The Unruh Mass Shooting: The original Meyer Berger Pulitzer-winning story
Hyfler/Rosner
Meyer Berger
For a distinguished example of local reporting during the year, The New
York Times submits the story by Meyer Berger of the mass shootings in
Camden, New Jersey on September 6, 1949. Mr. Berger was assigned to the
story by The Times City Desk shortly before 11 A.M. He caught the first
available train to Camden; personally covered the story and filed
approximately 4,000 words. The last of his copy reached The Times office
at 9:20 P.M., about one hour before the first edition closing. In the
opinion of the editors of The New York Times, Mr. Berger�s story was a
brilliant example of thorough, accurate reporting and skillful writing,
under pressure. Mr. Berger subsequently received the 1950 Pulitzer Prize
for local reporting.
CAMDEN, N.J., Sept.6--Howard B. Unruh, 28 years old, a mild, soft-spoken
veteran of many armored artillery battles in Italy, France, Austria,
Belgium and Germany, killed twelve persons with a war souvenir Luger
pistol in his home block in East Camden this morning. He wounded four
others.
Unruh, a slender, hollow-cheeked six-footer paradoxically devoted to
scripture reading and to constant practice with firearms, had no
previous history of mental illness but specialists indicated tonight
that there was no doubt that he was a psychiatric case, and that he had
secretly nursed a persecution complex for two years or more.
The veteran was shot in the left thigh by a local tavern keeper but he
kept that fact secret, too, while policemen and Mitchell Cohen, Camden
County prosecutor, questioned him at police headquarters for more than
two hours immediately after tear gas bombs had forced him out of his
bedroom to surrender.
Blood Betrays His Wound
The blood stain he left on the seat he occupied during the questioning
betrayed his wound. When it was discovered he was taken to Cooper
Hospital in Camden, a prisoner charged with murder.
He was as calm under questioning as he was during the twenty minutes
that he was shooting men, women and children. Only occasionally
excessive brightness of his dark eyes indicated that he was anything
other than normal.
He told the prosecutor that he had been building up resentment against
neighbors and neighborhood shopkeepers for a long time. �They have been
making derogatory remarks about my character,� he said. His resentment
seemed most strongly concentrated against Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Cohen who
lived next door to him. They are among the dead.
Mr. Cohen was a druggist with a shop at 3202 River Road in East Camden.
He and his wife had had frequent sharp exchanges over the Unruhs� use of
a gate that separates their back yard from the Cohens�. Mrs. Cohen had
also complained of young Unruh�s keeping his bedroom radio tuned high
into the late night hours. None of the other victims had ever had
trouble with him. Unruh, a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School here,
had started a GI course in pharmacy at Temple University in Philadelphia
some time after he was honorably discharged from the service in 1945,
but had stayed with it only three months. In recent months he had been
unemployed, and apparently was not even looking for work.
Mother Separated From Husband
His mother, Mrs. Rita Unruh, 50, is separated from her husband. She
works as a packer in the Evanson Soap Company in Camden and hers was
virtually the only family income. James Unrah, 25 years old, her younger
son, is married and lives in Haddon Heights, N.J. He works for the
Curtis Publishing Company.
On Monday night, Howard Unruh left the house alone. He spent the night
at the Family Theater on Market Street in Philadelphia to sit through
several showings of the double feature motion picture there--�I Cheated
the Law� and �The Lady Gambles.� It was pass three o�clock this morning
when he got home.
Prosecutor Cohen said that Unruh told him later that before he fell
asleep this morning he had made up his mind to shoot the persons who had
�talked about me,� that he had even figured out that 9:30 A.M. would be
the time to begin because most of the stores in his block would be open
at that hour.
His mother, leaving her ironing when he got up, prepared his breakfast
in their drab little three-room apartment in the shabby gray two-story
stucco house at the corner of River Road and Thirty Second Street. After
breakfast, he loaded one clip of bullets into his Lugar, slipped another
clip into his pocket, and carried sixteen loose cartridges in addition.
