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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 4: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about him Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker VTK
Speaker 4: every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 4: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 4: your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 5: In nineteen seventy nine, Brenda Spencer, a seemingly average teenage
Speaker 5: girl living in a nice suburban neighborhood, made and executed
Speaker 5: plans that would place her in infamy in set a
Speaker 5: violent and terrifying national precedent. She received a rifle for Christmas,
Speaker 5: and a month later, Setter sits and open fire on
Speaker 5: the elementary school across the street. The event is forever
Speaker 5: glorified by the song I Don't Like Mondays by the
Speaker 5: Boomtown Rats, and marks the bloody beginning of the American
Speaker 5: phenomenon of school shootings, long before Columbine and Sandy hook,
Speaker 5: there was Brenda Spencer. I Don't Like Mondays, The True
Speaker 5: Story of America's first modern school shooting, sifts through the
Speaker 5: mythology that has sprung up around this faithful day, presenting
Speaker 5: the raw and riveting facts for the first time. This
Speaker 5: book lays bare the seemingly average teenage girl's brutal motives
Speaker 5: and subsequent arrest. N Lee Hunt spent years researching and
Speaker 5: uncovering shocking details from officers, investigators, and lost police dispatches.
Speaker 5: He has interviewed people who were on the scene and
Speaker 5: local reporters who spoke with him with the perpetrator directly
Speaker 5: after her shooting spree. Hunt has even cultivated an unlikely
Speaker 5: rapport with the killer, and through personal interviews, has shed
Speaker 5: light on previously unknown details about her upbringing and influences.
Speaker 5: The book that we're featuring this evening is I Don't
Speaker 5: Like Mondays, The True Story behind America's first modern school shooting,
Speaker 5: with my special guest, author, crime historian and broadcaster and
Speaker 5: Lee Hunt. Welcome to the program, and thank you so
Speaker 5: much for this interview. And Lee Hunt, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Dan plead to be here.
Speaker 5: Thanks, thank you so much. Now, first off, please tell
Speaker 5: us how you came to be the author of this story,
Speaker 5: why you wanted to do this story, and how you
Speaker 5: had the opportunity.
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up in San Diego, like so many people,
Speaker 2: and you know know San Diego as being that small
Speaker 2: town in the seventies, and it just grew bigger and bigger, bigger.
Speaker 2: Now it's a massive city. My parents were British and
Speaker 2: we moved there sort of living the American dream. When
Speaker 2: I was a young kid. My dad was the journalist
Speaker 2: the Satday Evening Tribute at the time, and he was
Speaker 2: working at the city desk and one day he came
Speaker 2: home from school and said, you won't believe what's happened.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're safe. And he just said, you know,
Speaker 2: a number of kids your age were just shot today
Speaker 2: at school. It's just changed San Diego forever. And we
Speaker 2: sat for a long time and talked about this story.
Speaker 2: So it's something I was essentially my first venture into
Speaker 2: true crime, if you will. I mean, now it's a
Speaker 2: genre that everyone talks about. Back then, it was just
Speaker 2: called horror, and I spent my entire life thinking of
Speaker 2: this case, and it was something that's you know, I
Speaker 2: went in to do research and crime history, and I
Speaker 2: studied serial killers for a long time. I went into
Speaker 2: broadcasting and even done some radio stuff about local crime.
Speaker 2: And someone said to me, you know, you really should
Speaker 2: write a book about Brenda Spencer, because you know so
Speaker 2: much about it, because your father was heavily involved in
Speaker 2: what happened that day. And it wasn't until I sort
Speaker 2: of got late into my years that I noticed that
Speaker 2: no one had written a book about this, nobody had
Speaker 2: ever sort of captured it. But yet we're You're hearing
Speaker 2: every single year, and sometimes more than once a year,
Speaker 2: about another school shooting that was happening in America, and
Speaker 2: nothing was changing. So I just dove deep into it
Speaker 2: and thought, let's actually recount all the facts. Let's get
Speaker 2: all the information without any hoopla, without any media hype,
Speaker 2: and just recount everything that happened that day, by everyone
Speaker 2: who was involved, and maybe we could come to some
Speaker 2: sort of idea as to why it happened. I'm not
Speaker 2: looking for solution. I just wanted to sort of get
Speaker 2: the facts together to see if maybe maybe the story
Speaker 2: behind Brenda is not that different than the story behind
Speaker 2: all the other dozens of school shootings. So that's pretty
Speaker 2: much the motivation for doing it. I went back to
Speaker 2: my basics, the one that actually brought true crime into
Speaker 2: my orbit, and just thought, let's just make my first
Speaker 2: book about Brenda. And that's exactly what it did. So
Speaker 2: I wrote to her. She wrote back, and the rest
Speaker 2: is history.
Speaker 5: Well, let's get to that history as you write. Monday,
Speaker 5: January twenty ninth, nineteen seventy nine, in San Carlos, which
Speaker 5: is a suburb of San Diego, a little after eight am,
Speaker 5: tell us what happens at this Cleveland school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll start with San Carlos because sant Carlos is
Speaker 2: actually more of like a really big neighborhood in sort
Speaker 2: of the East County of the San Diego City. And
Speaker 2: the reason why that's important is because I think people
Speaker 2: in the East County of San Diego felt that it
Speaker 2: was part of the county, which the sheriffs would be
Speaker 2: part of their jurisdiction, and the city kind of part
Speaker 2: didn't even know that it existed, and people said San Carlos,
Speaker 2: I didn't know where it was. But it was actually
Speaker 2: the police, the local police who were called to attend,
Speaker 2: so shots ring out the reception after school. Here's the
Speaker 2: bullets and looks around and doesn't know where they're coming from.
Speaker 2: Nobody can really identify where the bullets were coming from.
Speaker 2: Kids were running into the office saying this were being shot.
Speaker 2: Children had fallen in the driveway leading up to the
Speaker 2: front of the school. And this is a California style
Speaker 2: sort of bungalow style school, so it's one level. It's
Speaker 2: not like the tall school buildings that you see on
Speaker 2: the East coast of America. It's a very small, one
Speaker 2: level school with a car park in the front. And
Speaker 2: the kids came running up and the receptions called to
Speaker 2: the police, and back then you dialed zero and asked
Speaker 2: the operator and then said I need the police. So
Speaker 2: there was no nine one one, There were no paramedics.
Speaker 2: It was literally just scared people on the phone calling
Speaker 2: other people who were hoping to do the right thing
Speaker 2: to dispatch. Police started turning up as fast as they
Speaker 2: could from all over the city and everybody came in
Speaker 2: and as they arrived on the scene, it was then
Speaker 2: quickly determined that Brenda was across the road shooting from
Speaker 2: her front door with the twenty two, and she had
Speaker 2: already shot a number of students and bullets had hit
Speaker 2: the principal and the custodian as they came out to
Speaker 2: rescue children in the front of the school. Quite an
Speaker 2: alarming saying.
Speaker 5: You write that there was parents at this time and
Speaker 5: at various stages after eight am that were dropping off
Speaker 5: their kids that were oblivious to this sniper across the
Speaker 5: street shooting at students and teachers and staff.
Speaker 2: Exactly right. Twenty two caliber rifle is not the loudest
Speaker 2: of weapons, one of the smallest caliber weapons that was
Speaker 2: available at that time. Brenda was a sixteen year old
Speaker 2: girl who received it for Christmas just prior to the shooting,
Speaker 2: which was January twenty ninth, so it's certainly had it
Speaker 2: just over a month, and these bullets were ringing out.
