7 Strange Ways Your Brain Can Fail You — buzzfeed.com

By all accounts, Charles Joseph Whitman was, for much of his short life, a model citizen. He was a polite, intelligent youth; he was an Eagle Scout; he married his childhood sweetheart at age 17; he joined the Marine Corps and became a sharpshooter. Then, after leaving the service, he became an architectural engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. But then, on the night of 31 July 1966, he stabbed his wife and his mother to death; and, the next day, packed a bag full of guns and climbed the main tower building of the university. On his way up the tower he killed three people. Once at the top, he used a high-powered rifle to kill another 10 people, and wound 33. One of the injured was a heavily pregnant young woman, shot through the stomach, killing the unborn child. Whitman then shot her fiancé dead as she lay wounded. Eventually police managed to reach him and kill him.

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