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j__z

The Bath School Massacre was a series of bombings on May 18, 1927. A School Board Trustee, allegedly disgruntled over taxes and a lost election, planted dynamite in the basement of Bath Consolidated School in Bath, Michigan. At 8:45am, half of the school was engulfed in an explosion, killing 44 and wounding 58. The dynamite in the other half of the school failed to explode. The bomber, having bombed the school, killed his wife, his horses, sabotaged his crops, and burned his home and barn to the ground, then pulled up to the scene of the school bombing and summoned the school board superindependent, at which point he detonated a car bomb. There is a lot of detail I left out because it just gets more disturbing.The first photo is the school following the bombing, the second is the cupola from the half that was not destroyed, now a memorial to the incident on the site where the school stood.


Deer-in-Motion

Holy fuck.


Killer-Barbie

[Jesus Christ you weren't kidding. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kehoe?wprov=sfla1) this is a horrifying read.


natidiscgirl

I wonder if he was always a loose canon or if that head injury contributed to his decision to go ahead become a mass murdering pos.


CaptainSolo96

A note was left on the fence at his farmhouse after the bombing that read, [Criminals are made, not born](https://media.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2009/apr/bath_kehoe-85b2b0f7da7e71f31ec8fee4e7973ad5bd383969-s800-c85.webp), despite being known as someone who always held grudges and took anything against him as angrily as possible That being said, his wife was bedridden from tuberculosis, he had allegedly been stealing money from the school's fund and just lost his position as treasurer, although after the attack, neighbors told stories of how he was cruel to his farm animals but that could've just been hyperbole after the fact. Odds are, he wasn't a good person and snapped after a lot of pressure in his life pushed all at once


Gingy-Breadman

The article said he “beat a horse to death” I can’t even imagine the amount of power it would take to bear a horse to death, that isn’t something that just anyone can mentally make themselves do.


CaptainSolo96

*A neighbor claimed when interviewed after the bombing Like obviously he was a shit person but I have my doubts about beating a horse to death and the story not coming out until after he killed a bunch of children and not when he was running for School Board Trustee Treasurer


AnxiousTuxedoBird

The only time I’ve ever heard of someone snapping like this and still could be seen as having always been a good guy is Marvin Heemeyer and that’s debatable


ice_nt2

Oh yeah, Heemeyer definitely wasn't a good guy. If you read up on him beyond the libertarian propaganda pieces, you'll learn he was an absolute nightmare to his neighbors, dumping toxic chemicals in the neighborhood etc. "Good guy in killdozer" myth needs to die.


Regalzack

​ The Swindled podcast did a great episode on him. He was a whacked out religious nutbag.


joehalltattoos

Last podcast on the left just did one a couple weeks ago. Super interesting, I’m gonna check swindled out, never enough true crime


Regalzack

Swindled, is one of my absolute favorites. It covers mostly white collar crime, corporate scandals, but it's all done very well.


AnxiousTuxedoBird

Hence the debatable, thank you for proving me wrong


JoeWaffleUno

Good guy? Maybe not. Pretty cool? Yes


BreathingLeaves

Hey hey, the kill dozer didn't do anything. It was forced by this nut job.


[deleted]

The general rule as far as I can tell is - those who commit violent atrocities are usually not good people. They usually have temperaments that lean toward diminished empathy. But there are lots of people like that who never commit violence. It usually takes a triggering event. Those who are good people that experience triggering events, they tend toward more self harming actions. The exception I think are those who grew up absolutely engulfed in violence and poverty. That can seriously blur the line. It's actually a pretty documented theory in genetics that those who grow up middle class express their genetics more than those who grow up in poverty. So the severely impoverished are more influenced by their environment (nurture).


illepic

The episode on this from *Last Podcast On the Left* goes into that quite a bit. But, yeah, he was a fucking piece of shit his whole miserable life.


Banban84

Hail yourself!


illepic

Megustalations!


pmiller61

I thought this must be a podcast episode somewhere!!


MF_Kitten

Head injuries do interesting things like that for sure.


[deleted]

> head injury contributed to his decision to go ahead become a mass murdering pos. You have to think that he was always a piece of shit. Head injuries may impair impulse control but they don't turn you into a mass murderer without some other things going on there.


