http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=3902850&nav=9qrxSCHOOLYARD KILLER-PAROLE
Schoolyard killer up for parole in Riverside County
CORONA, Calif. (AP) _ It was 26 years ago when 16-year-old Brenda Spencer stuck a rifle out the window of her San Carlos home in the Bay Area and fired at Grover Cleveland Elementary School. The principal and a janitor were killed. Eight children and a policeman were injured.
Spencer will ask for parole today at a hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona in Riverside County. She was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Hours after the shooting, she said it was a way to _ quote _ "cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays."
Her explanation led to the Irish singer Bob Geldof and his band the Boomtown Rats recording the song, "I Don't Like Mondays."
On January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine when she fired from her house across the street onto the entrance of San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School with a .22-caliber rifle her father gave her for Christmas. The two victims were Principal Burton Wragg and custodian Mike Suchar who where killed. Eight students and a police officer were wounded. Spencer, the original school shooter, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to two 25 years to life in prison. When asked why she did it, she said the often quoted: "I just don't like Mondays." At the time she also told negotiators, "It was a lot of fun seeing children shot."
Brenda -- who suffers from epilepsy and depression -- said at a parole hearing in April 2001 that she felt responsible for the many school shootings that have followed her 1979 sniper attack. "I know saying I'm sorry doesn't make it all right," she said, adding that she wished it had never happened. But she added, "With every school shooting, I feel I'm partially responsible. What if they got their idea from what I did?"
Spencer claimed her violence grew out of an abusive home life in which her father beat and sexually abused her for years. "I've never talked about it before," she said. "I had to share my dad's bed 'til I was 14 years old." Her father, Wallace Spencer, has never spoken publicly about the case. Brenda, now 36, told the parole board the rifle was a Christmas present from her father. "I had asked for a radio and he bought me a gun," she said. Asked if she knew why he did that, she said, "I felt like he wanted me to kill myself." She also said she thought she had shot at the school in the hope that police would kill her at the end of the siege. "I had failed in every other suicide attempt. I thought if I shot at the cops they would shoot me," she said.
San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs, who prosecuted Spencer, said her crime remains "unthinkable" and he posed his own theory of why she did it. "She probably was and still is a miserable person through and through," Sachs said. "But her way of dealing with the misery was to spread it around." Sachs noted that after the recent breakup of a relationship between Spencer and another woman in prison, she heated a paper clip and used it to carve onto her chest the words "courage" and "pride." Spencer said it was just a tattoo, but Sachs said it showed an inability to deal with stress and an inclination to act out anger.
September 24, 2005
Parole opposed
The widow and family of Cleveland Elementary School Principal Burton Wragg are steadfast in their opposition to parole for Wragg's killer. Richard Sacks, head of the San Diego D.A.?s lifer hearing unit, will convey their sentiments at Tuesday?s parole hearing for Brenda Spencer.
In 1979, when she was 16, Spencer stuck a rifle out the window of her San Carlos home and fired at the schoolyard, killing Wragg and janitor Michael Suchar, and wounding eight children and a policeman. She told officers she didn't like Mondays.
Convicted of murder, she was sentenced to 25 years to life. That was 26 years ago.
Planning to join Sacks at the hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona is Cam Miller, then one of the children she shot, who, likewise, opposes Spencer's release. He is now a county probation officer.
"The families are very opposed to her getting out," reports Sacks. He cites two recent California Supreme Court decisions on life sentences that "weigh heavily against her release." In essence, public safety comes first, Sacks says. He plans to air videotaped comments from Wragg's widow, and he has a letter from the brother of Mike Suchar.
"The crime was so heinous, so atrocious, it's hard to argue for parole for someone like that," says Sacks, who is asking ? on behalf of D.A. Bonnie Dumanis ? that Spencer not be released.
For photo, click here:
http://www.mayhem.net/
