Michael Ryan

Michael Robert Ryan - who was born on May 18th, 1960, at Savernake Hospital in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England - was a British man who killed sixteen people and injured fifteen more during a shooting rampage in the town of Hungerford, Berkshire, in 1987.  At the time of his birth, his mother, Dorothy, was 34, and his father, Alfred, was 55.  An only child, he apparently had a distant relationship with his father, a building inspector, although he was very close to, and doted on by, his mother, who worked as a dinner-lady and a waitress.  As a child, Ryan was a loner with few friends, who developed an interest in toy soldiers and the military, which later spiralled into an obsession with guns.  He was bullied at school, singled-out for being different.  Ryan enrolled at college, but the bullying of him continued, and he dropped-out without gaining any qualifications, making it difficult for him to get a job and participate in society.  In 1978, he was granted a shotgun certificate, and subsequently began practicing shooting at local gun clubs.  In April of 1987, Ryan began employment as a labourer, working on footpaths and fences near the River Thames; he left the job that July, returning to claiming unemployment benefits.  By August, 1987, Ryan was the owner of eight legally-held firearms.  On the sunny afternoon of August 19th, 1987, Michael Ryan drove out to Savernake Forest, seven miles west of Hungerford, where he spotted Susan Godfrey picnicking with her two young children.  He locked the children into their mother's car, before shooting Godfrey dead with an AK-47 rifle.  Ryan then drove back to Hungerford, stopping off at a garage to fill his car with petrol, and shooting at the cashier, although he at first missed and then his gun jammed.  Back in his home town, he set his own home on fire, and attempted to flee in his car, but it wouldn't start.  Ryan then began walking around the neighbourhood, shooting apparently randomly at passers-by.  By the time he stopped shooting at 1.47 p.m., Ryan had killed sixteen people, including his own mother after she had told him to stop what he was doing.  He then ensconced himself inside John O'Gaunt Secondary School, where he had once been a pupil.  Ryan later became engaged in conversation with one of the police officers who had surrounded the building.  At one stage, he was heard to call out, "It's funny.  I killed all those people, but I haven't the guts to blow my own brains out."  At 6.52 p.m., a muffled gunshot was heard from within the school buildings, and Ryan became silent.  Around 8 p.m., armed police broke into a barricaded room, where they found Ryan lying dead from a gunshot to his right temple.  In the wake of the massacre, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed, banning the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles, and restricting the use of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges.  Michael Ryan was 27 years old.

Thomas Hamilton

Thomas Watt Hamilton - who was born on May 10th, 1952, in Glasgow, Scotland - was a Scottish youth-club leader, shopkeeper, and mass-murderer, who shot dead seventeen people in the small town of Dunblane in 1996.  Hamilton's mother, Agnes Graham Hamilton, a chambermaid, was divorced from her husband, Thomas Watt, by the time Hamilton was born.  He never knew his father, and grew up with his mother's adoptive parents, believing they were his biological parents; they legally adopted him at the age of two.  He also thought that his mother was his biological sister, until he was told the truth when he was twenty-two.  At the age of eleven, Hamilton moved with his adoptive parents from Glasgow to Stirling.  As a teenager, he joined a rifle club and the Boys' Brigade.  He obtained a number of 'O'-Levels, and then attended college, becoming an apprentice draughtsman in 1968.  In 1972, Hamilton opened a D.I.Y. shop in Stirling, which he ran for thirteen years.  By then a Venture Scout himself, in July of 1973, Hamilton was appointed as Assistant Scout Leader of the 4th / 6th Stirling Troop.  Later that year, he was seconded to be leader of the revived 24th Stirlingshire Scout Troop.  However, concerns soon emerged regarding Hamilton's behaviour, including complaints of Scouts being forced to sleep in close proximity to Hamilton in his van during hill-walking expeditions.  In May of 1974, Hamilton's Scout Warrant was withdrawn, and he was blacklisted by the Association, with the County Commissioner saying that he was "suspicious of his moral intentions towards boys".  In February, 1977, he requested that the Scout Association hold a Committee of Inquiry into his complaint that he had been victimised, but the request was denied.  Hamilton persistently maintained that the Scouts had ruined his reputation by dismissing him, and that their actions were linked with those of other organisations such as the police.  From the late 1970s, Hamilton became increasingly involved in running boys' clubs, and he set up and organised fifteen of these from February, 1981, until his death.  Once again, there were many complaints about Hamilton's behaviour towards the boys, including that he was photographing and videoing them without their parents' permission.  In 1993, his shop business failed, which he blamed on the rumours circulating about his behaviour.  By 1995, Hamilton's boys' clubs were also in decline, partially due to dwindling attendance, as parents were reluctant to put their boys in his charge.  At this time, however, his interest in firearms was rekindled, and he purchased 1,700 rounds of 9mm and 500 rounds of .357 ammunition between September, 1995, and January, 1996.  He also bought a 9mm Browning pistol, and a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver, and began practicing regularly at the Stirling Rifle and Pistol Club.  In early 1996, several acquaintances described Hamilton as appearing depressed.  At around 9.30 a.m. on March 13th, 1996, Hamilton arrived in his van at Dunblane Primary School, immediately severing the cables on a telegraph pole which served local houses.  He then entered the school carrying four legally-held handguns.  During the next three to four minutes, Hamilton shot dead sixteen pupils and one teacher, injuring fifteen others.  He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the roof of the mouth.  The event, which became known as the Dunblane Massacre, was the deadliest mass-shooting in British criminal history, and led to the banning in Great Britain of all privately-owned handguns.  Thomas Hamilton, who was never married and had no children, was 43 years old.

