I Don't Like Mondays: The True Story Behind America’s First Modern School Shooting

By N. Leigh Hunt

An in-depth look into America’s first modern school shooting, featuring interviews with witnesses, local reporters, and the killer herself.

In 1979, Brenda Spencer, a seemingly average teenage girl living in a nice suburban neighborhood, made and executed plans that would place her in infamy and set a violent and terrifying national precedent. She receives a rifle for Christmas and a month later set her sights and opens fire on the elementary school across the street.

The event is forever glorified by the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats and marks the bloody beginning of the American phenomenon of school shootings. Long before Columbine and Sandy Hook, there was Brenda Spencer . . .

I Don’t Like Mondays: The True Story of America’s First Modern School Shooting sifts through the mythology that has sprung up around this fateful day, presenting the raw and riveting facts for the first time. This book lays bare this seemingly average teenage girl’s brutal motives and subsequent arrest.

N. Leigh Hunt spent years researching and uncovering shocking details from officers, investigators, and lost police dispatches. He has interviewed people who were on the scene and local reporters who spoke with the perpetrator directly after her shooting spree. Hunt has even cultivated an unlikely rapport with the killer and through personal interviews, has shed light on previously unknown details about her upbringing and influences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957288567

Book preview

Preface

This book was written for all the victims of the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in 1979. They are the Wraggs, Suchars, Buells, Clarks, Hardys, Millers, Robles, Selvigs, Stites, Verners, and Robbs. The school’s 300 plus students, faculty, and all of their families should also be considered victims.

Long before Columbine or Sandy Hook and the dozens of school shootings in the United States, there was Brenda Spencer. Who is she? Why did she shoot up an elementary school? I hope to explain as much as I can within this book.

Spencer often is referred to as the first modern school shooter in U.S. history, but the events leading up to the shooting have never been fully documented. It is my intent to catalog as much information as possible to understand her motive. I believe that her story and the way she was glorified in song, greatly contributed to the phenomenon of school shootings.

Will publishing this add to her fame? Maybe, but better understanding Brenda could stop future rampages. She is still relevant and should not be forgotten. I was a 10-year-old San Diegan at the time of her attack on the school, and it greatly affected my life. I don’t like Mondays is a phrase that took on an entirely new meaning that day.

In researching this book, I was immediately struck by the number of assumed facts. These facts have been repeated over and over by journalists, podcasters, and psychologists. I respect that categorizing different types of psychopathy is a fundamental part of analysis. But the evidence shows it has done little to stop the growth of the active shooter phenomenon.

I corresponded directly with Brenda in prison and spoke with neighbors, witnesses, police, and journalists to capture as much as possible. Officer Robb was the only victim I communicated with, and I was careful not to involve victims unnecessarily. They have suffered enough.

To Penny, Molly, and Scarlett: thanks for being perfect.

1

Monday Morning

Monday, Jan. 29, 1979, was a colder than usual day, with a bit of frost on the ground. The sky was slightly gray, but it promised to warm up by midday.

A little after 8 a.m., parents in San Carlos, a pleasant suburb of the California seaside city of San Diego, started the drive to drop their children off at school. Older students began walking.

The day began not unlike any other winter morning in the small community. Most children wore coats they could easily shed once the mid-morning sunshine burned away the low clouds, as it always does in southern California.

Parents would often drop their kids off early at Cleveland Elementary School to avoid curbside congestion. The school covered a full square block, surrounded by miles and miles of tract homes matching one another. Children would also enter at the rear gates and play with their friends in the back playground away from the street waiting for the bell to ring.

Soon more parents would be filling the street with drop-offs, kissing their kids goodbye for the day. They often would double park, blocking the entire road for a moment because curbside space was limited. The front of the school was the only no-parking zone along Lake Atlin Ave., but that did not stop parents from momentarily stopping.

The main office was set back from the main road about forty feet with a parking lot immediately in front of it. Kids would congregate near the car park or walkway leading to the classrooms, waiting for the principal to open the school gate. At 8:15 a.m., the first bell rang for the kindergarten classes, giving a warning to the youngest children in the school. The kindergarteners were let in fifteen minutes before the regular school starts its day.