He also carried a tear-gas pen with six shells and a sharp six-inch knife.
He took one last look around his bedroom before he left the house. On
the peeling walls he had crossed pistols, crossed German bayonets,
pictures of armored artillery in action. Scattered about the chamber
were machetes, a Roy Rogers pistol, ash trays made of German shells,
clips of 30-30 cartridges for rifle use and a host of varied war souvenirs.
Mrs. Unruh had left the house some minutes before, to call on Mrs.
Caroline Pinner, a friend in the next block. Msrs. Unruh had sensed,
apparently, that her son�s smoldering resentments were coming to a head.
She had pleaded with Elias Pinner, her friend�s husband, to cut a little
gate in the Unruhs� backyard so that Howard need not use the Cohen gate
again. Mr. Pinner finished the gate early Monday evening after Howard
had gone to Philadelphia.
At the Pinners� house at 9 o�clock this morning, Mrs. Unruh had murmured
something about Howard�s eyes: how strange they looked and how worried
she was about him.
A few minutes later River Road echoed and re-echoed to pistol fire.
Howard Unruh was on the rampage. His mother, who had left the Pinners�
little white house only a few seconds before, turned back. She hurried
through the door.
She cried, �Oh, Howard, oh, Howard, they�re to blame for this.� She
rushed past Mrs. Pinner, a kindly gray-haired woman of 70. She said,
�I�ve got to use the phone; may I use the phone?�
But before she had crossed the living room to reach for it she fell on
the faded carpet in a dead faint. The Pinners lifted her onto a couch in
the next room. Mrs. Pinner applied aromatic spirits to revive her.
Panic Grips Entire Block
While his mother writhed on the sofa in her house dress, and worn old
sweater, coming back to consciousness, Howard Unruh was walking from
shop to shop in the �3200 block� with deadly calm, spurting Luger in
hand. Children screamed as they tumbled over one another to get out of
his way. Men and women dodged into open shops, the women shrill with
panic, man hoarse with fear. No one could quite understand for a time.
what had been loosed in the block.
Unruh first walked into John Pilarchik�s shoe repair shop near the north
end of his own side of the street. The cobbler, a 27-year-old man who
lives in Pennsauken Township, looked up open-mouthed as Unruh came to
within a yard of him. The cobbler started up from his bench but went
down with a bullet in his stomach. A little boy who was in the shop hid
behind the counter and crouched there in terror. Unruh walked out into
the sunlit street.
�I shot them in the chest first,� he told the prosecutor later, in
meticulous detail, �and then I aimed for the head.� His aim was
devastating--and with reason. He had won markmanship and sharpshooters�
ratings in the service, and he practiced with his Lugar all the time on
a target set up in the cellar of his home.
Unruh told the prosecutor afterward that he had Cohen the druggist, the
neighborhood barber, the neighborhood cobbler and the neighborhood
tailor on his mental list of persons who had �talked about him.� He went
methodically about wiping them out. Oddly enough, he did not start with
the druggist, against whom he seemed to have the sharpest feelings, but
left him almost for the last.
Newlywed Wife Shot Dead
From the cobbler�s he went into the little tailor shop at 3214 River
Road. The tailor was out. Helga Zegrino, 28 years old, the tailor�s wife
was there alone. The couple, incidentally, had been married only one
month. She screamed when Unruh walked in with his Luger in his hand.
Some people across the street heard her. Then the gun blasted again and
Mrs. Zegrino pitched over, dead. Unruh walked into the sunlight again.
All this was only a matter of seconds and still only a few persons had
begun to understand what was afoot. Down the street at 3210 River Road
is Clark Hoover�s little country barber shop. In the center was a
white-painted carousel-type horse for children customers. Orris Smith, a
blonde boy only 6 years old, was in it, with a bib around his neck,
submitting to a shearing. His mother, Mrs. Catherine Smith, 42, sat on a
chair against the wall and watched.
She looked up. Clark Hoover turned from his work, to see the six-footer,
gaunt and tense, but silent, standing in the driveway with of the Luger.
