Monsters Among Us

I believe some people are just born dark....that they actually enter into this world missing what defines us as humans. Bundy, Dahmer, and so many others began practicing their evil very young. I also believe and the news shows sadly too often that something just goes wrong somewhere and a person who has had no criminal history commits heinous acts of violence.

On August 1st, 1966 Charles Whitman barricaded himself on the observation deck at the University of Texas Tower. He brought hell with him. The citizens of Austin were terrorized for almost 96 minutes. He killed fourteen people and injured 31 others. People just going about their day... he just randomly began shooting at them from all directions. Before heading to the Tower, he had killed his wife as well as his mother. Years later as a kid hearing the Tower story was hard enough but finding out that family friends had been in Austin that day as their daughter was going to be attending UT and that they were actually crouched down on the sidewalk hiding behind a car just blew my mind.

On October 16th, 1991, long time family friends had stopped in to eat at Luby's in Killeen, Texas. George Hennard drove his truck through and began shooting. He killed 23 people and injured 27 others. Our friends made it out from the broken glass but the people behind them were not as fortunate.

I had a Psychology professor who I shared this story with, and he said the odds of knowing people that were involved in two separate mass shootings was just astronomical. When I told him wait...I'm not finished. I went on to share that in 1987 a friend who lived in Russellville, Arkansas was caught in the middle of a shooting spree when Ronald Eugene Simmons came into town seeking revenge on people that he felt had done him wrong. He killed 16 people and wounded several others. Fourteen of his victims were his family members.

My professor just shook his head and could not believe the sad truth that I was telling him. What is really hard to grasp is that incidents like these senseless tragedies have just become routine news stories in our lives. Here we are in May of 2023, and we have had over 200 mass shootings....what on earth creates such monsters? Are they born this way? Are they searching for notoriety? Whatever the reason they have left a path of destruction and devastation for those who have lost loved ones and left communities broken.

There are truly evil monsters in this world, and they live among us, and we sadly don't know when or where any of them could strike.