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Karel CHARVA
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: School
shooting - ''We have no idea what his motive was,'' a police
spokesman said
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders:
June 3,
1983
Date of birth: 1949
Victims profile: Two 13-year-old
girls, a 12-year-old boy, their 36-year-old teacher, and a
policemen, Gisbert Beck, 45
Method of murder:
Shooting (two revolvers)
Location: Eppstein-Vockenhausen, Hesse, Germany
Status: Committed suicide by shooting himself the same day
Classroom Gun Rampage Leaves 6
Germans Dead
The New York Times
June 4, 1983
A man waving two pistols burst into a classroom of
sixth-graders today and sprayed bullets around the room, killing three
children, their teacher and a policeman before killing himself.
Thirteen other children and another teacher were
wounded, five of them critically, and 57 children who witnessed the
killings were hospitalized with shock.
The police identified the killer as 34-year-old Karel
Charva, a native of Prague, The Associated Press reported.
''We have no idea what his motive was,'' a police
spokesman said. ''The only witnesses are schoolchildren and they are
either injured or in such an extreme state of shock that they cannot
answer our questions.''
The man forced his way into the classroom on the
second floor of the state school 10 miles west of Frankfurt in
midmorning.
Karel Charva
Police have absolutely no idea what led Karel Chavva
to flip out like he did. As far as I know they still haven't come up
with anything definite. And what exactly did he do?
Well on June 3, 1983 Karel Chavva showed up at a
school in Eppstein-Vockenhausen, near Frankfurt, and requested an
interview with the headmaster. The school secretary made an appointment
and also gave directions where he could find another man he requested to
see, Adolf Gelhaar, an English teacher, on the second floor.
Once Chavva had found his way to Gelhaar's classroom
he pulled out two revolvers. He then opened the door and entered the
room firing indiscriminately at anything. He killed two 13-year-old
girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 36-year-old teacher. He also wounded his
intended victim, Adolf Gelhaar.
There were two policemen at the school that day
instructing students in the schoolyard. They were both unarmed and
thought the gun shots were just science experiments. But one of the
policemen, Gisbert Beck, 45, thought he might just check the noises out,
just in case. He was shot dead not long after.
Karel Chavva went on to injured a further 13 kids, 5
seriously, before tiring of his revenge. Finally, he raised one of his guns to his head and
BANG!
When police investigated the crime they found that
Chavva was born in Czechoslovakia, but was granted political asylum in
Germany 12 years earlier.
He had also been a trainee psychologist, but this line
of work seemed to fail as he had been driving Taxi's for the final few
years of his life. At no stage in Investigations did they find out why
he snapped.
