In 1979, 16 year old Brenda Ann Spencer killed 2 people at a public elementary school in San Diego, eight children and a police officer were injured.
Her answer as to why she did it? “I don’t like Mondays.”
Age 16, she was 5'2" (157 cm) and had bright red hair. After her parents separated, she lived with her father, Wallace Spencer, in poverty.
Although Spencer showed exceptional ability as a photographer, winning first prize in a Humane Society competition, she was generally uninterested in school.
In early 1978, staff at a facility for problem students, into which Spencer had been referred for truancy, informed her parents that she was suicidal.
A psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer recommended that Spencer be admitted to a mental hospital for depression, but her father refused to give permission.
For Christmas 1978, he gave her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition.
Spencer later said, "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." When asked why he might have done that, she answered, "I felt like he wanted me to kill myself."
In her 2001 hearing, Spencer first claimed that her father had been subjecting her to beatings and sexual abuse, but he said the allegations were not true.
As of June 2019, she remains in prison.
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