James Huberty

James Oliver Huberty (October 11, 1942 – July 18, 1984) was born in Canton, Ohio, the second of two children born to Earl Vincent (1911–2008),[65] a quality inspector, and Icle Evalone Huberty (1913–1992), a homemaker.[66] Both parents were devoutly religious, and the family were regular attendees at local United Methodist Churches.[67] When Huberty was three years old, he contracted polio. To minimize the debility of this ailment, he was required to wear steel-and-leather braces upon both legs.[68] Although Huberty made a progressive recovery from this ailment, he would be afflicted with a mild limp for the remainder of his life.[69] In 1950, Earl Huberty purchased a 155-acre (63-hectare) farm in Mount Eaton.[70] Icle refused to live in a rural location, and refused to even view the property. Shortly thereafter, Icle abandoned her family to perform sidewalk preaching as a Pentecostal missionary in Tucson, Arizona.[67] Huberty found his mother's abandonment emotionally devastating; his father would later recollect finding his son slumped against the family chicken coop, sobbing.[70] Huberty was a sullen child with few friends, whose primary interest was target practice.[71] A family acquaintance would later describe him as a "queer little boy who practised incessantly with a target pistol." By his teens, Huberty was something of an amateur gunsmith.[72][n 6] Due to his limp, his family's extreme religious beliefs, and his reluctance to socialize with his peers,[67] Huberty was frequently targeted by bullies at Waynedale High School.[71] An average scholar, he graduated 51st out of a class of 77 students in 1960.[72] In 1962, Huberty enrolled at Malone College, where he initially studied sociology,[4] before opting to study at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science.[73] He graduated with honors from this institute in 1964, being issued with a funeral director's license and, the following year, an embalmer's license.[67] Marriage and employment In early 1965, Huberty married Etna Markland, whom he had met while attending Malone College. Shortly after his marriage, Huberty obtained employment at a funeral home in Canton. Although proficient at embalming, Huberty's introverted personality made him ill-suited to dealing with members of the public, causing minor conflicts with his superiors. Nonetheless, Huberty worked in this profession for two years before opting to become a welder for a firm in Louisville. He worked for this firm for two years before securing a better-paid position at Babcock & Wilcox in June 1969.[74] Although reclusive and taciturn, Huberty's employers considered him a reliable worker. He willingly took overtime, earned promotions and by the mid-1970s, regularly earned between $25,000 and $30,000 per year ($138,000–$166,000, adjusted for 2023 inflation). Shortly after Huberty was hired by this firm, he and his wife moved into a three-story home in an affluent section of Massillon, Ohio.[4][71] In the winter of 1971, this home was destroyed in a fire. Shortly thereafter, James and Etna bought another house on the same street. They later built a six-unit apartment building on the grounds of their first home, which they managed.[18][75] Daughters Zelia and Cassandra were born in 1972 and 1974, respectively.[76] Domestic violence and temperament Huberty had a history of domestic violence, frequently slapping or punching his daughters, holding knives to their throats,[77] or beating his wife. On one occasion, Etna filed a report with the Canton Department of Children and Family Services stating that her husband had "messed up" her jaw, although she later insisted on the majority of occasions he had assaulted her, he struck her only once.[77] Beginning in 1976, Etna repeatedly attempted to persuade her husband to seek counseling to alleviate his sources of stress, although he refused to seek any form of therapy.[78] In personal efforts to pacify her husband's temper, anxiety, and general paranoia[67] and to both influence and control his behavior, Etna took great efforts to minimize any possibility of agitating her husband. She also gradually developed a mechanism whereby she claimed to be able to read his future by reading playing or tarot cards. Huberty believed her. Etna's readings would produce a temporary calming effect, and Huberty would typically follow the recommendations his wife made in these readings.[77] To his neighbors and co-workers, Huberty was perceived as a sullen, ill-tempered and somewhat paranoid individual, obsessed with firearms and who harbored a mental tally of every setback, insult, or general source of frustration—real or perceived—against himself or his family within his mind.[20] Occasionally, Huberty would retaliate in response to any real or perceived injustice in an effort to settle what he termed "my debts", and conflicts with his neighbors would once lead to his detainment on charges of disorderly conduct.