contributed photo The Tower at the University of Texas at Austin, epicenter of the shootings on Aug. 1, 1966.

SHARE Getty Images The cover of LIFE magazine showing a victim's view of the tower in Austin, TX on Aug. 1, 1966. contributed postcard A postcard from Mt. Vernon Motor Courts in Austin, TX.

By Matthew Mcdaniel, matthew.mcdaniel@gosanangelo.com

It happened on a hot and sunny Monday.

August 1, 1966, dawned bright and clear in central Texas; and in the state capital, folks were going about their daily routines with no idea the first televised mass shooting was about to rock the nation.

Some of the University of Texas students who knew Charles J. Whitman were aware of the emotional and physical struggles he was contending with, but to the outside world, there was nothing about the strapping young man to suggest anything other than vigorous youth and a good nature, according to historical accounts.

But in the early hours of Aug. 1, something inside of Whitman snapped, leading him to kill his mother and his wife in separate incidents, before loading up his foot locker with firearms, food, and more than 700 rounds of ammunition. Headed for the tallest tower in downtown; he proceeded to shoot 43 people, killing 16.

Witnesses like Blaine Shields, of Mertzon, and Mickey McMurtrey, of San Angelo, say they can remember it like it was yesterday.

Blaine Shields grew up in Llano, but went to high school in San Angelo. After high school, she married and worked while her husband attended classes at San Angelo College.

After graduating from SAC two years later, he was accepted at UT and the couple made their way to Austin on Aug. 1,1966, to get registered for school, look for a place to live and scout jobs.

"I was really excited about the trip," she recalled. "I worked for Wallace Labs in San Angelo, and had an interview at Gilmore's Studio set up for Tuesday … we thought that was great because Gilmore's was right there by the college, and we would be able to share the car."

Having been to Austin regularly in her youth, she said it was always a treat to come to the capital.

"Looking back on it, Austin was very rural back then," she said. "You could drive down Congress and get a parking spot with no problem … but as far as Texas towns go, Austin had fancier restaurants and theaters, so everybody liked to go there ... we were pretty excited.

"We were late getting to Austin that day," she recalled. "We were staying at the Mt. Vernon Motor Courts on Highway 81 ... we checked in as fast as we could, because he needed to be at the registrar's office that afternoon."

Blaine said her husband freshened up quickly and left.

"I turned the AC on, but I was tired, so I laid down and never turned the TV on," she said.

Blaine recalled snoozing for just a few minutes when the telephone rang, startling her awake.

"It was my mother-in-law calling," she said. "She asked me if everything was OK … and I thought she was just asking if the trip went well … I (started talking) and she cut me off, telling me to turn on the TV.

"She said, 'There's a man with a gun shooting kids at the college. Where's Dennis?' and I just froze for a few heartbeats … I told her he was downtown, and she screamed."

Blaine said she remembers turning the TV on in the hotel room, and sitting on the edge of the bed as the set warmed up, bringing live footage of the carnage taking place a few miles away.

"I just thought — 'God, please don't let him be there.'"

Blaine's suspense lasted another 20 minutes, before her husband arrived back at the room, having been turned back as he neared the campus.

"I am so glad we were running late that day," she said. "Otherwise, he might have walked right in front of that tower.

"It is — to this day — the most awful thing I have ever seen … there was just nothing to prepare us for something like that," she said. "I grew up going to Central High School — half the trucks in the parking lot had guns in the back window — some of us used to hunt after school, so I've been around guns my whole life ... but to see all those scared people and the police — helpless — trapped down there like that, it was just heartbreaking."

Blaine said, in looking back, the helpless feeling of the day is what she remembers most vividly.

"You have to remember there was no such thing as a SWAT team in 1966 — nobody ever did this kind of thing — and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do to stop him."

Blaine remembers sitting "completely still" as the couple watched the news that afternoon.

She described the following day as "very surreal."

"There we were — downtown, the next day — and you could see where they put sand down to soak up the blood," she said. "And we're busy getting him registered for school ... looking at apartments — but somehow, everything was different — and everybody knew it."

The Drag, Monday morning

Mickey McMurtrey, Bobcat '60, was co-owner and operator of Mickey & Helen's Style Shop at 2604½ Guadalupe St. back in '66.

