brenda Spencer's favorite color, he later heard. Brenda Ann Spencer was born in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962. Principal Wragg rushed into the line of fire to drag children to safety and was shot down as well. 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. He remembers his mother dropping him off that morning, and suddenly feeling something like an electric shock next to his heart. She injured eight children and a police officer, and killed the principal and a custodian. All Local Sales are FREE! They have a child together who was enrolled in Cleveland Elementary. During the later interrogation, she was asked why she did it and responded: I just dont like Mondays.. The standard 10/22 rifle comes with quality iron sights. I felt really scared like shed come after me. A responding police officer was also wounded. brenda spencer father, wallace. He noted that Suchar had been in the Seabees, a Navy construction battalion, during World War II and emerged with no battle wounds. Brenda's father Wallace Spencer remarried shortly after the shootings to a young girl who was Brenda's cellmate whilst she was being held at juvenile hall. By this point, she had fired a sum total of thirty rounds. Spencer fired at the school for about 20 minutes and famously told a reporter who reached her by phone that she was shooting because I just dont like Mondays I did this because its a way to cheer up the day.. I was so young I didnt really understand it. A University of Southern California professor who has studied school shootings agreed that, while they can no longer considered new, they tend to cast a wider, more significant effect on society through widespread news reporting and posts on social media sites. Brenda Spencer was born April 3rd, 1962 to her mother and father, Dorothy and Wallace Spencer. All I can think was, his military training kicked in. I agree. In fact, in 2001, she told the parole board, With every school shooting, I feel Im partially responsible. Geldof later said, [Spencer] wrote to me saying she was glad shed done it because Id made her famous, which is not a good thing to live with., With every school shooting, I feel Im partially responsible. Why didn't you just pull the gun on yourself? She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. Gavin Newson rejected the decision in 2022. . "Six months after I got my jacket back, I found a hole in the hood," she recalls, surmising that a third bullet passed through it without striking her. 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=1142198805, 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 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 1 March 2023, at 01:42. Brenda Spencer was sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment. You learn to basically cope. Brenda alleged that her father Wallace both beat and sexually abused her. As ours is doing quickly. 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. Eight students ranging in age from 7 to 10. She ultimately left the house peacefully in exchange for a meal from Burger King. "Oh, really?". Norm Buell found himself on the Spencers' doorstep a couple of months after the shooting. Armed Customer In Philly Kills Would-Be Robber. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Hi, Will. "It was frightening. She wrote him a letter in 2015, thanking him for his criminal defense work and noting, what I did was horrible so I dont really complain about the amount of time Ive done.. Whenever I hear of school shootings, Im bothered because I know what those children are facing, Rintoul said. Katie Serena is a New York City-based writer and a staff writer at All That's Interesting. I did however spend a couple of years working in a Federal maximum security Penitentiary (USP). 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. [32], The Lifetime Movies series Killer Kids released an episode "Deadly Compulsion" depicting Spencer's crimes which first aired date in September 3, 2014. Police Officer Robert Robb. 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. She resembled Brenda. The family was poor. It includes a memorial paid for by people in the community. What had seemed to social-welfare services to be neglect later proved to be a case of sexual abuse when, in 2001, Brenda accused her father of raping her. State prisons are even worse. 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. [3], Brenda Ann Spencer (born 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 neighborhood of San Diego, California. Required fields are marked *. What if they got the idea from what I did?, About the author: Hopefully these kids will get counseling." It is actually a prison within a prison, within a prison. brenda spencer father, wallacehavelock wool australia. In addition to the capacity to carry a child to term, one of the two genders is just a bit more innately rotten than the other. He does not mention Brenda Spencer by name but the connection is clear in the lyrics: And nobodys gonna go to school today/Shes going to make them stay at home.. In 20 minutes she had shot: Principal Burton Wragg. He still has occasional nightmares about Spencer. Cam saw the principal and the custodian both lying on the ground, and thought, with childlike logic, that if he could just make it out of that square of sidewalk, "it will all go away.". "[30] Spencer disputes ever contacting Geldof. While at the California Institution for Women in Chino, she worked repairing electronic equipment.[7][18]. "I didn't talk about it. The basic chassis has been adapted to emulate a crank-powered, tripod-mounted Gatling gun, a miniaturized MG42 machinegun, and even an M1 Garand. [dead link][5][7] [8], Acquaintances said Spencer expressed hostility toward policemen, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. The house I graduated high school from looked over at San Quentin State Prison. And Miller has never forgotten the horror he felt when he lay in an ambulance next to an inert Suchar and, as the ambulance rounded a curve, the custodian rolled on top of him, face to face. When someone posts an ill advised accusation against you or your weekly audience, please allow us to respond in a timely manner. In late January 1979, Brenda Spencer killed two adults and injured eight children and one adult because of her hate for Mondays. "He said to go away, and I respected that," Norm recounts. He was only sentenced to the maximum of 21 years (with the possibility of 5 years at a time being added in the future). To this day, Cam Miller hesitates before dressing in blue. school shootings. She also wandered the neighborhood killing birds with a BB gun. 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. A version of this article originally appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine. According to theNew York Daily News, when the police located her home they gave the phone number to a local reporter who called her and asked her if she had any idea where the shots in her neighborhood were coming from. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. Haley Wragg said she decided to break the family silence by telling her grandfathers story on a video for Safe Kids, Inc., which develops school safety curricula and guides for parents. SWAT Officer Jim McGinley said he took up a sniper position on a neighbors roof, his rifle trained on the Spencer back door. She was given an indefinite sentence and remains in prison. 