(6 of 9)
On the sun-dappled mall, Mrs. Claire Wilson, 18, eight months pregnant, was walking from an anthropology class when a bullet crashed into her abdomen; she survived, but later gave birth to a stillborn child whose skull had been crushed by the shot. A horrified classmate, Freshman Thomas Eckman, 19, knelt beside her to help, was shot dead himself. Mathematician Robert Boyer, 33, en route to a teaching job in Liverpool, England, where his pregnant wife and two children were awaiting him, stepped out onto the mall to head for lunch, was shot fatally in the back. More fortunate was Secretary Charlotte Darehshori, who rushed out to help when the first victims dropped, suddenly realized she was under fire and spent the next hour-and-a-half crouched behind the concrete base of a flagpole—one of the few persons to venture onto the mall and survive the siege uninjured.
At the south end of the mall, Austin Patrolman Billy Speed, 23, one of the first policemen on the scene, took cover behind the heavy, columnar stone railing, but a bullet zinged between the columns and killed him. Still farther south, 500 yds. from the tower, Electrical Repairman Roy Dell Schmidt, 29, walked toward his truck after making a call, was killed by a bullet in the stomach. To the east, Iran-bound Peace Corps Trainee Thomas Ashton, 22, was strolling on the roof of the Computation Center when Whitman shot him dead.
Directing his fire west, Whitman found shop-lined Guadalupe Street, the main thoroughfare off campus—known locally as "The Drag"—astir with shoppers and strollers. Paul Sonntag, 18, lifeguard at an Austin pool and grandson of Paul Bolton, longtime friend of Lyndon Johnson and news editor of the Johnsons' Austin television station, was accompanying Claudia Rutt, 18, for a polio shot she needed before entering Texas Christian University. Claudia suddenly sank to the ground. Paul bent over her, then pitched to the sidewalk himself. Both were dead. A block north, Political Scientist Harry Walchuk, 39, a father of six and a teacher at Michigan's Alpena Community College, browsed in the doorway of a newsstand after working all morning in the college library. He was shot dead on the spot. A few steps farther up the street, Senior Thomas Karr, 24, was walking sleepily toward his apartment after staying up almost all night for a 10 a.m. exam when he dropped to the pavement, dying.
Impossible to Hit. Four minutes after Whitman opened fire, Austin police received a report about "some shooting at the University Tower." In seconds, a "10-50" trouble signal went out, directing all units in the vicinity to head for the university. In a din of wailing sirens, more than 100 city cops, reinforced by some 30 highway patrolmen, Texas Rangers and U.S. Secret Service men from Lyndon Johnson's Austin office, converged on the campus.