“I Have Just Taken My Mother’s Life”
The first victims of the UT Tower sniper Charles Whitman were those closest to him.
I had a glancing knowledge of them, but they were more of a footnote than “real people” to me
until I had paused with my tour group along Congress Avenue around 10 th street one evening.
A gent who had imbibed a few drinks before seeing us slanted from his walk towards the
Capitol and took a few staggering steps in our direction, asking, “What’s going on here?”
“It’s a ghost tour” one of my guests replied.
“I see a ghost every year!” he responded. Always anxious to add to our locations and stories, I
asked, “Really? Where?” “Penthouse Condominiums over on Guadalupe” he answered. “The
ghost of Mrs. Whitman runs screaming down the hallway of the 5 th floor every year when July
31 st rolls around.” The man’s gaze became intense as he seemed to re-live his last encounter.
“I’ve seen and heard it. Make your blood run cold and your hair stand on end.”
The gent’s name has escaped me, but I do recall he said he ran for the Texas Legislature and
admitted to being soundly beaten in the primaries. Tracking him down again would be relatively
easy. But what I really wanted to investigate was the death of Charles Whitman’s mother,
Margaret, because everything I had read previously seemed to imply that he sneaked into her
apartment and killed her while she slept by stabbing her in the heart, then went home and
repeated the same heinous deed to his wife, Kathleen. So, if Margaret was killed in her sleep,
why would her ghost run screaming down the 5 th floor hallway at the Penthouse
Condominiums?
Upon taking a deeper dive into other sources, including a comprehensive Austin American
Statesman newspaper account published the Sunday after the mass shooting, I found three
interesting details:
1. ) Yes, Margaret did live on the 5 th floor in Apt #506, so the current resident spoke
truthfully.
2. Apparently one of Margaret’s hands was crushed as though she had caught it in a
doorway,
3. Also, there were ligature bruises on her throat. In going through Whitman’s many bags
of weapons and ammo, police found a length of rubber hose.
It’s possible that Charles had snuck up behind his mother with that hose and tried to strangle
her. In her struggle to escape into another room, she got her hand caught in a door, severely
injuring it. He overpowered her and perhaps she lost consciousness then. In any case, she was
incapacitated enough for her son to carry her to her bed, stab her in the heart, and cover her
with sheets. He then left a note of apology to whomever would discover her body. It read:
To Whom It May Concern: I have just taken my mother’s life. I am very upset over having done
it. However, I feel if there is a heaven, she is definitely there now. And if there is no life after, I
have relieved her of her suffering here on earth. The intense hatred I feel for my father is beyond
description. My mother gave that man the best 25 years of her life. Let there be no doubt in your
mind that I loved this woman with all my heart.”
Charles knew once his shooting spree at the UT Tower was completed, no matter the outcome,
someone would seek out his mother for comment or to perhaps have her claim his remains.
Nonetheless, he left another note on her apartment door to delay her discovery while he killed
his wife, and then completed his planned ambush from the tower. The note was addressed to
someone named Ron that explained she wasn’t feeling well and was taking the day off from her
job at the Wyatt Cafeteria. There was someone on the maintenance staff of the Penthouse
named Ron. Perhaps Charles knew that Ron often checked on Margaret, a divorced woman on
the run from an abusive ex-husband, living alone in Austin with few friends. Perhaps Ron often
took his lunch at the cafeteria and would think it odd not seeing her that following day.
Oftentimes, we at Austin Ghost Tours are left an interesting breadcrumb, and much like
detectives, hunt for a more well-rounded story of human nature. The easy report that Margaret
was killed in her sleep was upended by this chance meeting who had a different account: that
Margaret was terrified in the last moments of her life. Terrified enough that on the anniversary
of her son’s visit, that energy replays itself like a morbid recording. This often leaves us with
even more questions, as we yearn to seek – and tell – the truth that always lays buried beneath
the sensational.
Monica Ballard – Guide, Researcher, Investigator
Austin Ghost Tours