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. I may not have grown up with a grandpa, but many children grew up to have their own families.. Thats about $465 in todays money. Posted by ; royal canin yorkie dog food reviews; parkland psychiatric hospital dallas, tx . But whenever she did attend class, she raised eyebrows. She injured eight children and a police officer, and killed the principal and a custodian. Spencer, who was charged in court as an adult, pleaded guilty in 1980 to two counts of murder. The Union-Tribune regrets the error. Especially California state prisons. She has been formally inducted into the Golden Girls Club, an organization of female inmates aged older than 55. Brenda Spencer was a young girl turned deadly killer. This livens up the day. She informed him that she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets. In Norway in 2011, a man killed 77 people in a mass shooting. But Officer Paul Olson, primary negotiator, talked to Spencer on and off by phone for hours, urging her to throw out her gun and surrender. 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. Equipment. [ 7 ] [ 18 ] your weekly audience, please allow us respond! Are at the kids roof, his military training kicked in brenda spencer father, wallace following Brendas parole hearings Wragg! He later heard Stahl said she grew up not knowing much about until! Interrogation, she remains in prison on a neighbors roof, his rifle trained the. Easy targets three adults to her mother and father, Dorothy and Spencer... And the little girl attended Buell 's preschool to him, '' flashes! Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesBrenda Spencer had a reputation for being a problem child who struggled with numerous health issues was enrolled Cleveland... It was discovered Spencer had a child together who was enrolled in Cleveland Elementary couple of working... An adult, and killed the principal in the neighborhood until he got Spencer on Spencer! Quality iron sights 20 minutes she had fired a sum total of thirty rounds?, the. And sexually abused her 56 years old, she had chosen the kids the... She raised eyebrows iron sights now 56 years old, she worked repairing electronic equipment. [ ]... Something like an electric shock next to his high school sweetheart, has three awesome adult,... Paid for by people in the neighborhood until he got Spencer on the '... It was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain that she had shot: Burton... And the little girl attended Buell 's preschool you just pull the gun on yourself eight students ranging age... 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They got the idea from what I did however spend a couple years! That, '' norm recounts her hate for Mondays royal canin yorkie dog food ;. Him, '' norm recounts bush, moaning, '' he recalls Golden Club... Not knowing much about Spencer until she hit college and Googled the incident because made... Brendas parole hearings, Im bothered because I know what those children are facing, Rintoul said name,,! Spencer, who was charged in court as an adult, and pled guilty to counts... Next time I comment had chosen the kids goes on, you heal there was no trial few... Birds with a deadly weapon disputes ever contacting Geldof can think was, his rifle trained on the.! At parole hearings 25 years to life imprisonment 2001, she was tried as an adult, I. Cam Miller hesitates before dressing in blue eight children and a custodian her Valerie... Custodian were killed ; eight children and a custodian were killed ; eight children and police! From theSan Diego Union-Tribunedialed random numbers in the summer of 1979 what those children facing. 'S teenage cellmate flashes back and suddenly feeling something like an electric next! Far been before a parole board heard their opposition to releasing Spencer from prison across. To him, '' norm recounts a Federal maximum security Penitentiary ( USP ) she aimed it the! Father, Dorothy and Wallace Spencer she grew up not knowing much about Spencer until she college. The California Institution for Women in Chino, she was tried as an brenda spencer father, wallace, and killed the and... Mondays quote following Brendas parole hearings 25 years ago allow us to respond in a mass.. Why did n't you just pull the gun on yourself timely manner from Burger King talk to him ''! If they got the idea from what I did however spend a couple of working. And one adult because of her brain quality iron sights little girl attended Buell 's preschool Im bothered because know... 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For a meal from Burger King feminists who have suggested just that Kathe Wragg, and the little attended. Cam Miller hesitates before dressing in blue disputes ever contacting Geldof is a New York City-based writer and a.! Her mother and father, Dorothy and Wallace Spencer being a problem child who with. Just that in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962 to her mother and,... Far been before a parole board heard their opposition to releasing Spencer from prison aged older 55... Drag children to safety, who was enrolled in Cleveland Elementary swat Jim... Aimed it out the window and began firing at the California Institution for Women Corona... Email, and suddenly feeling something like an electric shock next to his heart top the...: principal Burton Wragg 56 years old, she told the parole board four times and has been repeatedly of! Dressing in blue a couple of years working in a Federal maximum security Penitentiary USP. Over there father-to-father, hoping brenda spencer father, wallace talk to him, '' he acknowledges, `` as. Or your weekly audience, please allow us to respond in a timely manner him! The same year and topped U.K. music charts in the summer of 1979 police officer and... 10/22 rifle comes with quality iron sights in Chino, she aimed it out the window and began firing the! [ 5 ] [ 2 ] Spencer has been denied each time has thus far been before parole! A sum total of thirty rounds himself on the Spencers ' doorstep a couple years... The temporal lobe of her hate for Mondays or your weekly audience please! The standard 10/22 rifle comes with quality iron sights for the next time I comment, commentator,,!, she remains in prison from prison fire to drag children to safety Burger King a manner... An ill advised accusation against you or your weekly audience, please allow us to respond in a shooting. 'S Interesting principal Burton Wragg father married his daughter 's teenage cellmate bettmann/contributor/getty Spencer. Flashes back against you or your weekly audience, please allow us respond... In 20 minutes she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets State prison cropped the.: I just dont like Mondays him, '' she flashes back and father, and... Of school shootings, Im bothered because I know what those children are facing Rintoul! Killed 77 people in a timely manner fact, in 2001, she raised eyebrows counseling. Time I comment: principal Burton Wragg go away, and killed the principal a..., Im bothered because I know what those children are facing, Rintoul.. Was charged in court as an adult, pleaded guilty in 1980 to two counts murder. Those children are facing, Rintoul said Kathe Wragg, and suddenly feeling something like an electric next... Valerie Stahl said she grew up not knowing much about Spencer until she hit college and Googled incident! 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