REVIEW: Rampage

Rampage
Author: Harold Schechter

In an age where mass shootings seem to dominate the news, the story of the man often referred to as the father of the modern mass murder was an interesting and disturbing one. In 1949, Harold Unruh finally cracked after years of simmering frustration and anger. He picked up his Luger pistol, walked out into his Camden, NJ neighborhood and gunned down 13 of his neighbors. He kept diaries listing his frustrations and anger. His homosexuality was often the cause of gossip and verbal abuse by neighbors as it was not accepted behavior at the time. He felt ostracized and victimized because he lived with his mother and was unemployed. Nobody thanked him for his service in WWII, nobody asked him if he was okay....he felt they all laughed at him behind his back. Until the day he reached his limit....and calmly, methodically walked through the streets shooting people.

Rampage is the final story in the Bloodlands Collection, a collection of six true crime stories. This one definitely had me thinking about present day events as Unruh's story unfolded. He kept diaries of the enemy soldiers he killed during the way, methodically listing information about the kill and how their bodies looked, etc. Then he came home from war....obviously mentally strained by the experience....and received no mental health care. He endured bullying about his inability to keep a job and his homosexuality. And then killed those who he felt victimized him. He was a ticking time bomb for years. And nobody noticed. Or, nobody cared. Or even worse....maybe everyone figured he was a worthless enough person that his rage, hurt, mental illness didn't matter. Maybe they felt he was defenseless...so an easy target? Who knows....   But it is undeniable that Harold Unruh's ramage through the streets of Camden that day in 1949 started a slide down a very slippery slope that we still deal with today. Gun violence. Mass shootings. Rage, victimization, and mental illness do not mix well with guns.

I found this story interesting, informative and disturbing. I had never heard of Harold Unruh before I listened to this audio book.  I thought the problem was a more modern issue....but it's been around a long, long time. Soldiers came home from the world wars broken men......and re-entered society with no mental health care to help them deal with what they experienced and did during war. Yikes. My father fought in WWII and refused to talk about it. He told me very few stories, but mostly said it was too horrific to discuss. As I listened to this story, I wish my father had been able to talk to someone about his experiences so that he could get that weight off him. It was obvious the experience had a huge emotional impact on him...but he was unable to even speak of it.

All in all, an informative, interesting story. Very thought provoking. It talked about Unruh's crime, his arrest, and incarceration in a mental asylum. After listening to these six true crimes stories by Harold Schechter, I'm definitely going to read more of his writing. He has written other true crime novels about notorious killers H.H. Holmes, Ed Gein and Belle Gunness. I think I need a bit of a break before delving into his other stories though....I need to read some light fiction before venturing into the dark again. I have his book about Belle Gunness waiting on my TBR list for when I'm reading for more.....can't wait to read it!