[79] On one occasion, he is known to have informed the father of two girls whom he had encouraged his daughters to fight in response to a conflict between the children: "I believe in paying my debts. Both good and bad."[77] A conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed survivalist, Huberty believed an escalation of the Cold War was inevitable and that president Jimmy Carter and, later, Ronald Reagan and the United States government were conspiring against him.[80] Convinced of an imminent increase in Soviet aggression, Huberty believed that a breakdown of society was fast approaching, perhaps through economic collapse or nuclear war. He committed himself to prepare to survive this perceived collapse and provisioned his house with ample reserve supplies of non-perishable food and numerous guns—some purchased from co-workers[76]—that he intended to use to defend his home during what he believed was the coming apocalypse.[81] According to one family acquaintance named Jim Aslanes, Huberty's home was bedecked with loaded firearms[82] to such a degree that wherever Huberty was sitting or standing within his home, he "could just reach over and get a gun." Each firearm was loaded, with the safety catch disabled.[76] Unemployment and relocation to Tijuana In November 1982, Huberty was laid off from his welding job at Babcock & Wilcox, causing him to become despondent over his dire financial situation and general inability to provide for his family.[83][n 7] One co-worker would later recollect that, upon being notified of the impending closure of this engineering firm, Huberty had made a comment indicating that if he was unable to provide for his family, he intended to commit suicide and "take everyone with him."[84] According to Etna, shortly after her husband became unemployed, Huberty began hearing voices.[67] In early 1983, he placed a loaded pistol against his temple, threatening to commit suicide. Etna successfully dissuaded her husband from shooting himself, although he later remarked to her: "You should have let me shoot myself."[20][n 8] Unable to find lasting employment in Ohio, James and Etna Huberty sold their six-unit apartment building for $115,000 in the spring of 1983. Shortly thereafter, Huberty obtained alternate welding employment with Union Metal Manufacturing Company. This employment lasted five weeks before the closure of the plant.[85] Weeks after he became unemployed, Huberty and one of his daughters were injured in a traffic accident. In the weeks following this accident, Huberty noted an aggravation in neck pains he had endured since childhood. He also noted an occasional, increasing nerve tremor in his hands and arms.[85] In the summer of 1983, the Hubertys applied for residency in Mexico, believing the money obtained from the sale of their apartment building would financially sustain the family longer in Mexico than in America.[86] Having also sold their home for just $12,000 in cash in September (with the buyer assuming their $48,000 mortgage),[85][79] Huberty informed family acquaintances of his intentions to relocate his family to Tijuana in search of employment opportunities, confidently stating, "We're going to show them who's boss."[74] When Huberty and his family moved from Ohio to Tijuana, in October 1983, he left all but the most essential of his family's possessions in storage in Ohio, but ensured he brought his huge collection of guns, ammunition and survival supplies with him.[87] According to published reports, Huberty's wife and daughters embraced their new environs and became friendly with their neighbors, although Huberty—who spoke little Spanish—was sullen and taciturn. Unable to find employment in Tijuana, Huberty quickly regretted his decision to relocate to Mexico.[88] Within three months, the family relocated to San Ysidro: a largely poor district of San Diego just north of the Mexico–United States border which in 1984 had a population of 13,000.[35] San Ysidro In San Ysidro, the Hubertys rented an apartment within the Cottonwood Apartments as Huberty sought employment. The fact his family were the only Anglo-Americans within this apartment complex irritated Huberty, who was notably rude to his neighbors.[88] Shortly thereafter, Huberty applied to a newspaper advertisement offering security guard training in a federally funded program. He completed this course on April 12 and soon obtained employment with a security firm in Chula Vista, assigned with guarding a condominium complex.[14] The money earned enabled the family to have their furniture shipped from Ohio, and the family relocated to a two-bedroom apartment on Averil Road the same month.[88] The monthly rent for this apartment was $450.[67] On July 10, Huberty was summarily dismissed from this job;[4] his employers informed Huberty the reasons for his dismissal were his poor work performance and a noted general physical instability.[71][89]