At 8:30 a.m., the bell would ring for kindergarten to start and the main school to open. Some meandering students would shuffle in past the main office, believing they had ample time before school started at 8:45 a.m. Others rushed like wild animals to get into the school on time each morning. If they weren’t running late, they had only fifteen minutes from the time the gate opened to scurry to the classrooms and get settled before the bell sounded to start the school day.

Ten-year-old Linda Selvig walked to school each day. She got a late start this Monday and would just make the 8:30 a.m. bell after the eight-minute walk from her house on Lake Athabaska Place. She’d turn right onto Lake Atlin Ave. for 500 yards until she reached the school parking lot.

Normally, her nine-year-old sister Monica would travel with her. The sisters had started the walk together, but Linda decided to stay back to meet friends. So, Monica ventured by herself.

Monica Selvig walked alone on the sidewalk with the avenue on her left. The school’s south side is lined with ivy covered fencing that blocks it from the road. She rounded the corner of the fence and onto the school’s main walkway just next to the parking lot.

As she walked with her back to the road, she felt a sharp pain in her left side as a bullet struck her.

She was thrown to the ground after the shock of the impact. Monica had only made it about ten feet up the school walkway and was still more than thirty feet from the safety of the main office building. The sound of gunfire was not immediately recognized as anything other than a backfiring car if it was heard at all.

Just moments later, a bullet struck eight-year-old Mary Clark in the left side of her stomach as she walked up the school path with her first-grade sister, Amelia. The girls had just been dropped off by a parent from their home on Lake Albano Ave. The bullet went straight through her and bloodied her white top as she fell to the ground.

Mary, described as incredibly shy, did not want to cause a fuss. She rose to her feet, made her way into the school and was eventually herded to safety with a group of other students. At the same time but from the opposite direction, Greg Verner, aged eight, had just wandered across the car park and was about to step onto the east walkway and up the short concrete stairs to his classroom building.

The parking lot was directly in front of the school and the only access to the main entrance. From here students could either go up the stairs to the classroom building or head into the covered walkway that takes you all the way to the back playground. He was struck through his green Toughskins brand jeans into his right upper backside. The bullet hit his pelvic bone, sending him to the ground on the driveway.

The children were far too young to know what was happening and were probably preoccupied with getting to class on time. Many parents were safely in their cars and making their short trip back home without hearing anything out of the ordinary.

Some children began to run for cover, while others stood still watching and waiting for instruction. It was unclear where the danger was coming from as the small popping sound of gunfire was not immediately recognizable. The ricocheting bullets echoed through the covered walkway that ran through the middle of the open-air school. These shots could not be heard by the congregation still in the car park at the front of the school.

Crystal Hardy, dressed in baggy green shorts, boots, and a crème patterned cardigan, was ten years old. She was with her younger brother, being dropped off by her mother in front of the school. She saw some friend she wanted to chat with and walked up the main walkway.

I heard shots, but I thought boys near me just had firecrackers or something, she thought.

As she looked around curiously, Crystal was struck through her right wrist. The bullet only just missed the bone and all vital tendons and exited as she walked. She fell to her knees and began to cry, blood pouring from her arm. She got up and made her way to the nurse’s office and was given paper towels to stem the bleeding. Crystal’s brother Matthew, 5, witnessed the shooting and began to panic because he was unable to understand what had happened, and his mother had already driven away. He was not shot.

Moments later the youngest victim, seven-year-old Audrey Stites, snatched at her right arm as she walked up the driveway with her older sister Madeline. They both stopped and saw Monica and then Greg on the ground. Audrey was struck from behind through her bright puffy green ski jacket and into her right elbow. They stood in shock for a moment before noticing other students running for cover and hearing screams all around.

Madeline avoided injury when bullets passed through her coat pocket and were stopped by her binder and pencil case. Audrey ran crying and bleeding to her classroom. She had not noticed a second bullet had burned the inside of each thigh near her crotch.

It was still unclear exactly where the shots were coming from, but it was apparent they were not from the school. The shooter was obviously targeting students on the walkway.

