Howard Unruh

Howard Barton Unruh (January 21, 1921 – October 19, 2009) was an American mass murderer who shot and killed thirteen people during a twelve-minute walk through his neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, on September 6, 1949 in an incident that became known as the Walk of Death.

Unruh grew up in East Camden, New Jersey, attended Cramer Junior High School and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in January 1939.

The Woodrow Wilson High School yearbook from 1939 indicated that he was shy and that his ambition was to become a government employee.

Unruh enlisted in the United States Army on October 27, 1942, and saw active service as an armor crewman across Europe between October 1944 and July 1945.

He was remembered by his section chief, Norman E. Koehn, as a first-class soldier who never drank, swore, or chased girls and spent much time reading his Bible and writing long letters to his mother.

It was also cited that Unruh kept meticulous notes on the enemies killed in battles, down to the details of the corpses.

He was awarded the European Theater of Operations Medal, the Victory Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal.

Unruh was honorably discharged at the end of the war and returned to New Jersey to live with his mother.

Both his brother and his father later indicated that Unruh's wartime experiences had changed him, making him moody, nervous, and detached.

Unruh briefly found work as a sheet-metal worker before enrolling at the Temple University School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia but quit after a month citing "poor physical condition" as the reason.

Supported by his mother's income working in a soap factory, he hung about their house, decorating it with his medals, reading his Bible, and practicing his shooting in the basement, which he'd turned into a practice range.

It was around this time that Unruh's relations with his neighbors began to deteriorate and his resentment grew over what he regarded as "derogatory remarks made about my character."

His brother James pointed to an ongoing feud between Unruh and his neighbor, pharmacist Maurice Cohen, over Unruh's use of Cohen's backyard as a means to access his apartment.

Prior to the killings, Unruh went to a movie theater in Philadelphia and sat through several shows before returning home around 3 a.m. He had gone to the theater to meet a man, with whom he’d been having a weeks-long affair, for a date, but was delayed and arrived to find that the man had gone.

Upon his return home, a gate he had installed that day had been removed.

At approximately 7 a.m. on September 6, 1949, Unruh ate a breakfast prepared by his mother, who then left to visit a neighbor, Carolina Pinner.

At about 9:20 a.m., armed with his Luger P08 pistol, an eight-round magazine, and more ammunition carried in his pockets, he left his apartment and walked out onto River Road in Camden.

Approaching a bread-delivery truck, Unruh shoved his pistol through the door and shot at the driver.

He missed his shot by a few inches and the driver unsuccessfully attempted to warn residents.

Unruh visited the shop of one of his neighbors, shoemaker John Pilarchik, whom he shot and killed instantly.

He next visited the barbershop of another neighbor, Clark Hoover, who was cutting the hair of six-year-old Orris Smith; shooting Hoover in the head and Smith in the neck, both fatally.

Running to Cohen's pharmacy, Unruh encountered insurance man James Hutton and killed him when he didn't move out of his way.

Unruh proceeded to the rear of the pharmacy and saw Cohen and his wife Rose running up the stairs into their apartment.

Once in the apartment, Cohen climbed through a window and onto the porch roof, while Rose hid herself and their son, 12-year-old Charles, in separate closets.

However, Unruh discovered the closet Rose was hiding in and shot three times through the door before opening it and firing once more into her face.

Walking across the apartment, he spotted Cohen's mother Minnie, age 63, trying to call the police, and shot her several times.

He then followed Cohen onto a porch roof and shot him in the back, causing him to fall to the pavement below.

Charles, still hiding in the second closet, managed to escape undetected.

Unruh then walked into the middle of River Road and fired at an approaching sedan, killing the driver, Alvin Day, and causing the car to careen onto the sidewalk.

He then visited the business of tailor Thomas Zegrino; he was not there, but his wife Helga was and was killed by the gunman.

Zegrino was the only one of Unruh's intended targets to survive the rampage.

After firing through the locked front door of a grocery store, Unruh approached a car waiting at the intersection and shot the occupants: Helen Wilson, her son John, and mother Emma Matlack; the two women died instantly, while the boy died later at Cooper Hospital.

Unruh then fired through an apartment window, killing two-year-old Thomas Hamilton.

The child's caregiver, Irene Rice, collapsed upon witnessing the shooting and was treated for severe shock.

Unruh later claimed that he didn't know whom he saw in the window or whether he hit them.

Unruh next fired upon another car coming down the street; its occupants, Charles Peterson and James Crawford, managed to escape to a nearby tavern and survived.

Unruh was found criminally insane and died in 2009 after a lengthy illness at the age of 88 following 60 years of confinement.

The shooting remains the deadliest mass shooting in New Jersey history, and is one of the first examples of a mass shooting in post-WW2 US history.

Howard Unruh was the son of Samuel Shipley Unruh and Freda E. Vollmer.

He had a younger brother, James; they were raised by their mother after their parents separated.