New Jersey’s first mass killer

Howard Unruh, considered the first “lone wolf” mass killer was born on January 21st, 1921, in Camden. Unruh achieved his infamy by killing 13 people (including three children) and wounding several others in a 12 minute “walk of death.”

Unruh fired a German Luger, killing both strangers and neighbors against whom he held grudges. The night before the spree, he had made a list of targeted people. They were people with whom he had argued or people he felt were talking about him behind his back. After his spree, he holed up in his apartment and engaged in a brief standoff with police.

According to Murderpedia.org, while holding police at bay, he took a call from the Courier-Post and told them he didn’t know how many people he had killed nor why he had killed them. After his capture, a search of his apartment turned up 700 rounds of ammunition, a book called The Shooter’s Bible and a New Testament.

After his arrest, charges were filed for 13 counts of willful and malicious slayings with malice aforethought and three counts of atrocious assault and battery. He was found to be criminally insane and immune from prosecution; he was incarcerated at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital until his death in 2009.

Murderpedia.org goes on to say one of his last comments before he died was “"I'd have killed a thousand if I had bullets enough."

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