"It was the coolest place to have a beauty shop," he recalled of the street known as The Drag. "We were right there, northwest of the Tower, with kids going up and down the street all day and night.

"Things were a little wild in Austin back in 1966 ... but you have to remember, it was just like any other small town in Texas; everybody knew everybody else, and it was a great place to live and work and go to school ... the perfect college town."

Mickey said while beauty parlors are usually closed on Mondays, business was booming and Tuesdays were busy at the shop, prompting him to go downtown around noon and catch up on side work.

"I was coming up from Town Lake in a brand new shiny Cadillac, and had been on the interstate for a few minutes, when — all of the sudden — three troopers in separate cars passed me going 150 miles an hour … their whip antennas were straight back, they were going so fast."

Mickey said, being young and impetuous, he "floored it" and came into downtown not long after the squad cars.

"I didn't know any better," he said. "But when we rolled into downtown it was like a war zone; I flat-footed it inside and locked the door behind me."

The beauty salon was leased from an adjoining flower shop, and Mickey said the florist had a couple of scoped rifles he'd just brought in from his truck; the pair watched from up the street as the shooter selected targets, and fired on them with impunity.

"I watched the SOB through a scope the whole time nearly," he recalled. "I could tell every time he was going to pull the trigger … I had a really clear view, and he would get to looking around — and then he'd get someone in his sights — and I could see him squint his eyes; there would be a little puff at the end of the rifle — then we'd hear the shot.

McMurtrey said while many area residents were "literally running home to get their guns," he and his neighbor had no ammunition to return fire with.

"At one point, we watched those troopers bring up two armored cars, and drive them right over the curb onto the campus," he said.

Mickey said the armored cars were equipped with dual .30 caliber Browning light-machine guns, but they didn't help the situation.

"They were on the north side of the tower," he explained. "The Capitol is on the south side — so they figured out that wasn't going to work pretty-darn quick."

Mickey said at one point during the shooting rampage, he saw three students walking toward campus and stepped outside to tell them what was happening.

"I thought I had better tell them what was going on," he recalled. "I pointed and told them 'there is a man with a gun shooting people down there,'" he said. "By the time I turned back around, there was another shot and they were nowhere in sight."

When asked about the events of that day, Mickey said he often thinks about the courage shown by some of the real heros of that day; war veterans at the scene who were able to keep their wits about them when the killing began.

"The cops and the ambulance drivers were under their cars," he said. "One ambulance driver was shot, but there were several vets down there who were actually picking up the dead and the wounded, and taking them to the ambulances.

"Meanwhile, a man was shot at the barber shop just down the street, and they couldn't get to him."

Mickey said he feels very fortunate to have escaped injury that day.

"It's not something you can forget," he said.

The Standard-Times Files: Interview with Houston McCoy

(Editor's Note: The following interview by Standard-Times editor emeritus Perry Flippin was published on Jan. 7, 2008, as several heros of Aug. 1, 1966 prepared to be honored by the Austin City Council for their bravery.)

By Perry Flippin

After 41 years, Houston McCoy of Menard will return Thursday as Austin's City Council honors his heroism during the darkest episode in the history of the University of Texas campus.

"It wasn't me alone," the 67-year-old ex-policeman said last week in a telephone interview from the home of his daughter in Copperas Cove. "A lot of people were involved in stopping the killing."

Indeed, McCoy's daughter, Monika, pressed the Austin City Council to present Distinguished Service Awards to 14 key participants ? some now deceased ? who braved Charles Whitman's deadly sniper fire from the 28th-floor observation deck Aug. 1, 1966.

The council's action is intended to pay tribute to the brave officers and civilians who risked their lives to protect students and others in harm's way that day.

McCoy, then 26, is credited with killing the former Marine sharpshooter, whose bloody rampage left 17 people dead, including Whitman, and 31 wounded.

It has been conclusively determined that McCoy fired the fatal shot that ended Whitman's rampage. Both McCoy and fellow policeman Ramiro Martinez ? along with 12 other unsung heroes ? will receive awards and the city's thanks during ceremonies Thursday in Austin's council chambers, 301 W. 2nd St.

For McCoy, a Menard native who returned home in 1973, memories of that dramatic day have never faded. He can still recount, almost minute-by-minute, how he drove to the north side of the university tower and listened to gunfire ricocheting around the Forty Acres.