Speaker 2: People thought, you know, perhaps it was backfiring car, perhaps
Speaker 2: it was even fireworks. Because it was the Chinese New
Speaker 2: Year weekend just passed, parents pulled up in their car,
Speaker 2: dropped their kids off, kids got out of the car,
Speaker 2: they drove away like any normal school day. It was
Speaker 2: quite unremarkable in that respect, except for Brenda was shooting
Speaker 2: from across the road. So one of the students that
Speaker 2: luckily got away actually was dropped off by their mother
Speaker 2: and just walked up the path happily while someone was
Speaker 2: shot right next to them. Could have been them. Very
Speaker 2: lucky to tell.
Speaker 5: Us about the actions of Principal Rag and and also
Speaker 5: custodian Mike Sukhar, which they called mister Mike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mister Mike was sort of this sort of legendary
Speaker 2: big hero guy, you know, when of these big, sort
Speaker 2: of strapping veteran who took care of the school and
Speaker 2: everybody liked him. Principal Rag was a career educator, really
Speaker 2: decent guy. A lot of students tell stories about how
Speaker 2: he would he would pretend to have the same interests
Speaker 2: as them to keep them motivated and interested in school
Speaker 2: each day. He really really these two guys seemed as,
Speaker 2: if you know, some of the greatest people that had
Speaker 2: ever worked within the educational environment in San Diego. They
Speaker 2: saw a child fall to the ground, didn't know what
Speaker 2: it was, I think, without thinking, both these gentlemen ran
Speaker 2: to the front of the school to help the children.
Speaker 2: One of them saw the other fall to the ground
Speaker 2: with some sort of injury. Didn't know what that was,
Speaker 2: so they ran to his rescue. So it's essentially just
Speaker 2: people you know who were in roll model positions taking
Speaker 2: care of their students, and Brenda targeted them. I think
Speaker 2: they were larger targets for her. Perhaps perhaps maybe she
Speaker 2: was aiming for the adults, because she didn't actually kill
Speaker 2: any children that day, and she swiftly lended bullets right
Speaker 2: into the chest of both these gentlemen. It was quite
Speaker 2: a shame. Police arrived and were told to arrive in
Speaker 2: the back of the school. Some did, some didn't because
Speaker 2: this going back to the days of radio dispatch. They
Speaker 2: ran right One of them, Officer Rob ran straight up,
Speaker 2: straight up to mister Mike and Principal Rag and took
Speaker 2: a bullet straight to his neck. With all the adrenaline
Speaker 2: he was still managed to lift them to a gurney
Speaker 2: and get them into an ambulance and off to the hospital,
Speaker 2: and then later found that the bullet hit his spine
Speaker 2: and he then later collapsed but did survive.
Speaker 5: There was another officer that realized that there was a
Speaker 5: trash truck and he could use it to his advantage.
Speaker 5: What did they do with this trash truck?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, Ted Kasigknak, who now sort of become friends
Speaker 2: with in a way, he's a bit of a hero.
Speaker 2: He arrived from the opposite side of the school and
Speaker 2: was able to sort of identify that, hey, this shooting
Speaker 2: is coming from across the road, and he sort of
Speaker 2: looked around and didn't know what to do. And a
Speaker 2: large trash truck had just been picking up the trash
Speaker 2: on any normal neighborhood, and I've got I sort of
Speaker 2: mentioned that San Carlos is sort of like a Spielberg
Speaker 2: Ass type neighborhood. This is a very typical track home,
Speaker 2: you know, all sort of single level dwellings. All the
Speaker 2: houses down the road kind of looked alike, all the
Speaker 2: gardens are maintained. This is a very nice neighborhood in
Speaker 2: southern California.
Speaker 5: Standard.
Speaker 2: He saw the garbage truck and thought, you know what,
Speaker 2: these people are being shot in front of the school.
Speaker 2: And somehow he jumped in it and commandeered it, got
Speaker 2: it started, drove it up a narrow part the parking
Speaker 2: lot in front of the school, around a few vehicles
Speaker 2: that were parked there, and managed to pull it within
Speaker 2: twenty feet of the front entrance to the school, the walkway,
Speaker 2: blocking Brenda's vision from all the students that were hiding
Speaker 2: along that walkway. He saved potentially dozens of lives that day.
Speaker 2: It is one of the most heroic I think in
Speaker 2: San Diego history, part of one of the most heroque
Speaker 2: things that could have happened that day, and certainly school
Speaker 2: shootings forty three laters could still use that type of
Speaker 2: heroic action. So Ted Cazignak is pretty much a legend.
Speaker 2: He stayed the entire day behind that truck, keeping siphon
Speaker 2: Brenda until finally she was apprehended. It's quite remarkable fate
Speaker 2: you had.
Speaker 5: One of the teachers is featured in this book named Barns,
Speaker 5: and he was seeing the principal and the custodian down
Speaker 5: in front of the school and then was yelling to
Speaker 5: children that were oblivious to run and run into the school.
Speaker 5: Tell us about the efforts of the teachers to safeguard
Speaker 5: these students, not realizing what was going on whatsoever regarding
Speaker 5: the sniper across the street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when the principal and the custodian, it
Speaker 2: was traditional for the principle to be out in the
Speaker 2: mornings to open the gate with the custodian and even
Speaker 2: a way to parents. You know, they were doing their role,
Speaker 2: so they were in the place they need to be Barnes,
Speaker 2: the teacher was sort of his role was more to
Speaker 2: stay in the office and to take care of some
Speaker 2: of the administration stuff. So when he saw this unfolding,
Speaker 2: he had no choice would take a leadership role. You know,
Speaker 2: he was the assistant's principal. It was I suppose he
Speaker 2: took that role, and he essentially ushered dozens and dozens
Speaker 2: of children and actually organized some of the other teachers
Speaker 2: to pick the children into their rooms, lock the door, hide,
Speaker 2: get down. I think unwittingly, Barnes and the other teachers
Speaker 2: who were on scene that day, and some of the
Speaker 2: police officers, I think it are unwittingly setting up dynamic
Speaker 2: sort of crisis education for all the children. And a
Speaker 2: lot of the things that they did that day are
Speaker 2: incorporated in the ALICE training, which is the school violence
Speaker 2: training the police officers get today. Just by their actions
Speaker 2: that day that saved lives. It was essentially duck and cover,
Speaker 2: is what Barnes was telling the students, and they all
Speaker 2: ran for cover. Some were stuck in the bushes along
Speaker 2: the walkway, somewhere behind the cars in the parking lot
Speaker 2: in between the front of the school and Brenda's house.
Speaker 2: Across the road. I think he just said, we're all
Speaker 2: getting for cover. Everybody get down, and he continued this
Speaker 2: chant throughout the fire alarm was going off. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of stress. More parents were pulling up with
Speaker 2: children in their cars. It really became quite a scene.
Speaker 2: You could imagine for those who were at the school,
Speaker 2: they could hear the gunshots and knew what were going
Speaker 2: what was going on, But for those just arriving, all
Speaker 2: they could hear was fire alarm, had a frenzy teacher
Speaker 2: telling everyone to get down. It's part of what an
Speaker 2: alarming steam. Now.
Speaker 5: The San Diego Evening Tribune comes into this story with
Speaker 5: police reporter Frank Asaldera. He's on the police scanner and
Speaker 5: he recognized the call was out of the ordinary, so
Speaker 5: he calls into the newspaper's head office and the chief
Speaker 5: assistant city editor is Bernie Hunt. Your father tell us
Speaker 5: about this.
Speaker 2: My father. Yeah. So his role was to make sure
Speaker 2: all the boarders are out on their beat doing their stuff,
Speaker 2: and Frank was down at the cop shop as they
Speaker 2: call it. And you know, a shooting in San Diego
Speaker 2: was not that uncommon. It was uncommon, but not that uncommon.
