Howard Unruh's 1949 Shooting Spree

September 6, 1949 started as a normal Tuesday for the people of Camden, New Jersey. Everyone was going about his or her business as usual. People were working, shopping, cleaning their homes and otherwise occupying themselves as they normally would. Unfortunately, September 6, 1949 was not just a normal day. It was the day that Howard Unruh decided to take his revenge on the people of his town. He started at roughly 9:20 a.m.

That morning, Howard Unruh woke up, dressed in a suit and shirt with a bow tie and ate his breakfast. He waited for his mother, who he lived with a second-floor apartment on 32^nd street, to leave. Then he grabbed his 9mm Luger and exited the apartment. The route that he took from there is not known for certain, but it is known that he wound up on the corner of Howard and 32^nd streets shortly after leaving his apartment. Once there, he pointed his pistol into the door of a bread truck and fired a single shot. He barely missed the driver. He presumably did not realize that he had missed because he walked away, giving the bread truck driver time to rescue two children, who were walking down the street, by placing them in his truck and driving away with them.

Meanwhile, Howard Unruh was walking down 32^nd street getting ready to kill his 'enemies.' First, Howard stopped at a shoe repair store and shot shoemaker John Pilarchik twice. He did not survive. There was also a little boy in the store whom Unruh ignored for unknown reasons. Unruh then walked next door to a barbershop owned by Clark Hoover. Howard walked in, shot a 6-year-old boy whose hair was being cut by Clark. Before shooting the boy, Howard reportedly said, "I've got something for you, Clarky." He shot Clark after the boy. They both died from their wounds. The boy's mother and two other children were spared. Why Unruh was shooting some and sparing others remains unknown to this day.

After Howard Unruh left the barbershop and began walking back down the street, he took a shot at a boy who was sitting at the window in his home. Thankfully, he missed. He then fired two rounds into a locked tavern door. Howard then attempted to enter a locked restaurant. When that did not work, he went to a pharmacy that was owned by his neighbors, the Cohens. A man was leaving the pharmacy and Howard said, "Excuse me, sir." The man did not move quickly enough and so Howard shot him dead. He then entered the pharmacy and chased the Cohen couple up the stairs to their apartment, where their elderly mother and young son also lived.

Howard Unruh shot and killed Rose Cohen first. He then killed her elderly mother, who was attempting to phone the police. Maurice Cohen jumped out of the window onto the roof, where Unruh shot him, causing him to roll off the roof and into the street. Unruh then went down to the street and shot the man again. The Cohen's 12-year-old son was still in the upstairs apartment, hiding in a closet. The crazed gunman would not injure the young man that day, but he can still be counted among the victims of Howard Unruh's shooting spree. Also counted among the victims, but not among the dead, were a young man and his mother, who were attacked in their house shortly after Unruh left the pharmacy. Both mother and son were shot in the arm, but neither sustained any further injuries.

When Howard left that home, he began shooting at cars and into buildings. He shot four people in their cars, eventually killing three of them. He then turned his attention to the grocery store. He fired at the building for a few moments and then was presumably shot himself. A local man had grabbed his pistol and aimed at Howard Unruh through a window in his home. A gunshot wound that Howard sustained in his side was later noticed at the police station. It is unknown whether this brave man or the police inflicted the wound. However, the man did live to regret the fact that he had not continued firing at Unruh until he was stopped.

Howard was able to continue on to the tailor's shop as if nothing had happened. He killed the tailor's wife. He killed his last victim very shortly thereafter, a two-year-old boy who just happened to be near a window in his home at the wrong time. At that point, Howard had run out of bullets, so he strolled home, reloaded his weapon and barricaded his door in anticipation of retribution. His entire walk that day had lasted about fifteen minutes. With a death toll of thirteen, that means that Howard Unruh killed nearly one person a minute that fateful day. He was never put on trial for his crimes. He lived out the rest of his life in a maximum-security mental facility. This, despite the fact that many people today believe that Howard would have been fit to stand trial for his crimes. He was a paranoid schizophrenic and a war veteran, but he was very calm and precise in his actions that day.

Sources

Ramsland, Katherine, Rampage in Camden, trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/howard_unruh/index.html