It happened on the morning of September 6, 1949 in the Cramer Hill section of Camden. That's when Howard Unruh, a decorated WWII veteran, went through his neighborhood on his "walk of death" killing 13 people and wounding 3 more.

He had made a list of people he perceived had done him wrong and proceeded to go after them and anyone in his way, using a 9mm handgun. We had a caller on our show Monday who's husband remembers the incident as a child growing up in that neighborhood in Camden. The story went untold and mostly forgotten except for those few who remember that warm September morning just after Labor Day 1949.

Due to the increasing frequency of mass shootings in the United States in the last few decades and the escalating numbers in more recent years, reporters and investigators pinpoint Unruh as the first of mass shooters in our country.

New Jersey is know for countless firsts in the nation, most of them positive. This is a distinction the state could do without. Howard Unruh died 8 years ago in a nursing home in Trenton after a long illness. He spent most of his years at the New Jersey Hospital for the Insane, later named Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.

About two years ago, The Smithsonian did a pretty detailed, comprehensive story on the Howard Unruh saga.

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