Speaker 2: But that time of the morning at a school. It
Speaker 2: was really uncommon, and they took the call and immediately
Speaker 2: my dad sort of dispatched anybody it was around. But
Speaker 2: at eight o'clock in the morning, their newspapers are already
Speaker 2: out in their day there, you know, they're the evening paper.
Speaker 2: They're already kind of started their day is their deadline
Speaker 2: is sort of around nine am, So this was sort
Speaker 2: of right at a key moment where people weren't available.
Speaker 2: My dad and Mike Walker, who is the city editor,
Speaker 2: they walked down to a desk where they found an
Speaker 2: available reporter and it just happened to be Steve Wigan,
Speaker 2: who was the political reporter for San Diego, and he
Speaker 2: was just getting ready to leave up to Los Angeles
Speaker 2: to cover some politics that was going on around town.
Speaker 2: And he said, you're not going anywhere. I needed you
Speaker 2: to start making phone calls. We got a shooter in
Speaker 2: San Carlos, and of course everyone said where and he said, look,
Speaker 2: just cover it. Here's a crisscross directory. Now, back way
Speaker 2: back in the day, you and I are probably old
Speaker 2: enough to remember, but many people wouldn't won't be. They
Speaker 2: used to have these big phone books with everybody's name
Speaker 2: in it and their phone numbers, and they have this
Speaker 2: thing called the Crisscross which was the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 2: So it had the address with the phone number and
Speaker 2: the name of people, so you can look it up
Speaker 2: by address. So Steve Weigan just thumbed through this phone
Speaker 2: book Crisscross record found the house that was across the
Speaker 2: street from the from the shooting from the school. He
Speaker 2: just he dialed it first. It was a very sort
Speaker 2: of easy number to dial. I think that the doal
Speaker 2: was two three four five with the last four digits.
Speaker 2: So he went there first. A young girl answers the phone,
Speaker 2: and he initially says, you know, it's your mom home,
Speaker 2: because he can't believe that. You know, what's she doing home?
Speaker 2: It's got to be a parent I want to speak
Speaker 2: with And she said no, I'm here alone. He said, well,
Speaker 2: I hear there's a shooting. Do you know anything about it?
Speaker 2: And she says, yeah, it's me and he doesn't believe it.
Speaker 2: She kind of hangs up, and he calls back away
Speaker 2: and says, well, why are you doing this? And she says, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I just don't like mondays livens up the day.
Speaker 2: I got to go now and do some more shooting.
Speaker 2: So Steve Wigan and the guys at the evening tribute,
Speaker 2: and one of them being my father, had actually stopped
Speaker 2: Brenda in mid shot to answer the telephone. Either her
Speaker 2: vanity or adolescence, I don't know what it was stopped
Speaker 2: her from shooting to answer the phone. It's quite remarkable.
Speaker 5: He asked her obvious questions right away, like why are
Speaker 5: you shooting at innocent people? What kind of responses does
Speaker 5: he get.
Speaker 2: I don't think he gets any clear response other than
Speaker 2: I just don't like mondays, this livens up the day.
Speaker 2: You know, I see their blue jumpers, I want to shoot,
Speaker 2: you know. I don't think he was getting anything out
Speaker 2: of her immediately, he says to my dad, he says,
Speaker 2: you know. To the editors, he says, look, I've got
Speaker 2: her on the phone, and my dad says, well, you
Speaker 2: get to writing the story because we're hitting deadline. He
Speaker 2: calls in Gus, who's another key journalist and reporter who
Speaker 2: was on the scene, and said, you give her call back.
Speaker 2: You get as much information out of her as she can,
Speaker 2: and the two of them sort of worked together to
Speaker 2: fashion the story for the front page that afternoon. It
Speaker 2: was all about getting the story and all about finding
Speaker 2: out why she was doing it. I don't think they
Speaker 2: got any clearer or anything really out of her, but
Speaker 2: is the most remarkably that she stopped shooting people in
Speaker 2: order to tell everybody what she was up to. Eventually,
Speaker 2: if I can carry on with the story, they try
Speaker 2: and stay on the phone with her as long as
Speaker 2: they possibly can, because I think twofold they realized that
Speaker 2: they're getting the story, which of course their reporters and
Speaker 2: that's their job. Secondly, I think they suddenly realized that
Speaker 2: as long as they speak to her, she's not shooting
Speaker 2: anybody else. Eventually, the police have now cordoned off the area.
Speaker 2: The students were pretty much in safety. Ted Casanat had
Speaker 2: done this in a tremendous job of blocking her vision
Speaker 2: with this truck. They eventually called the Tribune and go,
Speaker 2: we hear you're on the phone with the shooter. Knock
Speaker 2: it off, get off the phone. Will you want to
Speaker 2: speak with her? And that's kind of where they kind
Speaker 2: of put it to rest there and just decided to
Speaker 2: go to press with the story.
Speaker 5: Now, the police contact parents, Wally and Dorothy. What you
Speaker 5: called dot? What did they find from the parents, What
Speaker 5: information do they find from the parents, and what do
Speaker 5: they want from the parents at that time.
Speaker 2: Well, again, she's you know, they know that she's under age,
Speaker 2: or they believe she's under age. They are going to
Speaker 2: contact the parents. Certainly. The father was only working at
Speaker 2: San Diego State University not far away, so he was
Speaker 2: quite available, and he was semi popular orcs, so people
Speaker 2: knew him. The mother was working at a golf tournament
Speaker 2: up in Tory Pines. San Diego has this beautiful golf
Speaker 2: course I don't even know. Tory Pines was actually stunning,
Speaker 2: and she was one of the accountants for a huge
Speaker 2: golf tournament that just happened over that weekend. They initially
Speaker 2: call her and she says, you know, I can't make it.
Speaker 2: I've got a table full of cash, I'm counting money.
Speaker 2: I can't come. Whatever it is, Brenda can handle it.
Speaker 2: And they said, no, I don't think you understand your
Speaker 2: daughter is shooting people. And I think there's something in
Speaker 2: that that has never sat right me, with the fact
Speaker 2: that the mother didn't immediately jump to attention. The family
Speaker 2: had gone through a horrible divorce a number of years before,
Speaker 2: and I think Dodt had just felt that Brenda was
Speaker 2: Wally's problem, or Wally should take care of all these
Speaker 2: little things like whatever Brenda's not going to school or
Speaker 2: whatever she's doing during her day. Wally came right to
Speaker 2: the scene, came right to the cordon where the police
Speaker 2: blocked the road, and actually started giving as much information
Speaker 2: as he could. He told the police officers, that is
Speaker 2: my daughter, this is where she goes to school. This
Speaker 2: is how old she is, this is the weapon she has.
Speaker 2: This is how much ammunition I bought her for Christmas.
Speaker 2: So she had nearly one thousand rounds of ammunition and
Speaker 2: she was stuck up in the house. So he actually
Speaker 2: gave a lot of very vital information to the police
Speaker 2: and really helped them on how to proceed. Eventually, the
Speaker 2: mother did arrive as well, but she she did take
Speaker 2: a little bit longer to get to the scene.
Speaker 5: Now, meanwhile, there's a SWAT team being organized, and what
Speaker 5: happens of this endeavor.
Speaker 2: Well, swat back in nineteen seventy nine is not as
Speaker 2: slick as we think it probably was. These guys were
Speaker 2: all full time police officers, some were off duty that day.
Speaker 2: They were called to the scene and then when they arrived.
