The Man Who Killed the School Board

by Clinton T. Duffy,
San Quentin Prison Warden, 1946

A person with the happy combination of intelligence and good upbringing rarely goes to prison for crime contrary to his training education, and instincts. He has absorbed the difference between right and wrong from his parents and has grown up with a healthy respect for the law. He looks forward to a life of honest productivity, and nothing is farther from his mind than involving himself in a criminal act. Unless he is in a hazardous occupation which requires personal protection, he wouldn't think of carrying a weapon.

But the decent, law-abiding man or woman who would never break into a house or take part in a holdup might commit murder, for this is a crime of passion, and passion does not respect rank, station, or background. Any strong emotion can plant the seeds of resentment, and that can lead to violence. Most normally intelligent people know how to keep their emotions under control. A few find this impossible, and they lose their sense of values. Sometimes this happens on the spur of the moment and sometimes it develops over a long period of time. Occasionally, it leads to murder, and then a stunned public shakes its collective head and asks, "How can such a person do such a terrible thing?"

Psychiatrists and psychologists have been trying to find the answer for many years, and I believe they have made some progress, thanks to men like David Moore (not his real name), who has been at San Quentin under a life sentence since 1940. He arrived there about three weeks after I became warden, and I came to know him well. When I think of the shambles he made of his well-ordered life in a few horrible minutes, I realize the thinness of the line between mental stability and temporary insanity.

David Moore, who never did a wrong thing before or since, suddenly went completely berserk. In a bloody outburst one peaceful afternoon in early May, he shot five people to death and crippled a sixth for life in the southern California community where he was a junior high school principal. He did it coldly and deliberately, and when it was all over, he calmly turned the gun on himself. His own wound was superficial, and he recovered to face the realization and consequences of what he had done.

The story of Moore's rampage was starkly simple. For some time he had been bickering with the three members of the Board of Education The arguments didn't appear to be serious. In fact, they were probably no worse than the disagreements that occur between administrators and school boards almost everywhere in the country. But they upset Moore, and he fretted so much that he found it difficult to sleep. He began taking barbiturates to relieve his tensions, but they didn't help much, and after a while he was a bundle of nerves.

On May 3 the 38-year-old Moore won an expert marksman's award on the police pistol range with a score of 282 out of a possible 300. He used his own revolver which he took home that night. The next morning he requested a meeting with the Board of Education at their offices in the senior high school about three blocks from his own school, The request was granted; and a conference was arranged for 2:30 that afternoon.

Before attending the meeting, Moore went to a bank in downtown Los Angeles where he dictated a phonographic will. He put the record beside him on the front seat of his car, then started the long drive to the senior high school in his town. He arrived there about ten minutes before the meeting was to begin.

He greeted several of his former students with his usual cordiality as he made his way through the building and up the stairs to the Board's offices on the second fioor. The chairman was in his own office, so Moore chatted amiably with the receptionist while waiting for the other two members to arrive. They walked in together and joined in the conversation with Moore and the woman in the anteroom. Everyone was laughing and joking in a friendly, casual manner when, on the dot of 2:30, the chairman came to the door and invited them into his office.

Moore seemed relaxed and cordial as he waved to the receptionist and went with the others. The door was closed and nothing happened for several minutes, then several muffled shots were heard. The receptionist thought they came from outside the building and paid no attention, and neither did anyone else for the moment.

The chairman's door opened, and when the receptionist turned, Moore was pointing a pistol at her. While she stared wordlessly, wondering if this were some kind of a joke, Moore fired two shots. One grazed her shoulder and the other fractured her spine.

Moore watched her fall, then put his gun in his pocket and slowly walked out of the office. As he made his way through the corridors, down the stairs and across the front lawn to his car, he again greeted with calm cordiality students whom he knew. Leisurely he drove the three blocks to the junior high school, where he got a male teacher out of class to go to the auto shop with him. He closed the shop door, shot the teacher, and then went to an empty classroom, where he shot a woman teacher who was just getting ready to go home. After that, he walked downstairs to the cafeteria and put a bullet through his own chest.

