On January 29, 1979, Brenda Spencer kills two men and wounds
nine children as they enter the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San
Diego. Spencer blazed away with rifle shots from her home directly across the
street from the school. After 20 minutes of shooting, police surrounded
Spencer's home for six hours before she surrendered. Asked for some explanation
for the attack, Spencer allegedly said, "I just don't like Mondays. I did
this because it's a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays."
Spencer was only 16 years old at the time of her murderous
attack. She was a problem child who was widely known as a drug abuser with a
violent streak. She repeatedly broke the windows at the Cleveland school with
her BB gun. Still, her father gave her a .22 semi-automatic rifle and
ammunition as a Christmas gift at the end of 1978. This seemed to inspire
Spencer into more grandiose plans, and she started telling her classmates that
she was going to do something "to get on TV." When Monday morning
rolled around, Burton Wragg, the principal of Cleveland Elementary, was opening
the gates of the school when Spencer started firing her rifle from across the
street. Wragg and custodian Michael Suchar were killed. "I just started
shooting. That's it. I just did it for the fun of it," explained Spencer. Spencer's
hatred for the first day of the school week was later memorialized by Bob
Geldof, the leader of the rock group The Boomtown Rats, in the song, "I
Don't Like Mondays." Spencer, who pled guilty to two counts of murder and
assault with a deadly weapon, is currently serving a term of 25 years to life
at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California. She has been
denied parole four times, most recently in 2005.
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