Speaker 2: They show up in their cars and start to unpack
Speaker 2: their gear from the boots in their car. SWAT didn't
Speaker 2: have a huge van with these guys in camouflage who
Speaker 2: come jumping out with their huge weaponry like we see today.
Speaker 2: It was a very without using the word low budget,
Speaker 2: it was just sort of low tech is probably the
Speaker 2: best way to say it. Police officers didn't wear bulletproof vests.
Speaker 2: They had kind of a white bib that kind of
Speaker 2: sat just above their navel and just below their shoulders,
Speaker 2: which kind of covered the middle of their chest, but
Speaker 2: really not much of a bulletproof vest at all, And
Speaker 2: so they were putting these on and trying to get
Speaker 2: themselves in some kind of position. Luckily, San Diego being
Speaker 2: a huge military town, a lot of these these guys
Speaker 2: on the SWAT team were X Marines, ex army and
Speaker 2: very skilled with weaponry. They took positions on houses, around
Speaker 2: the back side of the house, round the top of
Speaker 2: the school, some were just down at the end of
Speaker 2: the block, all positions aiming at the front doors or
Speaker 2: the windows of the house. At this stage, SWAT only
Speaker 2: knew what Ted Kasanak and the other police officers on
Speaker 2: the scene could tell them, and that was we have
Speaker 2: a shooter in the house. They had no idea how
Speaker 2: many shooters. They really only had the idea from the
Speaker 2: father of how what kind of weaponry they were talking about.
Speaker 2: And slowly, as time ticked on, no more shooting, no
Speaker 2: more bullets rang out. Once Brendick got off the phone
Speaker 2: with the reporters for the final time, she didn't fire
Speaker 2: another shot. So they weren't really sure what they had
Speaker 2: at this point, what else was in that house. Perhaps
Speaker 2: the perpetrator had killed themselves. They really didn't know. It's
Speaker 2: what really had to move close to the house, really
Speaker 2: small baby steps to find out what was going on
Speaker 2: at the premises. I was lucky enough to find the
Speaker 2: original dispatch tapes from the police. Now, these are not digital,
Speaker 2: these are not things that were kept on file. Back
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine. I went into a group of
Speaker 2: radio enthusiasts and one of them was a twelve year
Speaker 2: old who had a love or police dispatch and he
Speaker 2: just recorded this on a cassette tape and I managed
Speaker 2: to find him and he shared it with me. It's
Speaker 2: the most remarkable finds. It's an incredible insight into what
Speaker 2: the San Diego PEDI did at a time where they
Speaker 2: had no idea of the hostility that was taking place,
Speaker 2: or what the perpetrator had, or even the threat. It's
Speaker 2: quite remarkable, and I tried to capture them as best
Speaker 2: I could in the first ten chapters of the book
Speaker 2: to show what people do when they're forced to do it.
Speaker 2: And I think it's remarkable. The Santiagopedia are truly heros.
Speaker 5: You talk about the San Diego Police Department and Detective
Speaker 5: Olson at twelve twelve oh six, Now Brenda Spencer answers
Speaker 5: the phone, and so they have a conversation. What any
Speaker 5: kind of value does she convey to Detective Olson?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what I'm doing. By twelve o'clock, I
Speaker 2: mean we're talking almost you know, it's three and a
Speaker 2: half hours after the shooting and almost three hours since
Speaker 2: her final bullet. They were calling the house and calling
Speaker 2: the house, and she wasn't answering. They shut off the power.
Speaker 2: She's unaware. Ted Olsen is in the sort of the
Speaker 2: bathroom of the house next door, kind of yelling through
Speaker 2: the window, answer the phone, answered the phone. Chet Thurston,
Speaker 2: who's the other interrogator. Both these guys are highly skilled
Speaker 2: military interrogators. These guys have been you know, they've been
Speaker 2: around the block. These were not young interrogators. They're very
Speaker 2: seasoned veterans. In the STPD, he was out of the
Speaker 2: front of the bullhorn. She's trying to make noise to
Speaker 2: get her attention, you know, in a safe position. Obviously.
Speaker 2: Eventually she answers the phone and Olsen starts chatting to her, saying, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, how can I help, Trying to build that rapport.
Speaker 2: She ends up telling him all kinds of things about
Speaker 2: how proud she was of what she did. You know,
Speaker 2: there was nothing like seeing feathers fly. And she was
Speaker 2: quite bullsh and arrogant, a lot of bravado, she said.
Speaker 2: And I think she was semi impressed with the fact
Speaker 2: that she might be on television. She was impressed that
Speaker 2: somebody was listening to her. And then in the next
Speaker 2: sentence she's saying, you know, I mean to get in
Speaker 2: a lot of trouble with my father. So it was
Speaker 2: clearly it was an odd conversation to say the least.
Speaker 2: I think Olsen had to dig deep and use all
Speaker 2: of his skill, and the negotiations went on for hours.
Speaker 2: It was a three hour negotiation by telephone.
Speaker 5: Meanwhile, they interview her father, Wally, and the mother and
Speaker 5: to try to get some information from them that will
Speaker 5: help in this negotiation. Tell us what the fruits of
Speaker 5: that negotiation are eventually, and the terms.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I'll start with the terms. I think
Speaker 2: the terms were you come out and bring your weapons
Speaker 2: and everything will lend it okay, and your parents will
Speaker 2: forgive you and everything will be okay. I think Brenda
Speaker 2: really believed that. He kept saying are you hungry? And
Speaker 2: she said, well, yeah, I could really do with a hamburger,
Speaker 2: and they promised her a whopper, and you know, it
Speaker 2: seems quite a remarkable thing. Brenda, of course, now disputes
Speaker 2: that I've written to Brendan asked her a number of
Speaker 2: bits information. She disputes that she wanted a whopper. She
Speaker 2: really likes fried chicken and said she had some in
Speaker 2: the house and was eating it during that time. But
Speaker 2: you know, again, it's in Paul Awson's notes. I don't
Speaker 2: debate what he wrote, and she probably did just agree
Speaker 2: to anything at that stage. I think she was probably
Speaker 2: quite scared, and I'm not so sure what the mother
Speaker 2: offered A tall in this there's nothing with the police files.
Speaker 2: She was unavailable for comment. I was unable to find
Speaker 2: any connection that she made with Brenda directly during this time.
Speaker 2: But Wally certainly had said, you know, he explained that
Speaker 2: she was a truant from her school and she had
Speaker 2: gone to a different school, and she didn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of friends, and she was a bit of a tomboy,
Speaker 2: and he was sort of giving a lot of background
Speaker 2: information about Brenda. But sadly, neither of them played any
Speaker 2: huge role in her coming out and surrendering that day.