Charles Roberts IV

Charles Carl Roberts IV - who was born on December 7th, 1973, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. - was an American truck driver who murdered five Amish girls, before killing himself.  The son of Charles, a policeman, and Terri Roberts, he earned a diploma through a homeschooling association.  In 1990, Roberts was employed as a dishwasher at the Good 'n' Plenty restaurant in Smoketown, Pennsylvania; two of his co-workers there were subsequently convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Laurie Show in 1991.  Although neither he nor his family were Amish, Roberts later earned a living as a truck driver, working nights collecting milk from dairy farms in a heavily Amish area near his home in the tiny village of Georgetown, Pennsylvania.  On the morning of October 2nd, 2006, Roberts dropped-off his children at their school bus-stop, before driving a pickup truck to the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room schoolhouse in Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Instructing the schoolboys to help him carry ammunition and other supplies into the school, he then dismissed them, before barricading himself inside with the female pupils.  After making two phone calls - one to his wife, Marie, and one to the police - Roberts shot dead five of the girls, injuring the other five, and then killed himself.  Although obviously grieved at the loss of their offspring, the Amish's response to the tragedy was remarkably forgiving, refusing to show hatred for Roberts, and even setting up a support fund for his family.  Roberts had left four suicide notes: one for each of his three children, and one for his wife.  One note detailed the despondency he felt over the death of his daughter shortly after birth nine years earlier, and also stating cryptically that he had recently been having dreams of doing again what he had done twenty years ago.  Roberts had phoned his wife whilst barricaded in the schoolhouse, claiming to have molested two young female relatives two decades earlier, although the people concerned later denied that these events had occurred.  K-Y Jelly, a lubricant most often used during sexual intercourse, was found amongst Roberts's belongings in the school, possibly suggesting multiple motives for the murders.  One of Roberts's suicide notes spoke of his anger against God, whilst Roberts's co-workers spoke of a "change" in his temperament in the months leading up to the killings, although he apparently became calm again in the preceding week, with Roberts's neighbours reporting him to be unusually upbeat and jovial during his last days.  Charles Roberts was 32 years old.

Daniel Gonzalez

Daniel Julian Gonzalez - who was born on June 21st, 1980 - was an English spree killer, who murdered four people, and injured two others, during a two-day period across London and Sussex, in September of 2004.  The son of a Spanish father and an English mother, he was born in Frimley, Surrey, England, attending Gordon's School, a privately-run school near Woking, Surrey. Gonzalez passed eight GCSEs at school, becoming a talented actor and a chess champion, but was also described as a, "...dark and troubled boy...".  From the age of 17, Gonzalez received treatment for his psychological problems, but his mother was not happy with the care he received, writing a letter to her local M.P. saying, "...does my son have to commit murder to get help?"  By age 24, Gonzalez was unemployed, friendless, and using drugs, spending most of his time playing violent video games and watching horror films. On September 15th, 2004, he attacked 61-year-old Peter King in Portsmouth with a knife, but King fought him off. Gonzalez fled to Hove in Sussex, where, the same day, he stabbed to death 76-year-old Marie Harding whilst wearing an ice-hockey mask; the mask was later found to have his DNA on it, and was used to convict him.  On September 17th, Gonzalez travelled to Tottenham in the early morning, where he stabbed 46-year-old Kevin Molloy to death, before breaking into the house of Koumis Constantino, but was fought off before he could stab him.  He then went to Highgate, where he broke into the house of an elderly couple, Derek and Jean Robinson, murdering them - an experience he described as "orgasmic". Gonzalez was arrested after he was seen running naked from the Robinsons' house, covered in blood, and was sent for trial at Broadmoor Hospital.  Whilst awaiting trial there, he tried to kill himself by biting through an artery in his arm.  At the trial, Gonzalez pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but this was rejected, and he was given six life sentences, with a recommendation that he never be released.  On August 9th, 2007, Gonzalez committed suicide in his cell at Broadmoor Hospital, by cutting himself with the sharp edge of a broken CD case.  He was 27 years old.