Forgotten history: The Bath School Massacre
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:12 pm
On May 18, 1927, 45 people were killed in the deadliest criminal act in U.S. history up to that time, a record that would remain intact until the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
The perpetrator was a lunatic named Andrew P. Kehoe. He was a farmer, 55 years old at the time of the bombing. By contemporary accounts, he was an unpredictable man. He could be friendly, but he was often argumentive, demanding, and stingy. (Sounds to me like manic depression or narcissistic personality disorder.)
He was fascinated by machinery and explosives. When he was a teenager, his step-mother was injured by the explosion of oil stove. No one suspected foul play at the time; but in retrospect, it is certainly possible that Kehoe sabotaged the stove.
Kehoe was fanatically opposed to taxes, and in 1924 he was appointed to a vacancy on the Bath, Michigan, school board.
Kehoe had financial problems, which he blamed on school taxes, though it seems they were caused mostly by his own mismanagement. As the date of the disaster approached, he was on the verge of foreclosure and bankruptcy.
He had access to the school building and performed some repairs at no charge. Apparently he mined the building with explosives at that time.
The morning of May 18, he killed his wife by a blow to the head. He confined his livestock inside the barn and detonated explosives that had been placed in all the buildings. Of course, the fire department responded to that incident and was far from the school when, an hour later, the school building exploded.
An hour after the school explosion, Kehoe drove a car packed with explosives and shrapnel to the scene. He forced the school superintendent, Emory Huyck, whom he hated, into the vehicle and detonated it. The third explosion caused havoc among the rescuers.
In all, 45 people, mostly young children, died, and 58 were seriously injured. Kehoe was ruled the lone actor. Some of his actions in the weeks before the bombing were later seen as indicators of suicide, but no one connected the dots at the time.
The only failure in his evil plan was a bomb in the school that failed to explode, sparing many more lives.
This incident is very well documented but largely forgotten. Just search for "Bath school massacre."
- Jim
The perpetrator was a lunatic named Andrew P. Kehoe. He was a farmer, 55 years old at the time of the bombing. By contemporary accounts, he was an unpredictable man. He could be friendly, but he was often argumentive, demanding, and stingy. (Sounds to me like manic depression or narcissistic personality disorder.)
He was fascinated by machinery and explosives. When he was a teenager, his step-mother was injured by the explosion of oil stove. No one suspected foul play at the time; but in retrospect, it is certainly possible that Kehoe sabotaged the stove.
Kehoe was fanatically opposed to taxes, and in 1924 he was appointed to a vacancy on the Bath, Michigan, school board.
Kehoe had financial problems, which he blamed on school taxes, though it seems they were caused mostly by his own mismanagement. As the date of the disaster approached, he was on the verge of foreclosure and bankruptcy.
He had access to the school building and performed some repairs at no charge. Apparently he mined the building with explosives at that time.
The morning of May 18, he killed his wife by a blow to the head. He confined his livestock inside the barn and detonated explosives that had been placed in all the buildings. Of course, the fire department responded to that incident and was far from the school when, an hour later, the school building exploded.
An hour after the school explosion, Kehoe drove a car packed with explosives and shrapnel to the scene. He forced the school superintendent, Emory Huyck, whom he hated, into the vehicle and detonated it. The third explosion caused havoc among the rescuers.
In all, 45 people, mostly young children, died, and 58 were seriously injured. Kehoe was ruled the lone actor. Some of his actions in the weeks before the bombing were later seen as indicators of suicide, but no one connected the dots at the time.
The only failure in his evil plan was a bomb in the school that failed to explode, sparing many more lives.
This incident is very well documented but largely forgotten. Just search for "Bath school massacre."
- Jim