Speaker 2: I think that was just pure, pure, great police work
Speaker 2: from the interrogators. But also Brenda was recognizing that, you know,
Speaker 2: the time is sick, and there's no electricity on in
Speaker 2: the house and kind of here alone. I think maybe she,
Speaker 2: by her mind, was sobering up. She claims that she
Speaker 2: was under the influence. I think it's just was time
Speaker 2: to get out of the house. I know Olsen and
Speaker 2: Thurston were desperate to get her out by three o'clock
Speaker 2: because kids were coming home from school. You're gonna hit
Speaker 2: rush hour. There's a number of things that the number
Speaker 2: of threats that could re emerge if she weren't out
Speaker 2: of that house and apprehended. He did say to or
Speaker 2: can you bring out the ammunition and your weapons? And, remarkably,
Speaker 2: and this is something I haven't seen very often, she
Speaker 2: exits the house with two weapons. One was the twenty
Speaker 2: two she got for Christmas. The other was a pellet gun,
Speaker 2: which wasn't gonna hurt anybody, but she carries them both
Speaker 2: with so much care. She cared for both of her weapons.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting her intent using the pellet gun
Speaker 2: does make a lot of people believe that her intent
Speaker 2: to kill was diminished because she had this pellet gun
Speaker 2: that wasn't going to kill anyone. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you're in that camp, but some people think that. And
Speaker 2: then he says to her, can you go in and
Speaker 2: get the ammunition now? And so Brenda gets back off
Speaker 2: the sidewalk from in front of the house, well back
Speaker 2: into the house and gets the ammunition. And I asked
Speaker 2: Paul directly this, I said, why did you have her
Speaker 2: go back and get the ammunition when you had her
Speaker 2: with the weapons. She was no threat to anyone you
Speaker 2: had her And he said, well, she says she wanted
Speaker 2: to do it, and I trusted her, and she did
Speaker 2: go and do it and got the ammunition, and I'm
Speaker 2: glad she did. And he left it that So Paul
Speaker 2: obviously was in control of the situation as a negotiator,
Speaker 2: and Brenda did exactly as he said. So I'm in
Speaker 2: no position to tell a seasoned negotiator like Paul Olson
Speaker 2: what was the right thing to do. But I've never
Speaker 2: seen it since.
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Speaker 5: talked about this incredible historic arrest or her surrender and arrest.
Speaker 5: There is the issue immediately in nineteen six seventy nine
Speaker 5: with California legal guidelines. You say, if a crime was
Speaker 5: a result of adult thinking a minor could be charged
Speaker 5: and tried as an adult, tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's far more clearcut today than it was in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. California politics was a strange thing at
Speaker 2: that time, but also jurisdictions and who was in charge
Speaker 2: of what, and the whole legality of what was happening
Speaker 2: in California was a crazy time for those who remember
Speaker 2: the seventies. I mean, I was just a child, but
Speaker 2: you know, you had such things that's going on with
Speaker 2: Patty Hurst and Stockholm syndrome, and you had Twinkie defenses.
Speaker 2: You had a number of different crazy sort of legal
Speaker 2: aspects that were playing up, specially with insanity. Now it
Speaker 2: was decided quite quickly that Brenda was going to be
Speaker 2: tried as an adult. It was kind of just happening
Speaker 2: around Brenda, and she had a court, a pointed attorney
Speaker 2: who was trying to help her as best he could,
Speaker 2: and he was trying to get the information out and say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is a young, vulnerable girl who didn't know what
Speaker 2: she was doing. Toxicology reports came up that she was clean,
Speaker 2: she wasn't on an influence of anything. She was quickly
Speaker 2: decided that it was just pure evil and she was
Speaker 2: going to be tried as an adult. And I think
Speaker 2: from that moment forward, it was just about damaged limitation.
Speaker 2: Let's try and find a way to give Brenda the
Speaker 2: least sentences possible. She eventually pleaded guilty. It is a long, dirty,
Speaker 2: dusty road for her to get to that place. She
Speaker 2: truly believed from the letters that she had written to
Speaker 2: family and friends. She truly believed that she was going
Speaker 2: to get out out of jail not too long at all.
Speaker 2: I don't think she understood what she had done, or
Speaker 2: that even killing somebody was going to put her in
Speaker 2: jail for the rest of her life. She eventually plea
Speaker 2: bargained to twenty five to life, but under a law
Speaker 2: really strange home environment, circumstances and things that were happening
Speaker 2: where I don't think she used her best judgment. If
Speaker 2: she had just accepted the guilty plea and got life
Speaker 2: in prison, she could very well be out of jail now.
Speaker 2: But by taking twenty five to life meant that she
Speaker 2: would serve at least twenty five years before her parole
Speaker 2: hearings even begin so Brendan is now in prison, I think,
Speaker 2: my personal opinion because of a misjudgment during the plea
Speaker 2: bargaining phase of pleading guilty. It's all outlined in the book,
Speaker 2: and I try and cover it. It is a really
Speaker 2: you know, Dan, you've read the book. It's a lengthy
Speaker 2: piece of California litigation that's difficult to read, and even
Speaker 2: writing it, I had to go through a number of
Speaker 2: times to make sure that that I cover this, because
Speaker 2: it's not as easy as just saying, ah, she's tried
Speaker 2: as adult and yeah, she plea bargained twenty five to life.
Speaker 2: It's actually far more murkier than that.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. You also say there's contributing factors, major ones like
Speaker 5: the media frenzy and her attorney Courter Point attorney tried
Speaker 5: to address that and won't get into the whole legal battle,
Speaker 5: but there was, you know, trying to fight for change
Speaker 5: of venue and things like that. In this book, you
Speaker 5: did wanted to dispel the mythology and the misinformation that
Speaker 5: had sprang up almost immediately via the media. And also
Speaker 5: you talk about the damage that Brenda Spencer did to
Speaker 5: her own case, enduring damage to her case by some
Speaker 5: of the statements she did make, but also some of
Speaker 5: the misinformation that was reported by the media that was
Speaker 5: again in a frenzy to get any and new information
Speaker 5: regarding the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the book, I cover a number of different things.
Speaker 2: I try and I tackle her best friend at the time.
Speaker 2: I try and cover the family asposed as I can,
Speaker 2: to just sort of show you what type of actually
Speaker 2: quite typical family. I mean, they were divorced, but there
Speaker 2: was quite typical in that respect. They're originally from Arkansas
Speaker 2: and were gun owners. I don't think there's anything unusual
Speaker 2: about that in America actually, And I don't think there's
Speaker 2: anything usual about a sixteen year old having a twenty
Speaker 2: two rifle. In fact, many do I know here over
Speaker 2: in the UK where I live now. It's quite a
Speaker 2: remarkable thing. And certainly to Bob Off who wrote the
Speaker 2: famous song I don't like Mondays taking her quote and
Speaker 2: making money out of it. He must have found that
Speaker 2: was a markable thing for a sixteen year old to
Speaker 2: have sixteen year old girl to have a gun. It
Speaker 2: just isn't in the United States. And his words in
Speaker 2: the song and what was happening with that at the
Speaker 2: same time they release it specifically at the time of
Speaker 2: the trial. They then released the album at the same
Speaker 2: time as the guilty pleay. You know, every time it
Speaker 2: hits the news. There's also a second story about the
Speaker 2: release of this song, So they were following the trial
Speaker 2: quite nicely to capture some sales. As they call it,
Speaker 2: cash from chaos. But it's really the family and the
Speaker 2: father in particular that actually causes her so much trouble
Speaker 2: and grief. During this plea bargaining phase, I was unable
Speaker 2: to speak to her attorney, Michael McGlenn. He had retired
Speaker 2: by the time I was writing the book. I did
Speaker 2: reach out to him and he said, look, any information
Speaker 2: you need. I've now learned that he was very ill
Speaker 2: at the time and has since passed away and making
Speaker 2: arrested base. He was a decent man. I was only
Speaker 2: able to get any new information out of him. But
Speaker 2: it was really well documented through the years of how
Speaker 2: Michael McGlynn was battling not just Brenda, but the fact
Speaker 2: that she was so stoic, but also the father who
Speaker 2: was up some stuff. And I don't know if you
Speaker 2: want to get into this now, but it was for me.
Speaker 2: It is very key to how Brenda behaved at the
Speaker 2: time of the incident and certainly at the time leading
Speaker 2: into her imprisonment.
Speaker 5: Yes, let's discuss that, because her father is a fascinating
Speaker 5: and an important part of this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm going to be I'm going to be
Speaker 2: brutally honest with you, Danny. He's a bit of a scumback. Yes,
Speaker 2: not not my favorite guy. Let's just tell the story.