Almost all the students in the parking lot and on the driveway had instinctively gone into a safe hiding spot. They jumped under parked cars or ducked into the main office and under the window. Some made it up the stairs next to the office entrance and hid in a classroom, while others were stranded in the bushes that decorated the parking lot and looking around for where the danger was coming from.

In less than three minutes, five children had been shot as more unsuspecting students were arriving on foot. Some were being dropped off right in front of the house across the street. The parents and students still arriving had no idea of the existing threat.

Peggy Whiteside dropped off her kids, Lisa, 5, and Joey, 8, sometime after 8 a.m. and went home.

Later, she said, I heard shots. I just thought it was some kid with firecrackers. It happens all the time.

Her daughter had gone into the kindergarten, and her son was safely playing in the playground behind the school. Twelve-year-old Michael McDaniel was just arriving and heard gunshots from down the road.

I heard shots as I walked towards the front of the building, and there were little puffs of dust on the embankment next to me, he would tell reporters later that day. My teacher called to me to come into the principal’s office, and I just started running, he said. It just didn’t seem real.

The new principal Burton Bert Wragg was not at the entrance gate as he usually would be. Wragg was in his first year as Cleveland principal, having just replaced Mr. Faulkner when his predecessor retired at the end of the 1978 school year.

Miyoko Mickey Miyashita, a third-grade teacher, said Mr. Wragg was friendly but not outgoing compared to the former Principal Faulkner.

Principal Wragg had just fed his chickens and kissed his wife, Kathe, goodbye. He left his home about 7 a.m. and arrived at the school by about ten past that morning.

He was having coffee with sixth-grade teacher Daryl Barnes in the main office. They could see little Monica and Greg on the ground as the sound of bullets whistled through the ivy near the main office.

They watched the surreal events unfold from the window facing the walkway. It was only then that they realized with horror that a sniper had opened fire on the school.

We heard two shots and Wragg immediately ran out into the crowded school grounds to help children, said Barnes.

Wragg made a beeline for the first child on the ground with Barnes closely in tow. The pair ran directly onto the walkway and right into the view of the shooter.

Duck, you guys! Crystal, run! was the last thing Principal Wragg said as he was shot twice in his chest. He fell to the ground and spun into the ivy patch near the walkway.

Barnes stopped in his tracks and was standing over the principal as shots flew past his head and against the building behind him.

Almost immediately there were two more shots, and I ran out to find Wragg lying on the ground. There were children running everywhere, Barnes remembered. He was badly wounded in his chest. I opened his shirt. He appeared dead.

With the principal on the ground, Barnes continued down the drive and gently picked up the two wounded children, Monica and Greg. He turned his back on the shooter and made his way back to safety.

I grabbed two and rushed into the nurse’s office with them, he said later.

Barnes could see the blood coming from Monica’s abdomen and calmly rested her on the bed in the nurse’s office. The nurse started to treat the injured child as best she could while Barnes considered going out front again to collect more of the injured.

Instead, he ran to tell school secretary Mary Smith to call the police ASAP. Smith’s desk faced the school’s front window and could see the carnage as it unfolded. She could also see where the shots were coming from and had already started calling the police.

As Wragg, the new principal, career educator, and World War II veteran, lay bleeding just steps from the office doors, three other wounded children remained outside. Through the office window, Barnes could see head custodian Mike Suchar dart past.

Affectionately known as Mr. Mike, Michael Suchar had been one of the most popular figures at the school for ten years. He was a sturdy Navy man who served during both World War II and in Korea and later worked aboard the ferry that crosses San Diego Bay to beachside Coronado before coming to the school. Students saw him as a big strong protector who would do anything for the school.

Teacher Mickey Miyashita described Suchar as efficient and friendly and said he was appreciated but did not spend much time chit-chatting with the faculty.

Barnes shouted to Mr. Mike as he dashed into the line of fire.

I looked up and saw Suchar running from his office. I rushed to the window, but I was too late, said Barnes.

Standing in his bright blue long-sleeve work shirt with his back to Lake Atlin Ave. over the wounded Principal Wragg, Mike Suchar was knocked to the ground as he lowered a blanket to help his friend and boss.