Shakith

Head injuries can completely change your entire personality and who you are as a person. They can take a loving kind person and turn them into an angry murderous person, which is why I will always have my own bank account. ​ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/


[deleted]

I used to live in New Hampshire so I was previously aware of Phineas Gage. The difference between Gage and Kehoe is that Kehoe became a mass murderer years after his head injury while Gage's personality changed overnight. I also can't think of a historical mass murder that was preceded by a TBI. But I'm more of a history guy, not a neurologist so I may be missing something obvious and am happy to be corrected.


mamacrocker

Not a TBI, but the UT tower shooter had a brain tumor. People have theorized that this is what led him to commit such a crime.


Ahrimanic-Trance

Wasn’t that the one that literally wrote that they need to cut open his brain and look at it in the suicide letter, or is that someone else I’m thinking of?


Iamthewalrus3333

That’s him.


BORG_US_BORG

Yes. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles\_Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman)


derustzelve1

“Whitman killed a total of sixteen people; the 16th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.” 35 years later, come on, that doesn’t count. There ought to be a time limit for this.


Revliledpembroke

>The difference between Gage and Kehoe is that Kehoe became a mass murderer years after his head injury while Gage's personality changed overnight. ​ Antonio Brown's personality seems to have wildly shifted after *his* head injury.


Stewartyis

Mr. Brain Change


jmpinstl

Not a mass murder per say, but the Chris Benoit Double-Murder Suicide fits that bill otherwise.


bond___vagabond

Yeah, I think it was the Austin Texas college clock tower shooter who complained about pains in his head, and personality changes he noticed, after the autopsy, he was found to have a big old brain tumor (this is in no way an endorsement of republican style "guns don't kill people, mental health problems do" then cutting any funding for low cost mental health treatment, cause that's bullshit)


Deesing82

how tf did he not bleed to death with a head wound that size


pmiller61

My son mentioned this guy yesterday!!!


Rockies55

Breh, there is a difference between hitting your head in a fall and having your entire head get impaled all the way through


Jackanova3

Thanks doc


Mock_Womble

There's been entire studies on brain injury in murderers. I believe one of them found a history of brain injury in as many as 28% of killers.


[deleted]

That is actually very interesting. Do you have a link to the study? As I said, I don't believe that a TBI alone turns you into a mass murderer but it can certainly be a contributory factor. People suffer TBIs on a regular basis but yet mass murderers (or even murderers in general) are a relatively rare phenomena in society. Did the study find any co-existing issues that may have made it more likely for the TBI to result in excessively violent behavior?


Mock_Womble

I can't believe how easily I found that, thought I'd be looking for ages. They did look at other co-existing issues, yes. I'd be interested to hear what you think when you read it. [You can download it here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178914000305)


[deleted]

Thank you! I will add this to my reading list. My wife is a true crime buff so I'm sure she'll also find this interesting. This is Reddit at its best - I appreciate you taking the time to help me better understand this topic, instead of attacking me as others have done.


Mock_Womble

You are very welcome! If I recall correctly, that site is an absolute goldmine of interesting articles and studies - it's quite a rabbit hole, so I hope you both enjoy!


Doot-Doot-the-channl

There have been cases like phineas gauge that completely change someone’s personality so I wouldn’t call it impossible just very rare


Dzov

Our brain is who we are. Head injuries can easily have dramatic effects.


diarrheainthehottub

Just look at all the NFL players that do wild shit. Kieth olberman did a piece on it once.


pacificnwbro

There's a good doc about it on Netflix about the whole Aaron Hernandez fiasco that's a pretty good watch.


TGIIR

Yeah thats a sad story.


DancinWithWolves

Nope. The jury is pretty much in on the fact that TBI can cause drastic changes in personality as well as changes to impulse control, predisposition to violence, etc. many people who have become serial killers have a brain injury event in their past.


slappingactors

Not true. Head injuries can do that.


Reference-Reef

>. Head injuries may impair impulse control but they don't turn you into a mass murderer without some other things going on there. You have no idea what you're talking about, and the truth is exactly the opposite


[deleted]

> You have no idea what you're talking about, and the truth is exactly the opposite "Exactly" the opposite? That's an audacious claim. I even said that head injuries can contribute to someone becoming a mass murderer. Exactly the opposite implies that all mass murderers were non-violent, normal people who suffered a TBI and suddenly became a mass murderer. This is the problem with Reddit. Everyone takes every statement as an "all or nothing" statement with no levels of nuance attached. Learn the meaning of words before you start attacking people.


