It was late morning in Austin, Texas on August 1, 1966. And by the time he had ascended to the observation deck on the 28th floor of the Tower on the University of Texas campus—lugging a footlocker of weapons and supplies on a dolly—Charles Whitman was already a murderer.
He had killed both his mother and wife by stabbing them to death, then dispatched three others in the Tower’s stairwell and top office. A little over 90 minutes later, Whitman himself would be shot dead by officers Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez.
But not before killing with deadly aim both on the campus and its perimeter an additional 11 people and injuring at least 31. His last victim would die 35 years later from wounds sustained that day.
The “UT Tower Sniper Killings” would be the first mass shooting of the media age, and the first major school shooting which has become too commonplace by 2026.
It served as inspiration for films (1968’s Targets, 1975’s The Deadly Tower with Kurt Russell as Whitman) and two books: Gary Lavergne’s A Sniper in the Tower (1997) and Tower Sniper: The Terror of America’s First Active Shooter on Campus (2016) by Monte Akers, Nathan Akers, and Roger Friedman.
A handful of documentaries have popped up as well. But none as bold, visually groundbreaking, and effective as 2016’s Tower.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the film and the 60th of the incident, on August 2, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will host a screening and Q&A with Director Keith Maitland (himself a UT student from ’94-’98) and director of photography/executive producer Sarah Wilson (also his wife).
“This will be the first time I’ve seen it on the big screen in at least eight years. And my feeling for it has only grown in appreciation and gratitude for the experience of having made it and worked with this incredible community of witnesses, survivors, and heroes,” Maitland says via Zoom from his Austin home, sporting a UT Lacrosse team hat.
Maitland’s “lightbulb moment” was reading “96 Minutes,” Pamela Coloff’s extensive oral history of the day that appeared in a 2006 issue of Texas Monthly. It kicked off years of research and fundraising to create the mostly animated film.
Maitland says that most of the people he encountered who were alive on that day then felt like the incident wasn’t talked about enough. And those who came later but wanted to learn had little avenue to educate themselves.
“A community emerged when we were making the film, and then it quadrupled after the film came out. It’s been a life-changing experience for me. And it keeps going,” he says.
To illustrate that last point, Maitland mentions that just a few days ago he got a message from a high school friend who was vacationing in Canada. After the friend revealed she went to UT in a casual conversation, the man she was talking to replied that not only was he there on campus on August 1, 1966, but he had taken classes with Charles Whitman during the latter’s own time as a student.
“I will never lose interest or curiosity or empathy for that day,” Maitland says. Noting that an upcoming screening in Austin is bringing out a number of people featured in the film, including Claire Wilson. She was 18 years old and eight months pregnant when Whitman’s bullets found her. She lost the baby but survived. Her boyfriend who was with her, Tom Eckman, did not.
To create the film once it was deemed a go in 2012, Maitland interviewed and/or videoed more than 100 people associated with that day including survivors, relatives, law enforcement, students, and locals, as well as accessing archival material. He then chose which of those to include in the movie, and cast actors who resembled them physically.
Those actors were then filmed—mostly in Maitland’s own backyard—and the footage was sent to Minnow Mountain Studios, which used an established technique called rotoscoping to animate the actual footage. Maitland added actual photos and video from the scene, and animated other aspects of the UT campus.
Maitland says the actual campus layout and features have changed quite a bit since 1966, and it’s unlikely that he would have been given permission to shoot there anyway. Finally, most of the dialogue spoken by the characters in the film came verbatim from those original interviews.
“I understand that this, for many people, is the worst thing that happened to them or the worst thing they witnessed. I was really careful and thoughtful. If someone put up any resistance, I accepted that pretty readily,” Maitland says about approaching subjects.
“But I wanted to make clear my intentions. The last thing I wanted to do was pick at an old wound and leave a bad taste in their mouth. I hoped they would at least hear the intention of the project. It exceeded every expectation that we had for creating an opportunity for healing and a space to explore the subject.”
One subject who turned Maitland’s request down had not only been shot herself, but lost two friends that day. And while she may have felt comfortable talking, she did not want to put her 80-something mother through the horrible memories again.
In today’s society, words like “trauma” and “PTSD” are thrown around very often, and often with questionable claims and aims from both those who say they suffer from them, and others seeking answers to behavioral questions. In making Tower, Maitland felt that difference but also understood a wider impact.
“There’s no question this was a mass traumatic experience. I wasn’t there then, but I was 10 years old when the Challenger exploded, which I saw live on television and then followed it for weeks,” he says.
“What I held onto all these years is that there are mass public traumatic moments that define a generation. They’re shared far and wide beyond those just physically impacted. I was in New York during 9/11. But some of the people who were most traumatized were in the middle of the country, where those who were actually there were more resilient. But I don’t judge people’s trauma.”
He notes that there was at the time almost no “pathway” 60 years ago for victims, survivors, and witnesses to address their emotions and scarring. The University of Texas itself practically ignored that dark part of its history.
Only on the 50th anniversary in 2016 was there a significant official remembrance with the rededication of the Tower Garden and unveiling of a stone memorial on campus, etched with the names of 17 victims. Including Claire Wilson’s unborn child and pointedly leaving out Charles Whitman himself.
And even that was some say made possible only by the fierce persistence of a group of advocates on an official Texas Tower Memorial Committee. And pressure jacked up by the very release of Maitland’s film some six months earlier.
In the end, Keith Maitland is enormously proud of Tower. And not just from a filmmaker’s perspective.
Sure, it has won numerous awards which Maitland notes are on a shelf in his house. Though it’s another item sharing that space that is perhaps the most meaningful to him: A hunk of pink granite that was the last piece chipped off the stone memorial, and presented to him by some of the survivors.
“I didn’t know where we were going to end up, but my job was to learn everything I possibly could about the shooting, the University, the sniper, and all the people impacted by it. And I did,” Maitland sums up.
“But what spoke to me and mattered to me most was connecting with the witnesses, the survivors, and the heroes. And the more we focused on them, the more we let go some of the darker threads. It made the story more impactful.”
Tower screens at 5 p.m. on Sunday, August 2, at the Brown Auditorium in the Caroline Weiss Law Building at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 1001 Bissonnet. For more information, call 713-639-7531 or visit MFAH.org. A post-film discussion with Keith Maitland and Sarah Wilson follows. There is another showing without discussion at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 31. $9 adult, $7 MFAH members, students with ID, and seniors.