Moore's toll during this ghastly 20 minutes included all three members of the School Board and both of the junior schoolteachers. The receptionist, paralyzed from the waist down, was the only one of his victims who lived to testify against him.

It took Moore months to reconstruct the framework of his murderous spree and years to recall the details. His first reaction apparently was complete amnesia. He claimed to have no recollection of anything after he won the marksmanship award on the day before the killings. From then on his activities of the next 24 hours were shrouded in fog. He thought he had dreamed it all and, as in a dream, there were no blacks and whites, only grays.

Before being sentenced to life on five counts of murder and one of attempted murder, Moore was examined by three state-appointed alienists. One of them. Dr. Victor Perkins, classified him as a "constitutional psychopath." Despite a substantial salary and a position of high respect in the community, Moore thought everyone else considered him inferior and incompetent. The doctor added that this feeling was the cause of emotional disturbances and nervous strain, leading Moore to the use of bromides.

"The present situation," Dr. Perkins said, "was probably precipitated by nerves, drugs, and overwork. I wish I knew the whys and wherefores of this man's actions, but they are obscure and elusive. This seems to me very much an unsolved problem."

At the time Moore could do little to help. It was only later, when he was able to recall all of the details of his crime, that he shed some light on the mystery. His running battle with the Board of Education, which was nowhere nearly as serious as he took it, his heavy work schedule, his resorting to drugs, all contributed to the collapse of his balance. Perhaps strangest of all was his quick recovery. Within a short time after the murders he was apparently the calm, friendly, logical, efficient man that he had been before.

This manifested itself at San Quentin, where he soon plunged into a busy work schedule under the direction of Dr. David G. Schmidt, the prison's chief psychiatrist. He became expert at giving tests to inmates and then evaluating them. Dr. Schmidt had great respect for his judgments.

"This man is so efficient," the doctor told me, "that he would command more money than the state could afford to pay if he were available on the outside."

Except for occasional fits of deep depression, Moore accepted his fate philosophically. I saw him often and watched closely for the signs that he was feeling particularly sorry for himself. When it happened, I tried to find new jobs for him which would keep him busy with people from the outside.

During World War II we once had a flower show which was open to the public. Moore was down in the dumps, so I assigned him the job of selling fuchsia plants from our "garden beautiful," just inside the big walls. This gave Moore a chance to talk to the public, and he rose to the occasion. A charming, friendly man, he collected a good deal of money, which we turned over to the Red Cross. He also snapped out of his blue funk.

Another time when I knew he was extremely depressed I had him assigned to the Ranch, a minimum-security section well outside the walls. He spent the day there, roaming around and doing what he pleased, and he felt better when he got back.

Moore missed his family and his home, and I tried to help him by bringing him to our home from time to time. We sat around talking about his work and his life at San Quentin. Sometimes we discussed his crime.

"I've lived that day a thousand times," he told me once. "As I look back on it and realize that it really happened, I know that the David Moore who killed five people and crippled a sixth wasn't the David Moore who ran the junior high school, or who is sitting here with you now. It was a strange maniac, a David Moore who had gone crazy with pressures, a David Moore who was lost and tried to find himself by killing and maiming."

"You killed and you maimed — and you found yourself," I said. "I wonder why."

"I suppose because it was a release," he said.

Moore learned a great deal about murderers from other killers; some of whom either were or had been on death row. They accepted him as one of themselves, yet respected him for his cultural superiority. Not long ago he wrote me an illuminating letter about some of these people. In substance it reads as follows:

Because of my own experiences, I've always been intensely interested in how these men dealt with their remorse, guilt, contrition and similar feelings. Too, whether they were engaged in some kind of expiation activity, and just how they truly felt about killing someone. I wondered what they planned to do about it; how they were going to live with it, or die with it, and what role they thought they might assume in society now that they had killed. Thus, we talked as one convict talks to another, one murderer to another, and at times dug down to some rather basic feelings and ideas.

