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Poe Elementary School bombing

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Date
  
September 15, 1959

Attack type
  
Target
  
Students and teachers

Weapons
  
Suitcase bomb

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Location
  
Houston, Texas, United States

Deaths
  
6 (including the perpetrator)

The Poe Elementary School bombing was a school bombing that occurred at Poe Elementary School in Boulevard Oaks, Houston, Texas, United States on September 15, 1959. Six people, including the perpetrator and his own son, were killed.

Contents

Poe Elementary School bombing Suffer the Children History Houstonia

Paul Orgeron and Dusty Paul

Poe Elementary School bombing Poe Elementary School Bombing Historic Houston HAIF Houston39s

Paul Harold Orgeron, age 49, a tile-setter and ex-convict, had recently moved from Altus, Oklahoma to southern Houston, Texas with his seven-year-old son, Dusty Paul. According to Orgeron's ex-wife, Hazel, they divorced twice due to spousal abuse. Orgeron briefly rented at a nearby boarding house using the pseudonym Bob Silver. The landlord later said the father and son were quiet and had not caused any trouble.

Poe Elementary School bombing Western Fictioneers The Day Things ChangedThe Poe School Bombing

Orgeron attempted to enroll his son in second grade at Edgar Allan Poe Elementary School but was denied since he lacked birth and health certificates for his son. He left the school office claiming he would return the next day with the documents.

The bombing

Poe Elementary School bombing Western Fictioneers The Day Things ChangedThe Poe School Bombing

Minutes after leaving the school office, around 10:00 am, Orgeron and his son approached a teacher, Patricia Johnston, on the school playground, who had been gathering her second graders for their return to the classroom. Orgeron, carrying a brown suitcase, gave her two pieces of paper to read. She was unable to understand them since the notes were illegible. Orgeron mumbled about "having power in a suitcase," the will of God and having to "get to the children".

Poe Elementary School bombing Survivor recalls 1959 Houston school blast that killed 6 Houston

Orgeron asked that the children gather around him, and as he waved the suitcase around, Johnston became alarmed upon seeing a doorbell button on the bottom of the suitcase and instructed the students to return to the building. She also instructed two students to fetch the school principal, R. E. Doty, and the school custodian, James Montgomery.

Poe Elementary School bombing Paul Harold Orgeron Murderpedia the encyclopedia of murderers

When the Principal and the Custodian arrived, Orgeron ignored Doty's instructions to leave the school grounds. Then Orgeron detonated the suitcase which contained perhaps six sticks of dynamite. The explosion claimed six lives, including both Orgeron and his son; two students; custodian Montgomery and a teacher, Jennie Kolter. Of the eighteen injured, principal Doty suffered a broken leg, and two children each lost a leg.

William Kolter, the son of Jennie Kolter, was chief resident at Hermann Hospital; he pronounced Jennie Kolter dead.

Fatalities

  • Paul Harold Orgeron, 49 (the bomber)
  • Dusty Paul Orgeron, 7
  • Jennie Katharine Kolter, 54
  • James Arlie Montgomery, 56
  • William S. Hawes Jr., 7
  • John Cecil Fitch Jr., 8
  • The Texas National Guard was called out to protect other elementary schools in the blast's aftermath because the authorities were not certain whether the bomber had been killed in the blast.

    Police response

    Police responded to find a 6-inch-deep (150 mm) hole in the asphalt "black top" play area. Victims' mangled bodies were burnt; some, including Doty, had their clothes ripped from them by the blast. One girl was blown over 100 feet away.

    Police thought the bomber might have escaped and have other bombs, so the school was evacuated. After completing a bomb search, a roll-call by teachers showed that all students were present, except for those dead or injured.

    Very little of Orgeron was found. Only small body parts were recovered from the surrounding bushes, buildings and homes. Orgeron's left hand was found in a hedge indicating he had died in the blast. It was used to identify him through fingerprints which were on file from prior convictions.

    His nearby station wagon contained explosives and an August 25 receipt for detonators and 150 sticks of dynamite from Grants, New Mexico, where Orgeron had been between leaving Altus and arriving in Houston.

    His prior convictions on safe-cracking perhaps explain his knowledge of dynamite.

    Aftermath

    Unlike school attacks in the early 21st century, there was no constant national and international media coverage of the Poe attack. No memorial was constructed at Poe Elementary. HISD named two new elementary schools after victims of the attack: Kolter Elementary School in Meyerland and Montgomery Elementary School in Southwest Houston.

    References

    Poe Elementary School bombing Wikipedia