Barnes recalled Mr. Mike saying, My God, I’ve been hit! as he fell into the shrubbery and bushes next to the walkway.

I saw him lean over Wragg and almost immediately two bullets hit him, spinning him around and to the ground, Barnes said.

Eleven-year-old Kathy Voeks had wandered up the walkway within feet of the victims. She turned to look at her close friend Mr. Mike as he gasped and said, Oh God! Oh God, go get the police!

Kathy heard Barnes’s cries for children to take cover as she ran unharmed up the steps and into her fifth-grade classroom.

Jennifer Engle, 10, was another student walking up.

I saw the principal, and he was lying flat on the ground, she would tell reporters. He wasn’t moving or anything, and I saw two holes in his leg, and then I saw the janitor, and he was groaning. Mr. Barnes told me to start running, and I started running, and I heard this shot from a gun.

Children, unaware of danger, continued to arrive at the school.

Carolyn Hewitt stopped her car to drop off her son Matthew, 8, in front of the school as the bell rang, then made her way home. She would later say that she may have heard cracking noises but thought little of it.

I don’t know where my woman’s intuition was. When I pulled up, he got out of the car, and I heard three shots. I never connected it with a gun.

The weapon being used was a 10/22 Ruger. It is not an explosively noisy gun and with the car engine running and car windows up on a cold morning, the sound could have been muffled.

It was reported that one mother dropped off three of her children at 8:35 a.m., which would have been the middle of the heaviest gunfire. She knew nothing of what had happened till she was back at home and told by a friend. For whatever reason, the shooter did not take fire at the parent or at their cars.

Eleven-year-old James Lira said he saw the two bodies and a wounded girl when he reached the school. She was lying in the street, and I turned her over, he said, but a teacher told us to run, so we ran into the teachers’ lounge.

His mother said: I saw a man lying on the ground, and I thought he had a heart attack. Then I saw another little girl on the ground. My kids were getting out of the car, and I tried to yell at them, but at that time, the bullets were flying."

Elaine Fournier had dropped off her five-year-old at 8:15 a.m. for kindergarten, then returned home to bed.

I’m pregnant, and it’s the only chance I get to sleep, she said. One siren I can ignore but not that many!

In her classroom, Mrs. Miyashita was two buildings away and unaware of what was going on in front of the school.

I was in my room preparing to greet the kids when I heard the bang-bang, like firecrackers, but never gave it much thought, she said.

A colleague ran from the scene and alerted her to what was going on.

Mrs. Miyashita and her good friend, teacher Katherine Keith, went looking for as many students as they could find.

We immediately grabbed any kid that was outside and pulled them into classrooms, she said.

She guided as many children as she could see in the playground behind the main office into her classroom.

We were going to celebrate Chinese New Year, so I had brought some almond cookies.

1979 was the year of the goat in the Chinese Zodiac, and there were small celebrations over the previous weekend. Is it possible that some informed students thought the gunshots were fireworks? Fireworks were illegal in California, but their sound would easily be mistaken for a small caliber weapon.

After all the kids were secured, I locked my door and closed the shades. We stood closely together in the back part of the room away from the windows, Mrs. Miyashita told me.

The fire alarm suddenly sounded at the lower part of the school. It was pulled by a staff member or possibly hit by a stray bullet. This caused a problem for children arriving. Children had always been instructed to go straight to the assembly point through the school gates when they heard the fire alarm. Upon hearing the fire alarm, many arriving students stopped where they stood to await orders from teachers and the principal.

Teacher Wanda Carberry began to blow her whistle to attract the attention of the arriving children. In the madness, she was trying to direct traffic and keep them out of the line of fire.

The sniper seemed to pick them off easily as they ran towards the school, Carberry said.

Christy Buell was a nine-year-old in the fourth grade, who walked the few blocks to school from her home on Lake Arrowhead Drive. She was playing with a classmate on the slippery grass near the walkway in front of the school. Looking left and right and hearing the whistles and commotion, she heard a popping noise and was shot in the stomach and lower back in rapid succession. She fell to the ground and began to vomit as blood began to soak her Winnie-the Pooh T-shirt.