Over the years I've learned that a man who can kill somebody is not a particularly unusual or peculiar type of person. It seems to me that if the conditions and the circumstances were right, almost any man could or would kill or attempt to kill. Outside of the few who kill for very obvious reasons, most of these who kill are never quite clear in their own minds about the killing. What is available seems to be called up through fog and hash — blurred and obscured.

Surprisingly, few of the murderers who are brought to prison have deep, moving feelings of remorse about what they have done. Practically none of the men who are commuted from death row are so grateful for "being saved" that they become dedicated men. Nor is this done to any extent by the men who do life for murder. In fact, there are very few who don't openly or covertly resent being in prison.

There is something about the convicting, imprisoning, and condemning procedures that tend to wash out and thin down the feelings of remorse, guilt, and sorrow. In their stead are found varying degrees of self-pity, bitterness, and resentment. Then in others there are resignation and acceptance on a kind of practical basis, but remorse and guilt are not strong. The due process of law, the newspapers, the attitude of society, and prison experiences put the man who has killed through a special kind of hell that exercises an absolving and remitting effect on his guilt-laden emotional structure.

His self picture has been all but annihilated. Self-esteem has been wiped out. Pride is gone. Reputation has been lost. Status so carefully built has been leveled. His once good name is now a degrading number and he has become odious and repugnant to men who once cultivated his friendship. He has become an object of contempt.

These blows to his emotional structure are catastrophic and the accompanying pain excruciating and tortuous. Emotional torment of such proportions tends to dissolve and crowd out sorrow and regret.

Men in our own pattern of culture have considered the loss of face worse than death — some prefer death to such loss. This concept of a fate worse than death is not too uncommon today. Many prisoners feel that the loss of both is too great a price to pay. This, and the way they are forced to pay, has no small impact on their feelings.

Perhaps Jimmy Kelso summed up some of the feelings in his attitude towards authority when he returned to San Quentin to be executed. He stands out because his resentment and hostility were so intense. During Jimmy Kelso's first "hitch," he endeared himself to the inmates by what he did for them. Many of his offerings were downright sacrifices. He not only went without to give to others, he hustled those who "had" into giving to those who "had not." Jimmy invariably had a sympathetic ear for men who were hurting from disappointment, failure, or loss. In the eyes of the prisoners. he was unquestionably a "right guy." In due course, Jimmy was paroled.

A short time after his parole a man was killed in a robbery in which Jimmy took part, and Jimmy was sentenced to death. He still loved the convicts, but he developed a vicious attitude toward the people in authority.

While Jimmy was on death row I gave him psychological tests and we talked. I asked him why he was so hostile toward authority since his return. His reply more or less reflects the attitude of a large majority of the prisoners I have talked to about being executed by the state.

Jimmy said, "I don't mind dying for what I did. I just don't want these sons of bitches killing me in their own dirty rotten way."

Moore knew he was lucky to avoid death row himself and that, plus his own good sense and training, has kept him from harboring the resentments that Jimmy Kelso had. Since Moore's sentences did not carry the hopeless words "without possibility of parole," he has applied for parole. He has many supporters who feel that his price has been paid and that he should be permitted to return to society.

But there are others who, even though granting that Moore's actions both before and since his crime have been exemplary, feel that he will always be a potential menace outside prison walls. Their apprehension is based on the presumption that what the man did once he might very well be expected to do again. As I reviewed his plea to the Adult Authority, I thought of a chat I had had with Moore many years before.

"I was goaded by my own fears," he said, "But now I've learned to control them. Murder is against all my instincts, contrary to every principle I have ever had. I killed without knowing I killed, and it wouldn't happen again if I lived to be a thousand."

I looked at him. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I'm sure."

If he was right, he should eventually be given a chance to prove it. but if he was wrong, innocent people again may die because of his urge to kill.

Nobody knows the answer. The best any of us can do is try to make an educated evaluation and decision.