Speaker 2: So Wally is this guy who's kind of a loner,
Speaker 2: really tight with his money. He had, He had a
Speaker 2: pretty good job, he had some good cash. He owned
Speaker 2: his house which had a very low mortgage, and he
Speaker 2: had some investment property down in the South County. It's
Speaker 2: believed that Brenda's family was poor and there was alcohol
Speaker 2: over the house. Just not true. None of the police
Speaker 2: photo show any alcohol. There's no alcohol in your system.
Speaker 2: Wally was known to be a bit of a teetoter.
Speaker 2: He didn't drink at all. He had plenty of money.
Speaker 2: He was just stingy, and he was messy, and the
Speaker 2: house was a mess. And you know, Brenda often went
Speaker 2: to school with unwashed hair and had notts in her
Speaker 2: hair and was a tomboy. And you know, she was
Speaker 2: very close with her father, in that respect. So she
Speaker 2: goes to jail. She's in juvenile Hall of Juvie as
Speaker 2: they call it in San Diego, and another girl comes
Speaker 2: to juvenile Hall who burned her house down. Her name
Speaker 2: was Shela McCoy. Now Brenda says that Shela McCoy really
Speaker 2: liked her, and that Shela McCoy wanted to be like
Speaker 2: Brenda because Brenda was this face of evil. She had
Speaker 2: become this sort of very famous criminal in San Diego
Speaker 2: very quickly, as you can imagine. Well, the father took
Speaker 2: a shine to Sheila McCoy, and when she was moved
Speaker 2: from a closed facility at juvenile Hall across the road
Speaker 2: to an open facility, he helped her abscond from that
Speaker 2: facility and she moved in with him. So Wally, while
Speaker 2: his daughter is on trial for murder, shacks up with
Speaker 2: a seventeen year old arsonist and knocks her up and
Speaker 2: then has a child with her. While Brenda is awaiting
Speaker 2: her plea mart So, well, Brenda is deciding what to
Speaker 2: do with the rest of her life, whether it's in
Speaker 2: jail or out of jail, or what decisions she's going
Speaker 2: to make. Her father is saying don't have an evasive
Speaker 2: trial plead guilty because I don't want the lawyers and
Speaker 2: the cops and everybody digging into our personal lives, because
Speaker 2: you're gonna find out that I'm a pedophile, that I
Speaker 2: like little girls. And it's quite a disgusting moment in
Speaker 2: their family history is the fact that Brenda now is
Speaker 2: if she wants to do the right thing by her father.
Speaker 2: That's not saying anything, but actually, at that moment, with
Speaker 2: a little bit of clarity and maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: of guidance, Brenda shitld said, Hey, something's wrong at home,
Speaker 2: and my dad's a bad guy, and maybe things would
Speaker 2: have turned out different for her. That story moves on
Speaker 2: and Wally ends up having the baby with the shean McCoy.
Speaker 2: She ends up disappearing out of the scene. She's remarried
Speaker 2: and done a number of things with her life, nothing
Speaker 2: of any note. They have a daughter named Brie, who's
Speaker 2: named after a local newscaster, Bree Walker in the area.
Speaker 2: Brie and Brenda never get along, they've never really even met,
Speaker 2: and she's skated off into the distance with Wally's money.
Speaker 2: He's passed away and she's living out of state and
Speaker 2: Brenda sort of has no family structure at all. It's
Speaker 2: quite a sad scenario for the Spencer family. All the
Speaker 2: way around. The only person in her life is her mother,
Speaker 2: who's elderly and still lives in the same house around
Speaker 2: the corner. It's quite a tragic event. But that being said,
Speaker 2: I think if your child were a murderer, you'd have
Speaker 2: to make those decisions as to how you deal with that. Wally,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity and thought, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to shoot up to juvenile Hall and pray
Speaker 2: on some of the young girls that are that are imprisoned.
Speaker 2: There quite a remarkable thing.
Speaker 5: With these damaging statements that she made to reporters and
Speaker 5: to Detective Olson, these things saying like she was happy
Speaker 5: that she killed a pig when she shot a police officer.
Speaker 5: Parole hearings, You describe all these parole hearings and various
Speaker 5: parole hearings when she was denied and she had to
Speaker 5: wait at a minimum of three years, four years, even
Speaker 5: five years. Tell us about the fight for parole and
Speaker 5: what she eventually does say at one of these parole hearings,
Speaker 5: or what the narrative becomes.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, and these included the books, because it's
Speaker 2: interesting that, you know, initially, you know, she called in
Speaker 2: the reporters her first parole hearing to say that I'm
Speaker 2: not a cold, blodic killer. It wasn't me, you know,
Speaker 2: could have been in somebody else. She made a statement
Speaker 2: saying it wasn't me at all, and that seems quite
Speaker 2: remarkable considering, you know, she spoke to reporters, you know,
Speaker 2: in real time and told them what she was up
Speaker 2: to and what she wanted to do next she was
Speaker 2: banged to rights. I don't think the investigators, you know,
Speaker 2: needed much work here. They just they just transcribed what
Speaker 2: she had already told the interrogators and the newspaper reporters.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure where she felt that this was
Speaker 2: the best defense to get her out of prison, and
Speaker 2: was just lead wasn't me. But then over the course
Speaker 2: of time I think she becomes a bit more savvy
Speaker 2: with the system in prison. She eventually says that, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for what I did, and it was because
Speaker 2: my father had been doing horrible things to me since
Speaker 2: I was a little girl, and was beating me up
Speaker 2: and doing all these horrible things. Was Wally didn't attend
Speaker 2: the parole hearing, so he had no idea this was
Speaker 2: going on, that she was saying horrible things about him.
Speaker 2: And of course the information about Wally marrying this seventeen
Speaker 2: year old, well sixteen at the time they started dating,
Speaker 2: but seventeen at the time they marry. It's almost as
Speaker 2: if because the things about Brenda, from the song, from
Speaker 2: the alcohol in the house, from the fact that she
Speaker 2: was just this face of evil, and everyone believed that
Speaker 2: she was the face of evil. And I think they're
Speaker 2: right in saying that she was the face of evil.
Speaker 2: I think they turned a blind eye to things that
Speaker 2: were happening at the house. They just weren't having it.
Speaker 2: And I think because Brenda waited, you know, nearly fourteen
Speaker 2: years before actually putting some meat on the bones of
Speaker 2: these acts usations. I was able to go through the
Speaker 2: records and go deep into the police files to find
Speaker 2: something from someone who had possibly mentioned that there was
Speaker 2: some sexual abuse or some demancy from the father with Brenda.
Speaker 2: I was unable to find anything other than one psychologist
Speaker 2: who said that Wally enjoyed Brenda combing his hair and
Speaker 2: sitting on his lap and those sort of things. It's
Speaker 2: nothing that leads towards definitive answer about there being some
Speaker 2: sort of abuse, But it certainly does raise the question
Speaker 2: that nobody delve deeper into that question. I don't know
Speaker 2: how it would have got her off. The original trial
Speaker 2: certainly hasn't gotten her out on parole. And this story
Speaker 2: does change slightly, it becomes a little more developed. The
Speaker 2: parole panel asker deeper questions. There's nothing told legally to
Speaker 2: back it up other than Brenda's word, But I personally
Speaker 2: tend to believe her. I'm not in a position to
Speaker 2: say she's not telling the truth. I think my question
Speaker 2: for Brenda, and I've never really had an opportunity to
Speaker 2: ask it with any tack, is why did you wait
Speaker 2: so long to tell the truth? If it is the truth,
Speaker 2: it does appear that Brenda is just changing her tack
Speaker 2: to to find the way that she can get out
Speaker 2: of prison. It doesn't appear to be honest. If you
Speaker 2: read all of the parole hearing transcripts one after another.