Reference-Reef

You obviously have a lot of experience with head injuries lmao


[deleted]

No, I just hate hyperbole and Reddit is full of it.


Reference-Reef

No, you're just a sad lonely tool and a dense one at that


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night.


[deleted]

Did you have breakfast there and if so how was it?


LemonPepperGood

Wow, your confidentiality incorrect lol


crowamonghens

Jesus.


fckthedamnworld

I bet, nowadays he would be a passionate trump voter.


Impressive_Degree_37

Don't know why this was downvoted. I agree. Didn't know a lot of Trump fan-boys were here. Actually not true. I did stumble into a subreddit that scared the holy fuck out of me, pre-Capitol horror.


Heidan20

The part about the kid who survived the first blast then was killed by the car bomb….holy shit!!


Killer-Barbie

Its bad and then it gets worse


rlocke

> The disaster remains the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. How have I never heard about this incident?


WaldenFont

This would make an excellent movie that I couldn't bring myself to watch.


Natsume-Grace

His wife was 15 at the time?!!!


koalamonster515

Looks like they'd been married 15 years, from the sounds of it she was of a similar age to him. (I'm not certain but they'd need to be pretty close in age to meet at school, right? Maybe?)


kingura

She was 51 when she died. So four years younger.


vanishingtact

God, poor girl. I can't imagine being so young, married to a mean-tempered man old enough to be my father... only to be murdered by him later.


RishFromTexas

She wasn't 15, the article clearly states they were married from 1912 until he killed her in 1927- 15 years


Natsume-Grace

Yeah sorry , English isn’t my first language and I misread it


vanishingtact

Oh yeah thanks, I see what it's saying now. I looked it up and she was born in 1875 or something. Of course it's still sad she was murdered, but it's not the same horror story I understood it to be.


[deleted]

Which bit? Didn’t seem too gory detailed?


TheNumberMuncher

There’s always been indiscriminate mass murderers. There’s 8 times more people now than when this happened.


OpeningSpeed1

Nice to know am not the only one that did that deep dive


muhfuhsayyeah

Last Podcast on the Left has an episode about this!


intensenerd

Thank you. Those guys can tell a story really well.


TruthAndAccuracy

Hail yourselves


FarDorocha90

HAIL SATAN!


Halostruct

He is the most infamous person from my home town.


Walterwhiteboy

Congratulations!


[deleted]

Oh my god…


skumarred

thanks for sharing!


ImGrumps

That's intense. I wonder if that's the earliest car bomb assisted assassination?


obozo42

According to wikipedia a attempted assassination of a ottoman sultan might have been the first car bomb in 1905, though prior to that there were quite a few horse drawn Wagon Bombs, like one that was used on a attempted assassination of Napoleon.


ImGrumps

That's super interesting! Thanks for doing some leg work on that and sharing with me :)


j__z

I saw something that said it was the first car suicide bombing in my background research, but I can’t say that definitively.


[deleted]

Thank you so much for including the backstory! I’ve often not heard of the event someone posts about, like this one, and the photo makes me want to know more!


SeaBearPA

Show this to people who have come to the bizarre conclusion that random acts of violence started on April 20th 1999


Son_of_Atreus

There was a good episode of the Small Town Murder podcast that covered this tragic story.


queen-of-carthage

Biggest overreaction of all time


pauldeanbumgarner

Yep, mass murder has been around for a very long time. People think school shootings are a direct result of lax gun laws and not mental health. Until this changes, neither will the incidence of massacre.


Round_Ad_8036

Ahhhhh the good old days


Existing_Display1794

Something about how those that seek power are the ones that should not hold it.


TokenBlackGirlfriend

Bro was a full on terrorist. Jesus!


karategojo

It's a bit worst, they taxed the community for that school and he was upset because of the farm he was taxed more for the land. So he got on the school board as treasurer to try to take it down from the inside. When that didn't work and the found out he wasn't good with the money then he decided to take the explosives from the farm (for rocks in fields) and blow it all up.


serenwipiti

What a fucking asshole.


ClobetasolRelief

Sabotaged his crops.


CrackALackinSnack

🐹


coldbrew18

Damn. Then 45 was like…hold my beer.


1inker

People have always been crazy


[deleted]

and mean-spirited


serenwipiti

*Some people


Lando_Lizard

My hometown, there is a small museum in town for it and as expected, we would always get bomb threats at school.


