Unforgiven and Alone: Brenda Spencer and Secret Shame

Abstract

On the morning of January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer fired at the elementary school across the street, killing the principal and the janitor, and wounding eight children on their way to school. The case is of special interest because it was among the first school rampage shootings, and because the assailant was a girl. Ms. Spencer’s notorious comment, “I did it for the fun of it—I hate Mondays…,” became the refrain of a song that was frequently played on the radio. The author considers the case as an example of how secret shame (that cannot be confessed or “discharged”) turns into violence. He argues that Ms. Spencer accumulated shame as a victim of undiagnosed epilepsy, parental divorce, and repeated physical abuse and sexual molestation by her father beginning at the age of 11. Her skill as a markswoman, her experiences hunting with her father, and the positive presentation of violent females in the media during this decade (e.g. Patty Hearst, Charlie Manson’s female accomplices) played a part in Ms. Spencer forging a criminal identity for herself, which in turn led to her externalizing her expressions of violence in the form of a rampage killing.