Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 11

In 1952, a schizophrenic with an eccentric theory of physics murdered a random person.

“Have they dropped the electronic theory?” he asked her.

“I don’t know anything about it,” she replied.

Before she could say more, he fired the gun at her.

“I just wanted to kill somebody,” he told police. “I was going to shoot anybody. It was my book. They wouldn't look at my book. They wouldn't even look at it."

Peakes had done the calculus: Shooting people gets you in the papers. And if you shoot physicists because they rejected your theory, your theory gets in the papers.

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Article source: The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana) 15 Jul 1952, Tue Page 1