Howard Barton Unruh (January 21, 1921 – October 19, 2009) was an American mass murderer who shot and killed thirteen people and injured three others during a twelve-minute walk through a one-block span of his neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, on September 6, 1949. The incident, which became known as the "Walk of Death" and the "Camden shootings", ended after Unruh surrendered to police after running out of ammunition.
Diagnosed as being legally insane and thus immune to criminal prosecution, Unruh was committed at the New Jersey State Hospital. He died at this facility in 2009 at the age of 88 following over 60 years of confinement.
The "Camden shootings" remained the deadliest mass shooting to occur in the United States (in terms of number of fatalities) until the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting, and are widely regarded as the first example of a mass shooting by a lone gunman to occur in America following World War II.
Early life and adolescence Howard Barton Unruh was born in East Camden, New Jersey on January 21, 1921, the first of two children born to Samuel Shipley and Freda Eichel ( Vollmer) Unruh. He had one younger brother, James Frederick (b. November 22, 1923).
The Unruh household was middle class, and both parents held strong work ethics. Unruh's parents were devout Lutherans; both insisted their children visit church every Sunday and both study and abide by Biblical scriptures. The couple separated when Unruh was a child; the separation was on amicable terms, with Unruh's mother retaining custody of both children and both sons remaining on friendly terms with their father.
Unruh was a quiet, taciturn child, and viewed by his peers as something of a loner. He attended Cramer Junior High School before progressing to Woodrow Wilson High School in 1935. Here, he was again viewed as a loner who seldom interacted with, particularly, his female classmates, although he did participate in non-athletic extracurricular activities. Unruh typically achieved B grades, and his classmates respected his intelligence—nicknaming him "How". His overall scholastic record was above average, and he graduated from high school in January 1939.
Further education and conscription Between 1939 and 1942, Unruh resided with his mother and younger brother at 3202 River Road, Cramer Hill, East Camden. The apartment itself was upon a cul-de-sac, with a kitchen door opening to a yard at the rear of the property being the only direct entrance. Aside from a middle-aged couple named Elias and Caroline Pinner—with whom Unruh became acquainted via his mother—he seldom socialized with any individual outside his immediate family, and spent much of his free time in his bedroom, basement, or reading the Bible. Following his graduation from Woodrow Wilson High School, Unruh worked in at least two local menial professions as he reportedly pondered which career path he should pursue.
By 1941, Unruh had decided to pursue a career as a pharmacist; he was preparing to study for this career when America entered World War II following the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was drafted into the United States Army the following year.
Military service
Unruh's military service began on October 27, 1942. His military record was exemplary, and he saw active service across Europe as a sharpshooter and, later, tank gunner between October 1944 and July 1945 in campaigns including the Battle of the Bulge and the Western Allied invasion of Germany. Although fellow soldiers spent many of their off-duty hours drinking, smoking, gambling or chasing women, Unruh—a teetotaler who refrained from using profane language—preferred to spend his free time reading his Bible, writing letters to his mother and/or Mrs. Caroline Pinner, or either cleaning his rifle or taking the weapon apart, then reassembling it. Nonetheless, his comrades respected his marksmanship skills and bravery under fire, with one fellow soldier later remarking that, although Unruh was not "the most sociable" of men he had served alongside, he was "worth having on your side in a fight".
Throughout his military service, Unruh kept a diary in which he meticulously listed the enemy soldiers he had killed by location, date, and hour—also adding the appearance and positioning of the body if possible.
Honorable discharge On November 30, 1945, Unruh was honorably discharged from the military, having been awarded several military distinctions for exemplary conduct and bravery under fire, including the European Theater of Operations Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. He returned to New Jersey to live with his mother and brother and found employment within a printing firm. Unruh held this position for seven months before finding alternate employment as a sheet-metal worker. He later resigned from this position to resume his earlier plans to become a pharmacist.
Postwar life Both Unruh's father and brother later remarked that his wartime experiences had markedly changed his persona: although still devoutly religious and an ardent reader of the Bible, he was markedly sullen, nervous, suspicious, and detached. Several individuals who lived or worked close to the Unruh family home gradually began to view Howard as something of a "religious nut"; however, neither he nor they made any effort to socialize or otherwise become acquainted beyond occasional perfunctory conversations.
Throughout his military service, Unruh had developed a fixation with firearms, weaponry and military strategies. He gradually converted his bedroom into something of a shrine to war and weaponry; he also converted the family basement into a private shooting range, which he adorned with his general service medals and where he practiced his marksmanship skills on an almost daily basis. In the years following Unruh's return from active duty, he legally purchased a number of weapons including a semi-automatic Luger P08 pistol.