All of a sudden, it felt like my whole body was falling asleep, she remembered, like pin pricks all over. We just heard someone shouting, `Run! Run!’

Cleveland Elementary was an open-air, single-story campus with multiple stucco buildings. Christy crawled up the walkway as low as she could and was able to reach an external classroom door. The teacher heard her crying, I want my daddy, I want my daddy! and let her in as bullets were hitting the door. Christy’s father was Norm, the well-known owner of the popular local Chicken Shack Restaurant. She had three siblings who all attended Cleveland Elementary at one point or another.

Christy was struck twice, but she narrowly missed being shot a third time, later finding a bullet hole in her hood.

Barnes and other teachers tried to rescue other children as the bullets kept flying.

Five shots came in with three of them just over our heads, Barnes said.

The fire alarm continued to ring and the kindergarten class, unaware of the dangers in the front of the building, began to assemble in an orderly line at the door. They were stopped moments before streaming into the direct vision of the sniper. The children were taken to a protected school building.

Ten-year-old Julie Robles heard all the noise and commotion as she walked to the entrance of the school with a schoolmate. As she turned to look at Wragg lying on the side of the walkway in the vegetation, a bullet passed through her right side and her glasses fell from her face.

She was able to maintain her footing, picked up her specs and immediately run into the school and hide in safety. Julie was wearing a large brown coat with fluffy cuffs and collar that kept her warm.

I saw Mr. Wragg lying on the ground, Julie said later. Then felt a little nip, but it didn’t hurt that much. She was in a classroom when she saw the blood. I started to cry, but I knew that wasn’t going to do any good. The thought of getting to the hospital was out of the question. The school nurse tried her best to tend each victim one by one.

It was now clear to everyone at the scene that the shots were coming from a house across the street. But the students crossing the road or at the other end of parking lot were still unaware of the eminent danger and continued to enter the school property. The small caliber shots coming from across the road would not have been heard over the fire alarm at the school.

The teaching staff in the main building began to filter as many children as possible into the cafetorium through the rear entrance. It was the largest room with minimal front-facing windows, and it could hold a large number of students requiring attention. Children were still arriving straight into the line of fire, and others were just standing still, wondering what was going on.

Charles A. Miller III was only nine and went by the name Cam. CAM are his initials, and it made sense to have nicknames with so many named Charles in his family. All the school faculty knew Cam well as he was often called upon to help the principal with errands and tasks around school.

Michael Guerrero, the assistant janitor, who worked at the school when he wasn’t in classes at nearby San Diego State University, remembers him as a nice, chubby, little boy.

Cam’s mother, DeLois Miller, normally dropped him off at Cleveland Elementary’s side gate by the playground. But this was a cold morning by San Diego standards, and she thought he should get him inside quickly. So, she drove to the front of the school.

They both heard what they thought was a car backfiring as she drove away. Cam strolled up to the school thinking everyone was messing around and continued to walk towards the entrance gate. The boy was dumbfounded by what he saw as he arrived at the main office.

With a smile on his face, he was struck with a bullet that tore through his left shoulder. He was standing with his back to the road when the projectile only just missed his heart. Cam fell forward, toward the fallen principal and custodian. He stumbled but regained his feet.

He said he felt an electric shock in his shoulder and with the help of another student he managed to get around to the back of the school.

He saw his teacher and told her, I think I’ve been shot. The teacher opened his puffy blue vest and saw blood all over his clothes.

Almost all the remaining students had the same feeling as Cam as they walked across the parking lot or rounded the corner into the driveway. Someone was fooling around, surely? The fire alarm was going off amid the sound of firecrackers. This was the Californian suburb in the late 70’s; what could be that big of a deal?

2

San Diego Police Department

The first emergency call came into the main city police station at 8:25 a.m. At the time, the city of San Diego had one main station located at 801 West Market Street in downtown, and all dispatches originated from here. It was openly broadcast on police frequencies as a red alert. Virtually all available units were given the 11-6 call to attend Cleveland Elementary School at 6300 Lake Atlin Ave., San Carlos. 11-6 is the police code for gunshots. It did not get broadcast very often at