Speaker 2: And that's why I put him in the book that way,
Speaker 2: so you can read the trail of events that she's
Speaker 2: taken to try and find her niche to get out
Speaker 2: of prison. So honestly from Bredda wouldn't go a long way,
Speaker 2: and I think we would also help a lot to
Speaker 2: maybe put some more information towards the phenomena school shootings
Speaker 2: that's happening in America. She's never ever said why she
Speaker 2: did it. She's shown remorse, she said she was sorry.
Speaker 2: She even says she feels accountable for all school shootings
Speaker 2: because of what she did, But she doesn't actually give
Speaker 2: that clarity as to the mindset of why I go
Speaker 2: from being unhappy teenager to picking up a weapon shooting children.
Speaker 2: There's a big gap for me in that, and I
Speaker 2: try to uncover it as best I can.
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Speaker 5: commercial break.
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Speaker 5: Terms and conditions apply. See website for details. You talk
Speaker 5: about corresponding with Brenda Spencer and any insights that you
Speaker 5: gained from that correspondence, and you do write that you
Speaker 5: tried to look for her reasons for the shooting and
Speaker 5: any kind of proof of abuse and other claims that
Speaker 5: she said that she was an addict since she was
Speaker 5: eleven years old and had done PCP. Again, there was
Speaker 5: no evidence that she could put forth or you could
Speaker 5: find to support that.
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to go back to the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies and find the evidence of a teenager doing drugs.
Speaker 2: In California, the nineteen seventies loads teenagers doing drugs. The
Speaker 2: curious thing is that she was tested for all drugs
Speaker 2: and alcohol at the time, and the toxicology reports came
Speaker 2: back negative. The only drug that she was not tested
Speaker 2: for because there wasn't testing available nine was PCP, and
Speaker 2: this just happens to be the only drug that she
Speaker 2: she says that she was on at the time, so
Speaker 2: the convenience level was quite high for her. And again
Speaker 2: this is years later, so she claims she was on
Speaker 2: PCP and did this shooting, and it just happens to
Speaker 2: be the only drug they could test for. I think
Speaker 2: that's that core part of the parole here. It's so curious,
Speaker 2: is it's just very convenient at this stage.
Speaker 5: You chronicle the influence that Brenda Spencer had and the
Speaker 5: continued phenomena of school shootings.
Speaker 2: Tell us about that, well, you know, I call it
Speaker 2: the first modern school shooting. There were school shootings before Brenda.
Speaker 2: There's you know, obviously the famous Whitman shooting in Texas,
Speaker 2: which is considered a school shooting, but of course very different.
Speaker 2: I think the reason why I say Brenda is the
Speaker 2: first modern school shooter is just because the legacy that's
Speaker 2: left after the fact she did attend the school that
Speaker 2: she shot out, although she didn't attend school at the time.
Speaker 2: It's more of a convenience shooting for her than than
Speaker 2: taking a weapon and going after a target, which is
Speaker 2: which seems to be to say that the way a
Speaker 2: lot of school shootings are happening now. I think this.
Speaker 2: I think her image who she was, the sheer disregard
Speaker 2: for authority. I think she became up until the Columbine
Speaker 2: I think she became the face of school shooting. And
Speaker 2: I think since Columbine. We now find that they can
Speaker 2: be premeditated and and you know, planned and over the
Speaker 2: long term, whereas Brenda, I you know, there is an
Speaker 2: argument that it was planned beforehand, but I really don't
Speaker 2: think so. I think she had the idea that I
Speaker 2: was going to do it. She went out and did it,
Speaker 2: but not as planned as say Columbine. But I do
Speaker 2: feel that all other school shootings sort of got a
Speaker 2: little bit of a kickstart from Brenda. The fact that
Speaker 2: she's still live and in prison and still kind of
Speaker 2: in a weird regard like the Manson sisters, She's held
Speaker 2: in some sort of there's there is some hero worship
Speaker 2: with her within a certain culture of America, and I
Speaker 2: find that pretty disturbing, and I know that I'm probably
Speaker 2: contributing to it with my book. I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2: You and I both are in a business of death
Speaker 2: and murder. But I truly hope that in writing the book,
Speaker 2: I'm listing the facts as they happen, as factually as
Speaker 2: I can so that we can learn from it. And
Speaker 2: it is sad that in doing that I may have
Speaker 2: accidentally glorified Brenda myself, when actually my intent was to
Speaker 2: learn from her, and and that's probably my only threat
Speaker 2: from writing the book. But she corresponded with me for years.
Speaker 2: We're still corresponding today. She's read the book. She's quite
Speaker 2: a funny character. She's still seventeen into her mind. She's
Speaker 2: a real good example of arrested development. She's never really
Speaker 2: turned into an adult. She's never had any of the
Speaker 2: challenges adults would have. Certainly she's in prison. She hasn't
Speaker 2: been the most popular prisoners, and she hasn't been the
Speaker 2: most perfect of prisoners either. But now she's sixty years old.
Speaker 2: She's a beast. She has no teeth, her hearing is poor,
Speaker 2: her eyesight is poor. She's now just sitting in California
Speaker 2: Institute for Women in the middle of the desert. I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to get through the days. And perhaps perhaps
Speaker 2: that's where she should be. I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to pass judgment on that, but I wish her
Speaker 2: well in her attempt to get out.
Speaker 5: You right that she had a hearing or was to
Speaker 5: have a hearing in August twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: What of that, Well, yeah, there were a few reporters,
Speaker 2: and I was one of the lucky people to be
Speaker 2: selected to go to that hearing, and at the last minute,
Speaker 2: like the day before, she was really quite soon before
Speaker 2: the hearing, we were notified that only one person of
Speaker 2: the media was going to attend and transcribe the entire event.
Speaker 2: Brenda rocked up and she did what was called a
Speaker 2: three year stip So a number of years ago, she's
Speaker 2: got a new attorney who has got this new plan
Speaker 2: for her to get out, and because she was a teenager,
Speaker 2: and they're going to, you know, look at the new laws,
Speaker 2: and laws are changing all the time in California, so
Speaker 2: it's a movie target. I think they decided that they
Speaker 2: were going to put a plan together where she was
Speaker 2: going to take all these boxes of the parole board wanted.
Speaker 2: And I think they realized that getting close to her
Speaker 2: parole board hearing that she hadn't done all these things,
Speaker 2: and she went into them to say, hey, look, I've
Speaker 2: still got a few things to finish off that you've
Speaker 2: asked me to do. Can I get what's called a
Speaker 2: three year stipulation, which means that we're going to forego
Speaker 2: this parole hearing to give me more time to complete
Speaker 2: all the things you'd ask for my action plan. If
Speaker 2: you will and the pro board accepted that and gave
Speaker 2: her what again, the three year stip. Now three year
Speaker 2: stip really means eighteen months, so actually, you know, a
Speaker 2: year from now, she might very well be having, you know,
Speaker 2: the parole hearing and this just kind of happens. And
Speaker 2: reason why that's important is because throughout her prisoner, her
Speaker 2: her incarceration career, will call it. There have been victims
Speaker 2: who have been attending, one of which is cam Miller,
Speaker 2: who was actually shot by Brenda, and he's now a
Speaker 2: probation officer and he's intended every single probation hearing for Brenda.
