Neal Newberry was 18 years old at the time of the UT Tower shooting. He had just graduated from Austin High School. Newberry was scheduled to start classes at UT-Austin that fall and had already taken one summer session course.
Newberry was working at the Terrytown Pharmacy owned by his father that summer.
He was best friends with Paul Sonntag and knew Sonntag’s girlfriend Claudia Rutt fairly well. Both Sonntag and Rutt were killed in the shooting.
Newberry decided not to attend UT in the fall and enrolled at Stephen F. Austin University instead.