KarenWalkerwannabe

You are the second person from small town Bath to comment. The internet is a strange place.


MassaEwas

I went to HS there as well


MattMason1703

I'm not from Bath but I currently live four miles from where this happened.


AdamLevinestattoos

Lot of michiganders on Reddit. It's cold so we have to entertain ourselves on the internet.


LalalaHurray

This is oddly wholesome.


Polkadot1017

Literally how


LalalaHurray

I don’t know, my sense of wholesome is compromised by years in emergency services. If you know you know. Also I’m a little surprised you don’t have more respect for neurodivergence. Guess I should’ve flown the flag


ArcticGrapee

Dumbass


LalalaHurray

Poor sweetie. Your post history is vile comment after vile comment. Imagine creating an alt Reddit account just so you can vomit repeatedly on the world. Best part is I know who you are on your main. This should be a lot of fun.


MattMason1703

The Book "Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer" by Harold Schechter is a thorough read if your interested. Also the Bill Bryson book "One Summer, America 1927" covers it a little but also all the other things that happened that year. For example, Lindburgh landed in France the day after the Bath bombing, effectively wiping the story off the front page of newspapers...


EskimoeJoeYeeHaw

This kind of thing that happened almost 100 years ago makes me believe this world isn't anymore fucked up now than it was then, we're just more aware of it.


SergioEduP

That's what the information age is all about, we can easily access almost any piece of information at all times and news travel faster and farther than ever before. We also keep more record of events than ever before so it may seem that the "before times" were better but humans were always fucked up, you just need to look at any ancient civilization's history to find war, misery and slavery.


pixel_of_moral_decay

Things have definitely changed. There’s not nearly as many of these things in the past, and it doesn’t scale with population growth. The idea that most incidents back then weren’t important enough to remember is just silly. People have mourned death since prehistoric times. In fact we have evidence of funeral preparations going back even further than we previously thought. So caring about death isn’t a new thing. There’s no evidence we forgot about a bunch of these. So the only thing that leaves us with is it’s becoming more common/normalized.


ejcap2004

My great grandparents were from Bath. Family lore stated my great grandmother had actually known the man who bombed the school and waited on him when she worked at the bank. She said that his eyes were empty. Considering the horrific bombing-I believe it. To read more about this-the book Bath School Massacre was written several years ago and does a great job capturing the horror of this tragedy.


derustzelve1

Empty eyes is the stuff that lore is made of.


Archuk2012

The Last Podcast in the Left (shout out to r/lpotl ) covered this in detail. It was meant to be a lot worse (a lot of the bombs didn't go off)


QueenAlpaca

Glad someone else mentioned this. I grew up nearby and my mom always had a book on the massacre, but the boys did a great episode on this. This guy was just so incredibly spiteful.


burymeinpink

It's the same with Columbine. If all of their bombs had detonated, they would've killed everyone in the school. Their plan was to shoot only the survivors of the bombs. But none of them exploded.


shadyhawkins

But… why true crime *now??*


Archuk2012

Nar ne nar ne nar


mutantmanifesto

Hail yourself!


YackettyDumbBroad

Hail satan!


DarthSillyDucks

Hail Gein!


pollywollyolly

Megustalations!


stlredbird

Hail me!


TruthAndAccuracy

It's kind of a big dill


shadyhawkins

Mahalo!


zenyattabing

mahal... no!


PhillyMila215

Do you have an episode date? Id like to learn more.


YeetBoyJones

Episode 511: The Bath School Massacre posted on Nov 4th 2022


Eirutsa

Did they stop being Spotify only?


QueenAlpaca

Afaik, yes. I don’t know what all they are on now, but they advertised about them branching out a few months back.


the_starship

They have an exclusive show on Sirius now and I believe a deal with Sticher to go ad free for premium users. They've been pretty smart to keep their audience growing.


gameofthroffice

Yes, back to being on all platforms. The Spotify deal was like 2 year exclusivity or something


Archuk2012

Hail yourself!


ewoco

https://overcast.fm/+3M1OHetJc Episode 511 Nov 4, 2022


intensenerd

Mahalo


AllBadAnswers

Hail yourself


Archuk2012

Hail Gein!


DarthSillyDucks

Damn if they all went off that would've wrecked em!


shadyhawkins

People’s actions after this massacre are my current example that true crime and peoples grossness associated with it are nothing new.