Unruh�s brown tropical worsted suit was barred with morning shadow. The
sun lay bright in his crew-cut brown hair. He wore no hat. Mrs. Smith
could not understand what was about to happen.
Unruh walked to �Brux�-- that is Mrs. Smith�s nickname for her little
boy -- and put the Luger to the child�s chest. The shot echoed and
reverberated in the little 12 by 12 shop. The little boy�s head pitched
toward the wound, his hair, half-cut, stained with red. Unruh said never
a word. He put the Luger close to the shaking barber�s hand. Before the
horrified mother, Unruh leaned over and fired another shot into Hoover.
The veteran made no attempt to kill Mrs. Smith. He did not seem to hear
her screams. He turned his back and stalked out, unhurried. A few doors
north, Dominick Latela, who runs a little restaurant, had come to his
shop window to learn what the shooting was about. He saw Unruh cross the
street toward Frank Engel�s Tavern. Then he saw Mrs. Smith stagger out
with her pitiful burden. Her son�s head rolled over the crook of her
right arm.
Mrs. Smith screamed, �My boy is dead. I know he�s dead.� She stared
about her, looking in vain for aid. No one but Howard Unruh was in
sight, and he was concentrating on the tavern. Latela dashed out, but
first he shouted to his wife, Dora, who was in the restaurant with their
daughter Eleanor, 6 years old. He hollered, �I�m going out. Lock the
door behind me.� He ran for his car, and drove it down toward Mrs. Smith
as she stood on the payment with her son.
Latela took the child from her arms and placed him on the car�s front
seat. He pushed the mother into the rear seat, slammed the doors and
headed for Cooper Hospital. Howard Unruh had not turned. Engle, the
tavern keeper, had locked his own door. His customers, the bartender and
a porter made a concerted rush for the rear of the saloon. The bullets
tore through the tavern door panelling. Engel rushed upstairs and got
out his .38 caliber pistol, then rushed to the street window of his
apartment.
Unruh was back in the center of the street. He fired a shot at an
apartment window at 3208 River Road. Tommy Hamilton, 2 years old, fell
back with a bullet in his head. Unruh went north again to Latela�s
place. He fired a shot at the door, and kicked in the lower glass panel.
Mrs. Latela crouched behind the counter with her daughter. She heard the
bullets, but neither she nor her child was touched. Unruh walked back
toward Thirty-second Street, reloading the Luger.
Now, the little street--a small block with only five buildings on one
side, three one-story stores on the other--was shrill with women�s and
children�s panicky outcries. A group of six or seven little boys or
girls fled pass Unruh. They screamed, �Crazy man!� and unintellible
sentences. Unruh did not seem to hear, or see, them.
Autoist Goes to His Death
Alvin Day, a television repair man, who lives in the near-by Mantua, had
heard the shooting, but driving into the street he was not aware of what
had happened. Unruh walked up to the car window as Day rolled by, and
fired once through the window, with deadly aim. The repair man fell
against the steering wheel. The front wheels hit the opposite curb and
stalled. Day was dead.
Frank Engel had thrown open his second-four apartment window. He saw
Unruh pause for a moment in a narrow alley between the cobbler�s shop
and a little two-story house. He aimed and fired. Unruh stopped for just
a second. The bullet had hit, but he did not seem to mind, after the
initial brief shock. He headed toward the corner drugstore, and Engle
did not fire again.
�I wish I had,� he said, later. �I could have killed him then. I could
have put a half-dozen shots into him. I don�t know why I didn�t do it.�
Cohen, the druggist, a heavy man of 40, had run into the street
shouting, �What�s going on here? What�s going on here?� but at sight of
Unruh hurried back into his shop. James J. Huttton, 45, an insurance
agent from Westmont, N.J., started out of the drug shop to see what the
shooting was about. Like so many others he had figured at first that it
was some car backfiring. He came face to face with Unruh.
Unruh said quietly, �Excuse me, sir,� and started to push past him.