By mid-1947, Unruh was seldom employed, and largely supported his hobby via the income his mother made in her employment as a packer at a local soap factory.
To achieve his career goal of becoming a pharmacist, Unruh completed a high school science refresher course in 1947 before enrolling at the Temple University School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia in the fall of 1948. Unruh neglected to present his credentials from the Veterans Administration upon enrollment, which would have seen him entitled to free tuition, stationery and a monthly allowance of $75 (). His attendance record became increasingly sporadic, and he abandoned his studies after three months.
In approximately 1947, Unruh enrolled in a Bible study class, where he became reacquainted with, and later began dating, a pious young woman whom he had known prior to his overseas military deployment. This woman would prove to be Unruh's only known girlfriend. The two dated for several months before Unruh terminated the relationship—in part so that he could devote more of his free time and money to his weaponry collection and marksmanship practice. He would later confess that, shortly after terminating this relationship, he began frequenting a Philadelphia cinema known locally as a homosexual pick-up venue on a weekly basis to engage in furtive sexual encounters with men.
Unruh ceased attending church in the spring of 1948, although he continued to read the Bible. The same year, his younger brother married a young woman named Evelyn Armbrecht and relocated to the borough of Haddon Heights.
Social isolation By the late 1940s, Unruh's relations with his neighbors—and members of the public in general—had begun to deteriorate, largely due to Unruh's resentful conviction he was the target of ongoing and increasing public slandering and a victim of general injustice. As such, he began compiling a list of perceived injustices in which he recorded the names of neighbors and members of the public, the real or imagined grievance, and either the notation "retal"—for "retaliation"—or the initials "D. N. D. R.", for "Do Not Delay Retaliation". By the summer of 1949, this list included close to 200 incidents of real or perceived slights—over 180 accompanied by a reference to retaliation.
One family referenced on this list scores of times was the Cohen family—Unruh's neighbors. Many of these diary entries regarding the Cohen family referenced 41-year-old pharmacist Maurice Cohen, with whom Unruh had an ongoing feud sourcing from Unruh's habit of trespassing through the Cohens' back yard via a gate as a more direct means to access his apartment. Other entries referenced Rose Cohen asking Unruh to turn the volume of his wireless down, and 12-year-old Charles Cohen frequently playing his bugle too loud. Other individuals Unruh had listed included the local shoemaker, John Pilarchik, whom Unruh blamed for causing water seepage into his basement following the construction of Pilarchik's business premises in the summer of 1949, and a boy whom he knew only as "a kid named Sorg" who had sold Christmas trees outside his apartment the previous December and who had tapped into the Unruhs' electricity supply.
September 1949 In early September 1949, Unruh installed a high wooden fence and a large security gate at the bottom of his back yard, affording him direct access to 32nd Street. Both his father and Elias Pinner assisted in the construction of this gate and fence, believing the fence may calm Unruh's increasingly agitated and somewhat paranoid temperament. On the evening of September 5, Unruh visited the 24-hour movie theater in Philadelphia he had frequented for approximately two years; he twice watched the movies I Cheated the Law and The Lady Gambles before returning home at approximately 3 a.m.
Upon returning home, Unruh discovered that the security gate he had recently installed for the specific purposes of keeping his neighbors off the family property and obscuring his vision of the outside world had been stolen. He later informed investigators that, externally, he had remained calm; he entered his property, removed his shoes and laid on his bed fully clothed as he stared at the ceiling plotting revenge. He woke up at approximately 8:20 a.m.
Camden shootings On the morning of September 6, 1949, Unruh dressed in a brown worsted suit before entering the family kitchen for a breakfast of cereal, fried eggs and milk his mother had prepared. He sat at the breakfast table but simply stared at his mother with a menacing expression on his face for several moments before abruptly standing, then running back into his bedroom. Unruh then threatened his mother—who, alarmed at his state of agitation, had followed him into his bedroom—with a large wrench, causing her to flee to a neighbor's home, where she fainted. He then loaded the magazine of his Luger P08 pistol with ammunition before pocketing a second, loaded eight-round magazine, numerous spare rounds of ammunition, a hunting knife, and a tear gas pen with six shells. He then left the family home at approximately 9:17 a.m., exiting via the gap in the fence where his gate had been stolen.
The first individual Unruh encountered was a 33-year-old delivery driver named Roxy DiMarco, whose vehicle was parked one block from his home. DiMarco threw himself backwards from his seat as Unruh fired once through the window of his truck in the direction of his chest. The shot missed DiMarco by inches. According to DiMarco, Unruh simply shrugged and walked away. DiMarco then ushered two children into his truck before driving from the scene and attempting to warn residents of the danger.