HE HAD A TOWER, AN ARSENAL, AND AN ENTIRE CAMPUS BELOW HIM.

AUGUST 1, 1966. A MAN CLIMBED ABOVE AUSTIN WITH AN ARSENAL. THEN THE SHOOTING BEGAN.

For ninety-six terrifying minutes, the University of Texas Tower became one of the deadliest vantage points in America.

Students ran.

Strangers crawled into the open to save the wounded.

Police officers raced toward a gunman they could barely see.

And across Austin, ordinary people discovered that a rifleman hundreds of feet above them could turn an entire campus into a killing ground.

Tower of Blood, Serial Killer reconstructs the disturbing true story of Charles Whitman and the University of Texas Tower massacre—from the violence that preceded his climb, to the first rifle shots from above, the desperate fight across the campus below, and the final confrontation inside the tower.

But this is more than the story of a killer.

It is the story of the students, civilians, doctors, police officers, and survivors trapped inside an event America had scarcely learned how to understand.

Inside, you will discover:

• Whitman's troubled history and the warning signs preceding the massacre
• What happened inside his home before he reached the university
• How he transported weapons and supplies into the Tower
• The horrifying confusion surrounding the first shots
• How civilians risked their lives to rescue wounded strangers
• The officers who ultimately climbed toward the observation deck
• What Whitman's autopsy revealed
• How the massacre changed policing, emergency response, and America's understanding of public mass violence

Before mass shootings became a recurring part of the American nightmare, there was the tower.

And on August 1, 1966, America looked up.