Later, Unruh told the police: �That man didn�t act fast enough. He
didn�t get out of my way.� He fired into Hutton�s head and body. The
insurance man pitched onto the sidewalk and lay still.
Cohen had run to his upstairs apartment and had tried to warn Minnie
Cohen, 63, his mother, and Rose, his wife, 38, to hide. His son,
Charles, 14, was in the apartment, too.
Mrs .Cohen shoved the boy into a clothes closet, and leaped into another
closet herself. She pulled the door to. The druggist, meanwhile had
leaped from the window onto a porch roof. Unruh, a gaunt figure at the
window behind him, fired into the druggist�s back. The druggist, still
running, bounded off the roof and lay dead in Thirty-second Street.
Unruh fired into the closet, where Mrs. Cohen was hidden. She fell dead
behind the closed door, and he did not bother to open it. Mrs. Minnie
Cohen tried to get to the telephone in an adjoining bedroom to call the
police. Unruh fired shots into her head and body and she sprawled dead
on the bed. Unruh walked down the stairs with his Luger reloaded and
came out into the street again.
A coupe had stopped at River Road, obeying a red light. The passengers
obviously had no idea of what was loose in East Camden and no one had a
chance to tell them. Unruh walked up to the car, and though it was
filled with total strangers, fired deliberately at them, one by one,
through the windshield. He killed the two women passengers, Mrs. Helen
Matlack Wilson, 43, of Pennsauken, who was driving, and her mother, Mrs.
Emma Matlack, 66. Mrs. Wilson�s son John, 12, was badly wounded. A
bullet pierced his neck, just below in the jawbone.
Earl Horner, clerk in the American Stores Company, a grocery opposite
the drugstore, had locked his front door after several passing men,
women and children had tumbled breathlessly into the shop panting �crazy
man***killing people.***� Unruh came up to the door and fired two shots
through the wood panelling. Horner, his customers, the refugees from the
veteran�s merciless gunfire, crouched, trembling, behind the counter.
None there was hurt.
�He tried the door before he shot in here,� Horner related afterward.
�He just stood there, stony-faced and grim, and rattled the knob, before
he started to fire. Then he turned away.�
Charlie Petersen, 18, son of a Camden fireman, came driving down the
street with two friends when Unruh turned from the grocery. The three
boys got out to stare at Hutton�s body lying unattended on the sidewalk.
They did not know who had shot the insurance man, or why and, like the
women in the car, had no warning that Howard Unruh was on the loose. The
veteran brought his Luger to sight and fired several times. Young
Petersen fell with bullets in his legs. His friends tore pell-mell down
the street to safety.
Mrs. Helen Harris of 1250 North Twenty-eighth Street with her daughter,
Helen, a 6-year-old blonde child, and a Mrs. Horowitz with her daughter,
Linda, five, turned into Thirty-second Street. They had heard the
shooting from a distance but thought is was auto backfire.
Unruh passed them in Thirty-second Street and walked up the sagging four
steps of a little yellow dwelling back of his own house. Mrs. Madeline
Harrie, a woman in her late thirties, and two sons, Armand, 16, and
Leroy, 15, were in the house. A third son, Wilson, 14, was barricaded in
the grocery with other customers.
Unruh threw open the front door and, gun in hand, walked into the dark
little parlor. He fired two shots at Mrs. Harrie. They went wild and
entered the wall. A third shot caught her in the left arm. She screamed.
Armand leaped at Unruh, to tackle him. The veteran used the Luger butt
to drop the boy, then fired two shots into his arms. Upstairs Leroy
heard the shooting and the screams. He hid under a bed.
By this time, answering a flood of hysterical telephone calls from
various parts of East Camden, police radio cars swarmed into River Road
with sirens wide open. Emergency crews brought machine guns, shotguns
and tear gas bombs.
Sergeant Earl Wright, one of the first to leap to the sidewalk, saw
Charles Cohen, the druggist�s son. The boy was half out the second-floor
apartment window, just above where his father lay dead. He was screaming
�He�s going to kill me. He�s killing every body.� The boy was hysterical.
