“I was eating lunch at the Mayfair House (a women’s dorm) at 2000 Pearl Street. Someone came in and said, ‘There’s someone shooting at people from the Tower.’ We kind of dismissed it and I was preparing to drop my good friends off at the Littlefield Fountain when we went outside. There were other people looking and pointing at the Tower.
We could see puffs of smoke coming out of the portholes and decided to wait and see.
By this time, the TV was showing the event live. Eventually, we saw he was caught. Then, there was an announcement that a special edition of The Austin-American Statesman would come out at 3 pm. The only thing we knew at this time was that Whitman had been an Eagle Scout. We walked over to the 7-Eleven on 24th Street and were as spooked as everyone else in there: it was perfect silence except for the people asking and paying for the paper.
Later, we drove to San Antonio to attend a party that night. When we arrived at my friend’s boyfriend’s house, his father wanted to know every single detail we had heard and experienced. The next morning at 7 am this man shot himself (though it took several days before he died).
I’ve never stopped worrying about and thinking about the connection between that suicide and the Tower shooting. It changed many people’s lives.
And while the incident was going on, we worried about another friend. We heard later, he made his way across campus to get to Scholz’s Beer Garten where they were selling 10c beer to celebrate the establishment’s 100-year anniversary.”