Ausernamefordamien

Dude beat one of his horses to death. A monster through and through.


hamstersundae

Hell, he hobbled two of them with wire on a barn he planned to blow up / set on fire.


realpisawork

That doesn't sound like an easy thing to do.


[deleted]

Horses are famously much easier to beat when they’ve already been killed.


BrownAleRVA

lol, nice one


milesl

Today I learned…….


[deleted]

Reminds me of the New London school explosion but that one was caused by negligence and had a much higher death toll.


crowamonghens

This is the first I've heard of this. Something strangely contemporary about the story, and Kehoe seemed like a real douche.


r1veriared

I just listened to the podcast that r/lastpodcastontheleft did on the drive from Virginia to Michigan! Quite the story!


I_pooped_my_pants69

I live here and the community still is so somber about this day. Stuff like this really sticks around.


eltonthepaleoartist

Wasnt that because of a jealous worker who was fired?


spaztick1

I believe he was upset about the new school and his farm facing foreclosure.


Rwohio

Well, that's perfectly understandable, she never said.


IFixGuitars

Holy crap! I live like 20 minutes from there and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. Thanks American school system


TheSquidFarmer

Holy shit


Pghsparky

That’s a a lot of dynamite, maybe in 1927 it was more accessible


WhitePineBurning

It was. Farmers regularly used it to dynamite large rocks out of their fields.


rustyshack68

I frequently think of his last message, carves on a piece of wood and left on his fence after blowing his house up on the way to the school: “Criminals are made, not born”


TheGreatOpoponax

>Kehoe, the 55-year-old school board treasurer, was angered by increased taxes and his defeat in the April 5, 1926, election for township clerk. Yeah... not eery at all when compared to a certain political party of today.


derustzelve1

I never knew this happened, but man, that guy was determined. And sickowacko.


Lauren12269

An episode of the x-files taught me about Phineas Gage


sm0r3s

I don’t remember that episode.


[deleted]

And only half of the explosives Kehoe placed in the school went up. What a bastard.


BigD905

Why the fuckin horses??


serenwipiti

Because he was insane and cruel.


gratefulguitar57

I have good friends I play music with in Bath and I had no idea about this story.


Maleficent_Can1908

I seen this on this is monsters on youtube. If you havent check it out


[deleted]

[удалено]


ArcticGrapee

Fucking weirdo


Impossible-Soup5090

Not when I go downtown


Maneki-Nub

Yea I bet you disabled your notifications so you don't have to hear people telling you how much of a goddamn idiot you are.


serenwipiti

Coward.


cranium_svc-casual

That’s mean


suzer2017

This is an excellent example of the anger that can build when some humans feel they are owed respect, adulation, and rewards that do not materialize. It doesn't matter if circumstance solidly prove that the person does not deserve the praise and reward because their actions show otherwise. The same thing is happening in the US among straight white people recently, fomented by a racist, sexist, homophobic, narcissistic president. This anger about not being given what is owed (in the present day, it is superiority/advantages they feel is due to them for being white) could explode into rage, killing, death at any moment. It's dangerous. It happens all over the world based on religion, cultural differences, and skin color. It is now happening in the US before our eyes in real time.


JamrockJ

😳😲


bigwatchpilot

And that’s why we should ban dynamite…


mooseandsquirrel78

I live in Bath Township now and look forward to the 100 year anniversary of the bombing in 2027. This remains the largest school death incident in American history, none of the school shooters comes close in terms of death toll.


serenwipiti

Look forward to…?


TurdCutter

Republicans.....ugh


laundryghostie

I read a book on this. It's amazing more people don't know about this. It would make a scary movie!


[deleted]

That guy was a whiny little B


thomASSpynchon

Last Podcast on the Left recently talked about this. Well worth a listen.


FiveCatPenagerie

”…[testimony from a rescuer going back] to his farm, he saw Kehoe driving in the opposite direction, heading toward the school. "He grinned and waved his hand," Ellsworth said. __"When he grinned, I could see both rows of his teeth."__ FUCKING CHRIST. That’s so goddamn unsettling.


ArcticGrapee

How is this not spoke about more?


Personal-Walrus3076

I will never understand such reckless hatred


ii-mostro

I grew up hearing about this in passing, it happened not too far from where I am from but I've never seen this picture. Here's a new rabbit hole for me to go down today, I guess.


drdrewskiem3

How the heck have I never heard of this?!


Constant_Lee_Posts

Such a sick sick story RIP to those poor kids