Wilmington Memorial Library

Maniac, the Bath school disaster and the birth of the modern mass killer, Harold Schechter

eng

Includes bibliographical resources (pages 193-232) and index

contains biographical information

index present

non fiction

Maniac

bibliography

1157557305

Harold Schechter

the Bath school disaster and the birth of the modern mass killer

Relates how respected local farmer and school board treasurer Andrew P. Kehoe blew up the new primary school in Bath, Michigan in 1927, an act of vengeance that killed thirty-eight children and six adults in one of the first and worst mass murders in American history1927. While the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school, local farmer and school board treasurer Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. Behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it. Thirty-eight children and six adults were murdered that morning. Schechter provides an exhaustively researched chronicle of a town forced to comprehend unprecedented carnage, and the triggering of a 'human time bomb' whose act of apocalyptic violence would foreshadow the terrors of the current age. -- adapted from jacket

Introduction -- Part one: Kehoe. Clinton County ; Bath ; The Kehoes ; Andrew ; Nellie ; Newcomer -- Part two: The school. Consolidation ; Emory ; The board member ; Handyman ; Pyrotol ; The unravelling ; Barnstormer -- Part three: The Bath School disaster. Countdown ; Explosions ; Last day ; Conflagration ; Catastrophe ; Blood bath ; Ground zero ; Wasteland ; The bereft ; The flight -- Part four: Aftershocks. The sermon ; Inquest ; Motives ; "Kehoed" -- Part fives: The crime of the century. Ruth ; Obscurity ; Harbinger -- Epilogue: The graduates