George Hennard

George Pierre Hennard was born on October 15, 1956, in Sayre, Pennsylvania, into a wealthy family.

Hennard was the son of a Swiss-born surgeon and a homemaker.

He had two younger siblings, brother Alan and sister Desiree.

Since the age of 5, Hennard and his family moved across the country as his father worked at several army hospitals.

Hennard's family later moved to New Mexico, where his father worked at the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces.

After graduating from Mayfield High School in 1974, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served for three years, until he was honorably discharged.

Hennard later worked as a merchant mariner, but was dismissed for drug use.

Several months later, Hennard enrolled in a drug treatment program in Houston.

Early in the investigation of the massacre, the Killeen police chief said that Hennard "had an evident problem with women for some reason".

After his parents divorced in 1983, his father moved to Houston, and his mother moved to Henderson, Nevada.

The Luby's shooting, also known as the Luby's massacre, was a mass shooting that took place on October 16, 1991, at a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.

The perpetrator, George Hennard, drove his pickup truck through the front window of the restaurant before opening fire, killing 23 people and wounding 27 others.

Hennard had a brief shootout with police in which he was seriously wounded but refused their orders to surrender and eventually killed himself.

On October 16, 1991, 35-year-old George Hennard, an unemployed former merchant seaman, drove a blue 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the plate-glass front window of a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, at 12:39 p.m. October 16 was Boss's Day, and the cafeteria was unusually crowded with around 150 people.

Hennard then began firing from inside the truck while holding Glock 17 and Ruger P89 pistols; the first victim was veterinarian Michael Griffith.

Hennard exited the truck and yelled, "All women of Killeen and Belton are vipers! This is what you've done to me and my family! This is what Bell County did to me ... this is payback day!"

He then opened fire on the patrons and staff with both pistols.

Hennard then circled around the cafeteria, selectively picking his victims.

Hennard said "You bitch" to a woman before fatally shooting her.

Hennard saw another woman hiding underneath a bench near the serving line and said, "Hiding from me, bitch?"

before shooting her dead.

Hennard then approached Steve Ernst, who was hiding underneath a table before shooting him.

Ernst then rolled over, holding his stomach.

The shooter then approached a woman with a crying baby.

He barked at the woman, saying, "You with the baby. Get out before I change my mind."

The woman ran out, holding the baby in her arms.

After the woman left, Hennard shot Ernst's wife in the arm, which went clean through and instead killed 70-year-old Venice Ellen Henehan, Ernst's mother-in-law.

During a brief lull in the shooting, Hennard approached the table of 28-year-old Tommy Vaughan in the rear of the cafeteria.

Huddled on the floor beside a window, Vaughan threw himself through the window, creating an escape route for others.

Dozens of people pushed, shoved, and knocked each other down as they made their escape.

By the time police arrived a few minutes later, a third of the victims had managed to escape.

Hennard reloaded at least three times before police arrived and engaged in a brief shootout.

Wounded, he retreated to an area between the two bathrooms (people were hiding in these bathrooms and had blocked their doors).

Police repeatedly ordered Hennard to surrender, but he refused, saying, "No, I'm going to kill more people."

Hennard was shot twice more by police, in the abdomen.

Having depleted ammunition for one of his weapons and his injuries growing more severe, he fatally shot himself in the head with the final bullet.

He had shot and killed 23 people—10 of them with single shots to the head at point blank range—and wounded another 27.

Victims of the shootings were:

The Glock 17 and Ruger P89 9mm pistols which Hennard used were purchased in February 1991 at Mike's Gun House, a gun shop in Henderson, Nevada.

The shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, until it was surpassed in 2007 by the Virginia Tech shooting.