In a prison two-and-a-half hours from the scene of the UCSB murders sits the killer who started it all, with the first high-profile school shooting more than three decades ago.
âWith every school shooting, I feel Iâm partially responsible,â Brenda Ann Spencer told the parole board back in 2001. âWhat if they got the idea from what I did?â
Spencer was 16 on Jan. 29, 1979, when she opened fire with a .22 rifle on Grover Cleveland Elementary School across from her home in San Diego, killing the principal and the custodian while wounding eight youngsters and a police officer.
âI donât like Mondays,â she famously replied when asked her motive.
Spencer has since said she does not remember making the remark that inspired a song by the Boomtown Rats and became a kind of anthem for many of the school shooters who followed. She has said she also does not recall telling a cop, âIt was a lot of fun seeing children shot.â
During a 2009 parole hearing, her most recent, she insisted that she had not intended to shoot anybody.
âSo, why did you commit this crime?â the head parole commissioner asked.
âBecause I wanted to die,â she said. âI was trying to commit suicide.â
âWhy pick the school across the street?â the commissioner asked.
âBecause I knew that if I fired on the school the police would show up, and they would shoot me and kill me,â she said. âAnd every time I had tried suicide in the previous year I had screwed it up.â
âWhy did you have to shoot the people at the school?â the commissioner asked.
âI wasnât specifically aiming at people,â she said. âI was shooting into the parking lot.â
The commissioner inquired how many rounds she had fired, and she said she did not recall.
âWell, thatâs pretty good shooting to hit as many folks as you did if youâre not trying to hit anybody from across the street,â the commissioner noted.
âI donât remember aiming at anybody,â Spencer insisted.
âDo you remember them taking cover?â the commissioner asked.
âVaguely,â she said.
The commissioner asked if she remembered the police coming, and she said she did.
âYou hit one of those fellows, too,â the commissioner noted.
âUh-hmm,â Spencer said.
The commissioner reminded her that she had eventually surrendered.
â[You] put your gun down,â the commissioner observed. âYou didnât follow through with your plan.â
âNo, I had gotten scared,â she said.
âThis gun was a gift?â
âYes,â she responded.
âFrom whom?â
âMy father.â
The commissioner observed that Spencer had described a dark side to her father, while others described him as a decent man.
âHe liked to keep appearances up, that everything was fine in the house,â Spencer now said.
âWhat about your mother?â the commissioner asked.
âShe just wasnât there,â Spencer said.
âBut your father was always there.â
âYeah.â
âAnd apparently you two slept in the same bed?â
âYes.â
She had submitted a written statement in which she alleged that her father had begun fondling her when she was 9 and had sexually assaulted her virtually every night.
The commissioner said they would get back to all that. He returned to the shooting.
âYou didnât go to school that day?â the commissioner asked.
âNo, I wasnât feeling good,â she replied.
She said she had been under the influence of alcohol, pot, and downers.
âThey made me numb so I didnât feel anything,â she said.
She confirmed that she had heard the kids in the school across the street.
âA lot of kids laughing and doing their thing?â the commissioner asked.
âYes,â she said.
âDid that upset you?â
âNo.â
âIt didnât upset you that they seemed to have happier lives?â
âNo,â she said. âI was just set on committing suicide.â
âI am sorry you had to go through everything you went through, but what Iâm trying to do is find out why you would open fire and kill two people and hurt so many others,â the commissioner said. âYou indicate you werenât really trying to hit anybodyâbut you did a heck of a job of hitting a lot of people.â
âThe only thing I was concentrating on was getting the police there so that they could shoot me,â she said.
âWell, you could have shot out one window of the school and the police would have come.â
âI didnât think that.â
âYou didnât have any anger at the children?â
âNo.â
âYou werenât trying to hit anybody?â
âNot that I remember.â
The commissioner asked if she recalled saying she had fired on the schoolyard because âI donât like Mondays.â
âI might have said that,â she replied. âIt would have been the drugs and the alcohol talking.â
The commissioner quoted the police negotiatorâs report, which said she had told him, âIt was fun to watch the children that had red and blue ski jackets on, as they made perfect targets.â The negotiator added that she told him she âliked to watch them squirm around after they had been shot.â
âItâs entirely possible I said that,â Spencer told the parole board.
