On this day, May 18, in 1927, angry school board member Andrew Kehoe killed his wife then bombed a school, killing 45 people, mostly children. The attack in Bath Township, Mich., was the deadliest mass murder at a school in U.S. history.
Kehoe, 55, was upset at a property tax levied for the construction of a new school, and blamed the additional tax for money problems that led to the foreclosure of his farm.
Over several months, Kehoe hid dynamite inside the school. He blew up one wing of the school first. As rescuers arrived, he detonated another bomb, which killed himself and the school superintendent. Thirty-seven children were killed.
Afterward, police found a wooden sign with Kehoe’s last message, “Criminals are made, not born.”
– Scott McCabe
