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Soon Bremer's behavior became increasingly erratic. On Nov. 18 he was arrested for carrying a concealed .38-cal. revolver. The arresting officer claimed that Bremer was "completely incoherent"; a court-appointed physician judged him "dull" but legally sane. Bremer paid a fine of $38.50. On Jan. 13, the day that George Wallace declared his candidacy, Bremer purchased another .38-cal. revolver, a five-shot, snub-nosed model, at a Milwaukee gun shop for $80. Bill Heeley, the maître d'hôtel at the Milwaukee Athletic Club, recalls that Bremer shaved off his longish blond hair at about that same time. "When I asked why, he said his girl friend 'didn't pay any attention to me, so I went out and shaved. Now she'll pay attention to me.'" On Feb. 16 Bremer left his job.
The actions of Arthur Bremer thereafter are sketchy. About May 9 a Wallace campaign worker, Mrs. Janet Petrone, says that Bremer visited Wallace headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., and offered to work on the campaign. On May 13, in Kalamazoo, Mich., he reportedly parked his car across the street from an armory where Wallace was scheduled to speak and sat there for more than ten hours. Responding to a "suspicious-subject" call, police questioned Bremer, who satisfied them with the explanation that he was there early to get a good seat at the rally.
On May 15 Bremer turned up in Wheaton, Md., for a noon appearance by Wallace at a shopping-center rally. Mrs. Petrone says that when she saw Bremer, who was wearing a red, white and blue striped shirt and a WALLACE IN '72 button, he said: "Hi, babes. How's it going?" At 2:15 p.m., William Taaffe, a reporter for the Washington Evening Star, saw Bremer at the Laurel rally 16 miles away. At 3:58 p.m. Wallace was gunned down with a .38-cal. revolver belonging to Arthur Bremer.
Daydreams. Searches of Bremer's effects showed the mystery of the man. In his messy apartment were Wallace campaign buttons, a Confederate flag, boxes of shells, old high school themes (see box), pornographic magazines, Black Panther literature, tax forms giving his 1971 income as $ 1,611, a booklet entitled 101 Things To Do in Jail and various newspaper clippings, including one on the difficulty of providing security for campaigning politicians. In notebooks and on scraps of paper there were such notations as "My country tiz of thee, sweet land of bigotry" and "Happiness is hearing George Wallace sing the national anthem, or having him arrested for a hit-and-run accident." In one muddled note entitled "A Critique of My Life," Bremer wrote: "TV radio the big books more books and more masturbation sex fantasy daydreams of the father reading newspapers looking at my parents."