Speaker 2: And in the state of California, I don't I've looked
Speaker 2: at the records. I can't find one person who is
Speaker 2: paroled where the victim attended the parole here. And I
Speaker 2: think he's making it his life mission. He certainly works
Speaker 2: with in law enforcement. I think he's making his life
Speaker 2: mission to make sure he attends every one of these.
Speaker 2: He's in a position to get the information, and I
Speaker 2: think he'll be attending again in the year's time. And
Speaker 2: I think Brenda's chances of getting out are quite slim
Speaker 2: because of that, and cam Miller, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: he's got a really good case case to keep Brenda in.
Speaker 2: He was actually shot by her himself, and I think
Speaker 2: that's really vivid testimony. Whenever he speaks to these parole hearings,
Speaker 2: it's all captured within the book. I try and capture
Speaker 2: what cam Miller says and and and his emotions. He's
Speaker 2: a he's a very very intelligent man, and I don't
Speaker 2: think he's gonna let Brenda get out anytime.
Speaker 5: So you write about the memorial that was at the school,
Speaker 5: and then the school was torn down and another school built.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: San Diego is a growing city and it's forever changing.
Speaker 2: I think, actually half the time that at Cleveland Elementary,
Speaker 2: the school she shot from across the road from her house,
Speaker 2: the intendance was about one hundred and fifty five students.
Speaker 2: But they are building other schools around the area, bigger,
Speaker 2: more modern schools. I think it was probably destined to
Speaker 2: close in the next ten years anyway, but it certainly
Speaker 2: a shooting at that school does put the writing on
Speaker 2: the wall. It reopened the following week after the shooting,
Speaker 2: and it was important to get the students back in
Speaker 2: to give some closure. A remarkable job from people who
Speaker 2: work in education in San Diego to get that school
Speaker 2: up and running. I do know that the psychologists in
Speaker 2: San Diego were then called upon to different school shootings
Speaker 2: around the country, certainly all the way into the eighties.
Speaker 2: I'm currently working on a book about schools in Wyoming,
Speaker 2: and all of these psychologists were called up there in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six to assist as well. I think San
Speaker 2: Diego police force, I think Brenda. I think the psychology,
Speaker 2: the education, everything that surrounds his case has really kind
Speaker 2: of been the first template for school shootings. And I think,
Speaker 2: going into you know, twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: when I was finishing the book and VOLDI happened at
Speaker 2: rawb Elementary School to watch that on television. How different
Speaker 2: the police behaved that day compared to how the police
Speaker 2: behaved in January nineteen seventy nine. It was staggering, and
Speaker 2: it left me with an awful lot of sadness to
Speaker 2: think that forty three years later, we're not any better
Speaker 2: at stopping school shootings. And I think the book for
Speaker 2: me becomes more poignant now because Brenda was just a
Speaker 2: young girl with a gun who had a half farded plan.
Speaker 2: These kids today are coming with much larger weapons, with
Speaker 2: a much larger plan, and the death tolls they're getting larger,
Speaker 2: and the police force are running away. It's harsh, but
Speaker 2: that's what happened in RVOLDI, and I'm really sad to
Speaker 2: hear it. And I hope that maybe maybe Ted Kazanak',
Speaker 2: the hero in San Diego, could make a phone call
Speaker 2: to Texas and to other jurisdictions and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: here's what I did, and you can be a hero too.
Speaker 2: I just Vold, I think really upset me when I
Speaker 2: was finishing my book and putting it to the publisher.
Speaker 5: So you you say that seems that no one, not society,
Speaker 5: not these police departments have learned enough or adequately enough
Speaker 5: to prevent any kind of shooting in the future.
Speaker 2: Well, all I can say is that history is proving
Speaker 2: that to be true. You know, we've I'm not a doctor,
Speaker 2: I'm just a guy who wrote a book about about
Speaker 2: a school shooter, and I'm a crime historian, and I've
Speaker 2: followed the trails. School shootings are still happening, And if
Speaker 2: we were to find out that there was another school
Speaker 2: shooting tomorrow, would be surprised. We've had a number of
Speaker 2: active shooters in many different parts of society all over
Speaker 2: the United States. We've had a number in the last
Speaker 2: few weeks. In fact, it just doesn't surprise us anymore
Speaker 2: that there there's an active shooter. And I really think
Speaker 2: that we need to start looking not just making categories
Speaker 2: of types of crimes, but actually look deeper into why
Speaker 2: they're choosing that form of outlet for the for the crime.
Speaker 2: And Brenda, Brenda, I think may hold some of the
Speaker 2: key to that. I don't know if she realizes it,
Speaker 2: but certainly she's one of the few that survived this
Speaker 2: type of attack. And I'm not saying it's a hadible
Speaker 2: lecture thing where she's going to help us find other shooters.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that, but there's certainly is some education
Speaker 2: that we could get from Brenda. And nobody has gone
Speaker 2: to speak to her. She's spoken to no one in
Speaker 2: forty years. I was the first person to approach her
Speaker 2: about writing a book. I was the first one to
Speaker 2: approach her about her her relationship with her father. I
Speaker 2: found that really shocking that here we have a real
Speaker 2: life school shooter who might be able to give us
Speaker 2: some insight as to her thinking, and no one's tried
Speaker 2: to broach the subject. Instead, we want to lock her away,
Speaker 2: put her in prison, pretend it never happened, just make
Speaker 2: her the face of evil while everyone around her is
Speaker 2: making money off of her image. I think there's something
Speaker 2: a bit diabolical about that. I'm being honest with you again.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I have to agree after reading your book and
Speaker 5: the story of I don't like Monday's. The song and
Speaker 5: the fame and success that Bob Geldoff and the boomtown
Speaker 5: Rats had for themselves via this song just didn't come true.
Speaker 5: And all the negativity that was associated with it really
Speaker 5: prevented this song from the kind of success that the
Speaker 5: record company and the boomtown Rats thought.
Speaker 2: It might well say that, but an actual fact, you know,
Speaker 2: over here in the UK it was a huge number
Speaker 2: one for a number of weeks springboarded. Bob Geldoff is
Speaker 2: the position to create something like Live Aid and you
Speaker 2: know his help for Africa. You know. In the book,
Speaker 2: I do two chapters on Bob Geldoff to explain who
Speaker 2: he is and how his life is actually just as
Speaker 2: tragic as some of the victims from the school shooting.
Speaker 2: You know, Bob's had a real tough time of it
Speaker 2: as well, and you know I wish him luck. Making
Speaker 2: that song about Brenda was a pure attempt to make
Speaker 2: money and to corner the American market, and it backfired
Speaker 2: horrifically for him. I don't feel that bad for Bob
Speaker 2: in that respect, right his prison life is parbaty, very
Speaker 2: different from Bob's, but yet they both have fame for
Speaker 2: the same event.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I want to thank you so much and Lee
Speaker 5: Hunt for coming on and talking about your book. I
Speaker 5: don't like Mondays, The True story behind America's first modern
Speaker 5: school shooting. I know this is a Wild Blue Press
Speaker 5: release and it's available on Amazon. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Wild Blue Press is a great, great option for first
Speaker 2: time authors specifically and mostly about true crime, but they
Speaker 2: do other different genres. It's a great publisher. Check it
Speaker 2: out at wildbluepress dot com and you can go on Amazon.
Speaker 2: Enley Hunt, I don't like Mondays. It's about the first
Speaker 2: modern school shooter, Brenda Spencer, and that's the best way
Speaker 2: to just pick up the book, give it a read,
Speaker 2: let me know what you think. Always available online, you
Speaker 2: should be able to find me.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Anne Lee Hunt, I don't like
Speaker 5: mondays the true story behind America's first modern school shooting.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for this interview, and good night,