The San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre

"Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash, and I'm Alena, and this is Pauline Morbid." Oh my god, Pauline is destroying everybody's lives over here. Is Pauline eating your insides alive? Yeah, is Pauline? Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Pauline. Everybody shoots hands in the air. Pauline is rough right now. We had an air quality alert yesterday that was like, "Hey, you should probably stay inside." I'm getting murdered by Pauline, like it's bad. It's really, really bad. I've never had allergies this bad in my. I've never had allergies during the period, really. And I do be having not only allergies, but guess what? I have asthma. Yeah, all of a sudden the doctor said, "Honey, yeah, asthma." And I said, "I haven't had asthma since I was a child. I thought it went away." And they said, "No." He said, "It doesn't quite work like that." So Alena is taking one from the team and she took the up for me. Because I'm hacking up along. I'm out of breath. Yeah, there was no way I was going to make her talk for an entire hour. So however long this will be. Honestly, you guys wouldn't have wanted to hear it. Yeah, we don't need her hacking all over, you know? I don't want to hack on you and what you're going through with Paul and already. Yeah, you know. But I do have something for you. Yeah, because it's my birthday today if you're listening. It's like in a couple days from now. But if you're listening when this comes out, it'll be Ash's birthday. So we have a sale for you on the Morbid merch store, which is at Sirius. Let me actually give you the actual website. Okay, so it's literally just Sirius XM store. And then there's another one for if you don't live in this country. And that's in our Instagram file. Yeah. But if you use the code "ash/sale/ash/sale" then you can get 25% off your order. Yay, do it. Just really fun. We have a couple new things in the store. Yeah. The candle, which smells so fucking good. It does. We picked the scent specifically. We did. We have the horned hoodie, which I'm really excited about. We have the Nicholas shirt. If you're a Nicholas supporter. I love the Nicholas shirt. I've also seen a lot of you coming around on Nicholas. I have to, and it warms my heart. Yeah. It really does. And this shirt is how you can show your support. Show your support for good old St. Nick. Yeah. Who is not St. Nick, but he's our Nick. He's our St. Nick. We need to post that video from when we unpacked the printer. Oh, yeah. Because I think we can speed it up a little bit. And I think Nicholas visited us. Yeah, I think Nicholas was helping me put away stuff from the printer that I was unboxing. And he was like, you have more room in this box. Let me push this stuff down for you. Yeah. Because I was sitting there just watching as all of the packing stuff was being slowly pushed down. And it was all like, like obviously things rustle. We put them back in a box. So at first we were like, okay, maybe it's just that. But then it continued for three minutes. Yeah. And like there was like one specific part in the video where just like, boom. Yeah, just pushes down. Really pushes down like aggressively. So we're, I'm going to post the sped up version of that. This is a little strange. Yeah. A little strange. Paranormal if you will. But yeah, use that code, ash sale. If you want. 25% off. That's a good deal. It's pretty sick. So if you were waiting. It's almost like I'm turning 25. Almost, but you're not. I'm not. I'm not. Look at her. Now she's calling me old. I was going to say you've had fun with mine now. Ash is the big three. Oh, everybody's five by 20s. I am. I'm having a funeral for my 20s. Honestly, 30s are one things get awesome. I'm so ready to leave my 20s in the dust. A lot of great things happened. Like in the later years of my 20s. But like the early to mid of my 20s. Quite mid. Quite mid. Quite well if you will. Well, we have today, this was Ash's case at first. So I got the pleasure of reading this and going. Oh, I said here I did half of this. I said, oh, my half. Yeah, so I read through this and said, oh, my. Yeah, I'm sorry. We're covering the sandy cedro McDonald's massacre today. This is a really, really brutal case. I would like to give a big, big trigger warning right off the bat. I'm not going to, this isn't going to be gruesome in the sense of me explaining everyone's injuries or anything like that. This is a mass shooting that can be very triggering for people. I completely understand if this episode is one. You say, hey, I'll see you on Thursday. Totally. Totally get it. But again, I'm not going to get crazy with my descriptions. But this is rough in this. And it's scary and it's horrific and he's a monster. And it's a really rough one. So I need you to know that right out the bat, right out the gate, but that this is rough and it's a mass shooting. So again, if that is something that you are like, this is just not one of the ones that I can do, we totally understand. Yeah, we totally get it. So like, we'll see you there. Say if that's the case, we'll miss you, but we get it. But it is a story that needs to be told. Because one, these people lost their lives. Yeah, these innocent people were just going to McDonald's. Well, there was just so many warning signs in this case from the time that Jim, who is the, Jim, the mass murderer, Jim Heuberty, just so many signs from the time that he was a small child, like he should have received help. Yeah, like I don't know exactly what help or what it would have done. But he needed something, he needed something. Yeah. And also coincidentally, it's men's mental health awareness month. So this is kind of a, this kind of fits really perfect in this. Because there were several times that people around him said, yeah, it was so crazy. He like said he was going to kill everybody. And he couldn't wait to, you know, shoot things into people's flesh. And yeah, he's a weird guy. And it's like, he talked about like destroying people's bodies. Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes it's okay to reach out and say, yeah, hey, this person is speaking in a way that makes me think he might hurt someone. It's okay, like you can do it anonymously. Exactly. This was in the, you know, this was in the 80s, you know, grown up in the 70s. And stuff, things were a little different for sure. Like it was not people, they were not out here getting help for especially men's mental health. Yeah, we grew up like in the Midwest, which obviously like is a totally different culture. There were factors here that for sure, we can look back with the hindsight of 2026 and say, why didn't anybody do anything? And things were different. So we do have to use those lenses to look at it. Yeah. But now in 2026, if someone around you is making these kind of statements or acting these kind of ways, you call someone, you see something, say something. It's like you can, you can do it anonymously, but like just whenever you can try to, because you can avoid catastrophes like this. And also like that person needs help. Yeah, like he needed to be, this man needed to be, he's like a, he's like a bad person at his core. Well, that's the thing. He's like mentally ill. Man at his core. He's also racist. He's also, he beats his own children. Yeah, he beats his daughter, he beats his wife. Like he's a, at his core, Jim, he's an evil piece of shit. Yeah. And that's the thing that I think we all need to realize is, you can be too think, two things can be true at once. Absolutely. He can be mentally ill. And he can also be a really fucking bad person. Not everybody who's mentally ill is a really great person. They just suffer from this thing. Of course, there are plenty of people who are really good people, who are kind and good people, and suffer from mental illness, and do things they normally wouldn't have done. Yeah, absolutely. And don't want to do. That is 100% often the case, to be honest. But there is also cases when somebody is violently mentally ill and should, and does need extensive help, but is also just a really bad person at their core. And would have done something bad, regardless of the mental illness, possibly. So Jim Huberti to me falls into that category. He's just a bad person. He's not nice. He's violent to children. He's violent to women. He's violent to men. He's violent to, he's horrible. And he says horrible things. He's just not a, he was never a good person. He wanted to be around him like, he just, yeah. And he seemed like he was that way from pretty young. So, yeah. So that is, that is definitely one of those situations here. And again, this is a tough one, but we're going to get into it. All right, so everybody, mark your timers. Yep. Here we are. On the evening of July 15, 1984, James Huberti and his wife, Etna, were sitting on the couch watching TV when James, who was better known as Jim, casually mentioned that he thought he was experiencing symptoms of mental illness. Etna had long suspected that something was going on with Jim. He had violent mood swings. He couldn't regulate his emotions at all. He had a crazy explosive temper. He was very violent. He was also racist. And that was the first time she'd ever heard him acknowledge his struggles pretty directly. I do wonder what all of a sudden made him realize that something was off. Because like we said in the beginning, just for so much of his life, it was like that. I'm like, what's the tipping point for him? He was just off the rails for his whole life. So I don't know what made him just go. I think I need help. I wonder if he knew. I mean, I think he did. At this point, I think he said, I'm going to do something real bad, yeah, if I. And maybe there was a small part of of him that was like, I should probably try to stop myself, and I wonder if he also was looking at this as, okay, if they accept me, because he does call for help. If they accept this and they help me, then that's how it's supposed to be. But if they decide not, then they are proving everything that I believe about the government, about society, about human beings. And then they deserve it. I think that's exactly what his mind said. And this is another, this mental health help back then. Pretty bad. Pretty bad. And even now, we always need to get better. So this is a good little thing about that. So yeah, so Edna became even more hopeful a few days later when she noticed him on the phone with a local mental health center. So she was like, what are you doing? And he said he had called to make an appointment. And at the time, there was no one available to take his call, which already you're like, Oh, good. What do you mean? But you know, he called during lunch on purpose. Yeah, exactly. But the receptionist at the center took his information and said someone would get back to him within a few hours. Now, when he spoke to the receptionist, he was polite, he was calm, he sounded composed. So there was no reason for them to suspect this is fact that that he was in crisis. Now we know now that someone in crisis is not always screaming and yelling and crying, they are not always saying something crazy. They are quote unquote crazy that you think is going to like really cause some damage. Like I think now we're a lot more well versed on the idea that somebody in crisis is not always the typical crisis that you're thinking in your mind. But according to them, you didn't say anything to indicate that he was. So the call was logged as non crisis. Non crisis calls were returned in the order they received, typically within 48 hours. Unfortunately, the receptionist also misheard his name when he gave his last name and she wrote it down as Shuberty. Now, even more unfortunate, by the time his message came up in the queue to be returned, it was too late. James Huberty had already killed 21 people and was killed by the San Diego police sniper's bullet. So James Huberty's shocking killing spree and violent death was definitely just the period on a life filled with a lot of chaos and a lot of thing. A lot of like we were saying times when someone should have stepped in warning signs. He was born October 11th, 1942 in Canton, Ohio. He was the second of two children born to Earl and Eichel. Just a few years later, when he was three years old, Jim contracted polio. Yeah. And had to wear leather and metal braces for a long period of time. I mean, thanks to the braces, he was able to walk again, but they caused him to have a different walk than he might have had before. And according to one of his primary schoolteachers, that alone was enough to make him the target for police and the