After conferring with other officers and civilians at the campus police station on Speedway, McCoy and four others were led through underground maintenance tunnels into the tower building.

"I was the only one with a shotgun, so I led the others," McCoy recalled.

The lawmen were still thinking an army of revolutionaries might be barricaded atop the tower. They found two people dead and two wounded in the hallway between the 27th and 28th floors.

"When we got up there, I saw Officer Allen Crum and Officer Martinez," McCoy said, adding that Martinez was on his knees. Martinez tried to kick open a door to the observation deck, but it was blocked by a dolly.

"Crum and I went out the south side," he continued.

Martinez was kneeling next to the door on the south side. McCoy told Crum to stay by that door and shoot anything coming around the southwest corner.

"When I turned back around, Martinez had disappeared," McCoy continued. "The only place he could be was the east side.

"When I went around, he started crawling on all fours toward the northeast corner. I was with my back to the wall kinda hunched down, scooting one foot in front of the other about 3 inches from his feet.

"His position allowed me to shoot over him without worrying about him being in the way."

At the northeast corner, Martinez jumped out and rapidly fired all six shots he had.

"While he was doing that, I was jumping outside of him, which put me to his right," McCoy said, adding that big light standards running down the parapet walls partially blocked his view.

"I saw this head looking right at me with a white headband around it," he continued. "I just shot that white headband, and his head started bouncing. I didn't like the shot. I stood up a little taller and got better angle and fired again.

"His head was still bouncing when I hit him in the left side. I hit him full in the face the first shot.

"He kinda slithered down in slow motion and was laying on his back," McCoy said.

Martinez grabbed McCoy's shotgun, stood beside the body and fired another round point-blank into the body of the 25-year-old shooter.

"I got him! I got him! I got him!" Martinez exulted.

With ground fire still ricocheting off the tower, McCoy directed another officer to notify the police dispatcher and announce to Austin's news media that the bloody siege was over.

University of Texas officials dedicated a memorial pond in 1999. Family members of the victims organized a memorial service to pay their respects Wednesday on the 41st anniversary of the shooting. McCoy and his daughter came to pay their respects.

Heroes

Following are the names of people to receive Distinguished Service Awards during ceremonies Thursday in Austin, followed when applicable by the name of the person taking their place:

* Officer Billy Paul Speed, the only peace officer slain Aug. 1, 1966. Jennie Speed Shone, widow.

* Officer Phillip Conner of Austin, ex-Army medic administered first aid and covered the west window while officers went onto the observation deck. Phillip Conner Jr., son.

* Officer Jerry Day of Universal City, moved a wounded victim out of the line of fire and went to the top of the tower alone.

* Lt. Marion Lee, the gunner in the airplane piloted by Jim Boutwell. An Austin Police Department representative.

* Officer Ramiro Martinez of New Braunfels, made his way onto the tower deck and was the first to spot and fire upon the sniper.

* Officer Houston McCoy of Menard, fired the fatal shots into the sniper, thereby ending the UT Tower tragedy.

* Officer Harold Moe of Marble Falls, was instrumental in saving the lives of two gunshot victims and used the only portable two-way radio to notify police that the siege was over.

* Officer George Shepard, was instrumental in saving the lives of two gunshot victims. Vicky Shepard, widow.

* Officer Milton Shoquist of Fair Oaks Ranch, was instrumental in saving the lives of two gunshot victims.

* Department of Public Safety Agent W.A. "Dub" Cowan, made his way to the top of the tower and was instrumental in setting up communications and removing people from harm's way on the 27th floor. Kay Cowan, daughter.

* Civilian Jim Boutwell, volunteered his airplane and piloted it slowly above the tower to gather information and to help subdue the sniper. Louise Boutwell, widow.

* Civilian Allen Crum, first-floor supervisor of UT Co-op, made his way atop the UT Tower and, with Agent Cowan's weapon, assisted Officer Martinez and backed up Officer Day on the south side of the observation deck. Brian Jewell of the Co-op.

* Civilian Frank Holder, elevator mechanic for Otis Elevator Co., led officers up the tower and assisted them in negotiating the stairs leading to the observation deck. Danny Holder and/or Frank Holder Jr., son.

* Civilian William Wilcox, engineer for UT Physical Plant, led officers through the underground tunnels to safely enter the tower building, assist the wounded and subdue the sniper. John Wilcox, son.