Maniac

I'm a big fan of Schechter, I've been reading his true crime books for decades. One of the things I really like about him is how he covers killers who aren't as well known. "Maniac" is about Andrew Kehoe and the worse school massacre in US history. Kehoe was a disgruntled, childless farmer who deeply resented having to pay so much in taxes to fund a school. Don't get me wrong, I think taxes are outrageously high too, but I also don't go around murdering people in protest. Kehoe got himself elected treasure of the school board and fought tooth and nail against the superintendent, Emery Huyck, who kept asking for money for frivolous things like books and maps. Kehoe used his position to become a general handyman around the school: he had gone to college to study electrical engineering, and as a result was able to fix a lot of things himself and save the school money in repair bills. It also allowed him time to plant explosive devices. Lots and lots of explosive devices.

On May 18, 1927, the last day of final exams, Kehoe denotated his devices, blowing up major portions of the school. Thankfully many of his explosives failed to go off, otherwise not only the school but mostly likely the entire town of Bath, Michigan would have been blown up. Kehoe loaded his pickup truck full of shrapnel, drove to the school, where everyone in town was frantically trying to rescue trapped children from the rubble, and blew up his truck. He, of course, died but so did Huyck and several others as the shrapnel went flying. Forty-five people were killed that day, most of them children, and at least 58 were injured. It was a tiny town, and no one was spared from losing a child, grandchild, or friend. Several families lost two children, one lost three. In addition, Kehoe killed his wife, set her on fire, burned his horses alive, and blew up his farm. It's shocking and heartbreaking. 

So why isn't Kehoe well known? We all know about Columbine and Sandy Hook, but most people don't know about Bath. Schechter theorizes that it was a combination of things. Just a few days after the horror, Charles Lindbergh completed his solo flight across the Atlantic and news of his feat dominated papers around the world, shoving the Bath tragedy off the front pages. There was also a sensational murder in New York known as the Double Indemnity murder, where a wife and her lover murdered her husband and tried to make it look like a burglar had done it. The lewd sensationalism of that case captured the nation's attention, and, let's face it, reading about a bunch of innocent kids being brutally blown up is depressing. So Kehoe has mostly been lost to the annuals of history. Schechter did a great job with this book. I don't want to say I enjoyed it, because of course reading about all those poor kids dying wasn't enjoyable at all, but it was interesting.