Wright bounded up the stairs to the druggist�s apartment. He saw the
dead woman on the bed, and tried to soothe the druggist son. He brought
him downstairs and turned him over to other policemen, then joined the
men who had surrounded the two-story stucco house where Unruh lived.
Unruh, meanwhile, had fired about 30 shots. He was out of ammunition:
Leaving the Harrie house, he had also heard the police sirens. He had
run through the back gate to his own rear bedroom.
Guns Trained on Window
Edward Joslin, a motorcycle policeman, scrambled to the porch roof under
Unruh�s window. He tossed a tear-gas grenade through a pane of glass.
Other policemen, hoarsely calling on Unruh to surrender, took positions
with their machine guns and shotguns. They trained them on Unruh�s window.
Meanwhile a curious interlude had taken place. Philip W. Buxton, an
assistant city editor on the Camden Evening Courier had looked Unruh�s
name up in the telephone book. He called the number, Camden 4-2490W. It
was just after 10 A.M. and Unruh had just returned to his room. To Mr.
Buxton�s astonishment Unruh answered. He said hello in a calm, clear voice.
�This Howard?� Mr. Buxton asked.
�Yes, this is Howard. What�s the last name of the party you want?�
�Unruh.�
The veteran asked what Mr. Buxton wanted.
�I�m a friend,� the newspaper man said. �I want to know what they�re
doing to you down there.�
Unruh thought a moment. He said, �They haven�t done anything to
me---yet. I�m doing plenty to them.� His voice was still steady without
a trace of hysteria.
Mr. Buxton asked how many persons Unruh had killed.
The veteran answered: �I don�t know. I haven�t counted. Looks like a
pretty good score.� �Why are you killing people?�
�I don�t know,� came the frank answer. �I can�t answer that yet. I�ll
have to talk to you later. I�m too busy now.�
The telephone banged down.
Unruh was busy. The tear gas was taking effect and police bullets were
thudding at the walls around him. During a lull in the firing the police
saw the white curtains move and the gaunt killer came into plain view.
�Okay,� he shouted. �I give up, I�m coming down.�
�Where�s that gun?� a sergeant yelled.
�It�s on my desk, up here in the room,� Unruh called down quietly. �I�m
coming down.�
Thirty guns were trained on the shabby little back door. A few seconds
later the door opened and Unruh stepped into the light, his hands up.
Sergeant Wright came across the morning-glory and aster beds in the yard
and snapped handcuffs on Unruh�s wrists.
�What�s the matter with you,� a policeman demanded hotly. �You a psycho?�
Unruh stared into the policeman�s eyes---a level, steady stare. He said,
�I�m no psycho. I have a good mind.�
Word of the capture brought the whole East Camden populace pouring into
the streets. Men and women screamed at Unruh, and cursed him in shrill
accents and in hoarse anger. Someone cried �lynch him� but there was no
movement. Sergeant Wright�s men walked Unruh to a police car and started
for headquarters.
Shouting and pushing men and women started after the car, but dropped
back after a few paces. They stood in excited little groups discussing
the shootings, and the character of Howard Unruh. Little by little the
original anger, born of fear, that had moved the crowd, began to die.
Men conceded that he probably was not in his right mind. Those who knew
Unruh kept repeating how close-mouthed he was, and how soft spoken. How
he took his mother to church, and how he marked scripture passages,
especially the prophecies.
�He was a quiet one, that guy,� a man told a crowd in front of the
tavern. �He was all the time figuring to do this thing. You gotta watch
them quiet ones.�
But all day River Road and the side streets talked of nothing else. The
shock was great. Men and women kept saying: �We can�t understand it.
Just don�t get it.�
Copyright � 2006 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.
Matthew Kruk
Louis Epstein
:
: Unruh, a slender, hollow-cheeked six-footer paradoxically devoted to
: previous history of mental illness
Some would say the reporter has contradicted himself.
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.