âDo you have any idea why youâd go out of your way to harm so many innocent people?â the commissioner asked
âI didnât consider that other people would get hurt,â she said. âI didnât think it all the way throughâ
âSeveral children were injured by gunshot wounds. The principal of the elementary school, Burton Wragg, age 53, had gone to the aid of the students and was subsequently shot himself,â the commissioner said. âMichael Suchar, age 56, school custodian, went to the aid of Mr. Wragg and was also shot.â
âUh-hmm,â Spencer said.
âYouâre shooting people as they come to the aid of others,â he said. âYouâre shooting these people as they become targets, and yet you told me that you didnât intend to hit anyone.â
âNo,â she said.
âAre you pretty good with a rifle?â he asked.
âI donât know,â she said, âI guess.â
She was asked if any adults had seen danger signs before the shooting.
âA month before I was arrested, my [high school] counselor took me to see a psychiatrist,â she reported.
She said the psychiatrist had recommended she be hospitalized as a danger to herself and to others.
âMy dad told them that nothing was wrong with me and everything was fine, and leave us alone,â she recalled.
That had been just before Christmas. She had asked her father for a radio.
âI donât know why he bought me a gun,â she said.
The San Diego District Attorneyâs Office sent a representative to the hearing. He informed the board that on the Saturday before the shooting Spencer had told another teen that something big was going to happen on Monday that would be on TV and radio.
âOn Monday morning, January 29th, she asked her father if she could stay home from school because she didnât feel well,â the deputy district attorney reported. âHer father left home for work around 7 oâclock in the morning. Then the inmate proceeded to commit one of the most notorious crimes in the history of this nation.â
He went on: âAt 8:30 a.m., the children were lining up to enter Cleveland Elementary School⌠She picked up her .22 caliber, semiautomatic scoped rifle and began shooting children. Principal Burton Wragg heard the shooting and ran out to get the children out of harmâs way, and the inmate shot him in the chest and killed him. The head custodian, Michael Suchar, known as âMr. Mikeâ to the children, ran to Mr. Wraggâs aid, and the inmate shot him in the chest and killed him. She shot eight children, and she shot a responding police officer, Robert Robb, in the neck. But for the heroic efforts of a police officer who risked his life to drive a trash truck in front of her residence to block her field of fire, no doubt further children would have been shot.â
The D.A. representative added that Spencer had complained to the police negotiator that the custodian had tried to get everybody off the school grounds.
âShe shot him because, by her own words, he was making it more difficult for her to shoot the kids,â the representative said. âThe number of shots fired and the number of vital hits speaks of incredibly accurate, directed shooting, and these were moving targets.â
The representative further reported that blood and urine samples taken after Spencerâs arrest tested clean. He concluded that no drugs or alcohol had been talking when she said she just didnât like Mondays.
âBasically, what sheâs telling this board are a series of untruths,â the representative concluded.
A lawyer representing Spencer spoke next. He suggested that the testing of the time may have simply failed to detect the intoxicants. He allowed that Spencerâs father had never âowned upâ to sexually abusing her. But the lawyer also noted that while visiting Spencer at a juvenile-detention facility after her arrest, the father had met a girl who resembled his daughter, but was younger.
â[The father] then went on and had a sexual relationship with her and married her,â the lawyer alleged.
The commissioner read into the record several victim-impact statements. One was from Wilfred Suchar, son of the murdered custodian, Michael Suchar. He said his wife had heard on the radio of a shooting at the school and called him at work. He had gone to his parentâs home to tell his mother, Valentina.
âWe found her singing as she gardened in the backyard,â the son recalled. âWe were all very upset and shocked on the way to the hospital, because no one would tell us Michaelâs condition. When we arrived, we found him not in the hospital room, but down in the basement, dead. He had died trying to help the children and Principal Wragg, killed by Ms. Spencer trying to liven up her Monday.â
He said that his mother never recovered.
âShe was lonely and scared, and became more and more depressed,â he said. âThere didnât seem much I or the rest of the family could do to help her.â
He went on to say that his father âhad gotten out alive from some rough times in the Pacific during World War II. He was then a part of the Allied occupying forces in northern Germany. Here he met his wife-to-be, Valentina. She, because of the language and cultural differences in the United States, always counted on him to manage their affairs. Suddenly, he was gone. I think her premature death in 1991 was at least partly the result of this traumatic experience.â
He ended by saying on behalf of his deceased parents and the surviving members of the family that they opposed parole for Spencer.
âMy question is, will there be another boring Monday for her?â he asked.
The custodianâs brother, Andrew Suchar also submitted a statement, noting that Michael had survived two ship sinkings during the war only to be killed by a 16-year-old in a schoolyard. The brother said that although his widowed sister-in-law lived until 1991, âher life actually ended in January 1979. The victims are not only those killed, but the survivors who live the tragedy for the rest of their lives.â
And then there was a statement by Steve Wragg, son of Principal Burton Wragg.
âMy dad and Mike were the only two to die that day,â he said, âThe kids that they were trying to save all lived. Some of them were seriously injured, but all survived. I hope that somehow my dad and Mike know this.â
There was also a statement from the principalâs daughter.
âPeople have told me that I look like him, act like him, that my kids are the spitting image of him,â she said. âWhen the kids hear this, they canât possibly relate to such statements, because they have never met their grandfather, and they know they never will, because Iâve told them over and over again that he is dead, that he was murdered by Brenda Spencer.â
The daughter spoke of scattering her fatherâs ashes in the desert.
âThe place he loved the most. The small ceremony solidified my understanding of love and eternity, and of our ties to one another as human beings. Yet, while it was all happening, so beautiful, so serene, I couldnât get over the perverse violence associated with my dadâs passing. I still canât.â
She described going to the school to collect her fatherâs personal effects.
âThe blood hadnât been scrubbed from where he had fallen on the concrete. I walked around this place, not stepping on the splotches and the puddles, and didnât want to be hugged by anyone. Nothing can console me ever.â
She then spoke words that have gained ever more truth after ever more mass shootings.
âA person can be attending school and be gunned down.â
She added, âIt happened here first.â
Other statements came from children now grown.
âMy name is Crystal Hardy,â one began. âI was 10 years old when I was shot by Brenda Spencer.â
She described arriving at school and hearing shots and seeing the principal and the custodian lying dead. A teacher had called for her to duck.
âBut I wasnât able to run from the bullet Brenda had for me,â Hardy said.
She recalled lying in the nurseâs office, bleeding as bullets crashed through the window.
âI was greatly comforted when the policemen arrived to carry me away. I can still remember the pool of blood on the nurseâs bed, and the terror didnât end there. Later, of course, I had nightmares, and to this day I fear that someone is pointing a gun at me when Iâm walking in open places.â
âAnd recently, my boyfriend wanted me to go to a shooting range with him because itâs a sport he enjoys, and although I was hesitant, I thought, âWell, itâs been a long time, Iâll probably be OK.â And I sat there as he shot the silhouette, but he had to stop because I started frantically crying. It was completely uncontrollable.â
There was also a statement by a parent, Francis Stile, whose two daughters attended the school. He recalled âthe phone call from the neighbor who said there had been a shooting at Cleveland, the frustration of not being able to get near the school because the incident was still going on, the terror in my wifeâs eyes, her screams of anguish at not knowing whether our girls were involved, the phone call from the hospital telling us that one of them had been wounded, looking at the bullet hole in her right elbow and the bullet burns on the inside if each thigh where a bullet had passed between her legs.â
The other daughter had been saved from harm when a notebook with a pouch of pens stopped a bullet. Both girls had witnessed the death of the principal and the custodian.
âThey still speak of hearing the gurgle in Mr. Wragg as he lay there dying⌠If such evil can occur in such a benign and tranquil setting, then it can happen anywhere and probably will.â
A former student named Cam Miller attended the hearing in person and offered the last statement.
âI was 9 years old when I was shot,â he began.
He recalled that his mother had just dropped him at school directly opposite Spencerâs home and he had been starting up the sidewalk when he saw the bodies of the principal and the custodian. He had then blacked out as a bullet passed within an inch of his heart, exiting his chest. He survived but remained terrorized.
âI would have to call to my mother two or three times each night to walk me around the inside of my house, just so I knew that Brenda Spencer was not inside my house,â he recalled.
He had been called to testify against her.
âI walked into court and saw this monster glaring at me,â he remembered. âThe look at Brenda Foster gave me was enough to scare any young child to death.â
Thirty years later, Miller beheld her in another proceeding and asked the board not to parole her. The board denied her and she will not be eligible for another hearing until 2019.
In the meantime, she will sit as inmate W14944 in the California Womenâs Institution, seeming to see no irony in having used heated metal to brand the words âCourageâ and âPrideâ across her chest. She is now 51 and will no doubt hear of more school shootings and ask herself if they got the idea from what she did on that long ago Monday.