other children made fun of him. And we're just kids suck. Yeah, like get it to get and teach your kids not to be assholes. How are you going to come on if somebody with polio? Thank God. If I ever found out my kids were making fun of someone for the way they walked, we'd have a talk. When Jim was seven years old, his father bought a 155 acre farm and mountain eaten. That was about 20 miles away from Canton. And he moved the almost the whole family. Oh, wow. Jim's mother was pretty resistant to the idea from the start and just refused to move with her family, which is wild. Instead, she packed her bags, headed west and joined a Pentecostal missionary group abandoning her entire family. Yeah. Great. So obviously, this was extremely hard on Jim and his sister Ruth. And he would like, like his father would just find him like crying, like at various times or the property, just all over the property, which is really obviously you can feel bad for the kid version of him. Of course. Yeah. You had your mom for seven years of your life. And then she's like, actually, I'm going to see you because she's like, I don't feel like moving. Oh, okay. Now at school, Jim was taunted and mistreated by, you know, his, by peers from everything from his appearance, the way he walked to the fact that his mother abandoned him. Like imagine people making fun of you because you were abandoned as a child. What about that is funny? I don't know. My brain can't wrap around it. It literally can't. What's the, I know. So just like, what's the joke there? What is the joke? Law your mom left. And it's like, yeah. Okay. That's funny. What is the joke? Like, I don't understand what the, like, it's so weird to me. It's so fucked up. So he was unable to make friends a lot of the time. He spent a lot of his time alone or with the family dog just developing a really sullen and angry temperament. Yeah. I feel like for children to be alone and isolated for too long and being mistreated by their peers at the same time is just truly a recipe for disaster, especially when nothing else is being done. And then you have like a abandonment from a mom. Yeah. And fuck a kid out. Yeah. It's true. So just lots of lots of little dreams. Now when you reach junior high, he started to develop a strong interest in guns and shooting. And he would spend the rest of his life obsessively cultivating his own collection to work obsessive. It's like that doesn't even begin to describe it. He was. Yeah. He was a gun. Yeah. He literally was. Now years later, his former co-workers in Ohio would describe him to a reporter as fanatical. That's not a good way to be. With one supervisor saying he had a lot of guns and he always said that he wanted to kill a lot of people. If somebody is always saying that they want to kill a lot of people, you have a problem. Because like also, what was your response to that? Okay, Jim. Like also, this whole case had me wondering, does any place that he works have an HR department? I don't know if HR departments back them were just like chill. Yeah. I don't know what they were doing. But it's like if he's at work saying he has a lot of guns and he really wants to kill a lot of people, you have to call someone. You have to call someone. But at the time, he was just a lonely, like again, this was years later that that was being happening, but we're staying in the past here. Because at the time, he was just a lonely boy who had found a way to pass the time. And in a rural place like Mount Eaton, guns and shooting were not exactly uncommon. It's not like this was a weird fixation that hunting was like a big deal. I mean, he lives on a farm. Now throughout his high school years, he kind of kept a little profile. He didn't join any teams or clubs. He had like a few friendships maybe. He really just spent most of his time at home enthusiastically pursuing his hobby of guns. By the time he was in his late teens, he had become something of like a, he was like an amateur gunsmith, really. He learned how to make and load his own ammunition, altarious weapons, making small improvements to things like grip and sights. Scary when you know what the outcome is for sure. Now, after graduating from high school, he enrolled at Malone College, a small Quaker school in Ken. And he studied sociology there before dropping out two years later and moving to Pennsylvania, where he went to the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science. After graduating in 1963, he found work as a mortician's apprentice at a local funeral home. And during that time, he became a licensed embalmer and mortician. His former employer, Don Williams, said, I told him he was in the wrong business. He was a good embalmer, but he just didn't relate to people. Yeah, you don't say it. It turned out that at least on some level, Jim agreed, because within a year of being licensed in Ohio, he'd quit the mortuary business all together and taken a job as an assembly line worker at a local factory. Change in careers wasn't the only big change in his life at the time, though. He'd also started dating at Namark, Markland. And in 1965, they got married at Trinity Gospel Temple in Ken, Ohio. I just wonder like, what their meet cute was. I wonder what she saw in him. Right. Because no one liked him. Nobody liked him. He was very miserable all the time. And I also just wonder like, did they get through their first date without him mentioning that he wanted to kill a lot of people? That's a thing. I'm like, he seems like he is just, you see any of the people talking about him and everyone's like, he was just a miserable person to be around. Not because he was sad all the time. He was mean and sadly horrible scary things. Horrible shit. And would talk about killing people. He like to talk about the different bullets and the like damage they inflicted on human flesh. Like nobody wants to talk about that. What is it about him? I figured this is the kind of guy that would stay alone forever. I know. But no. From the moment he first met Jim, the pastor who married the couple, David Lombardi, actually had reservations about the relationship and the marriage completely. He said he had real interconflicts. By the time he was dating Etna, he was atheistic and blamed God for taking his mother away from him. I'd like to point out that him being like leaning towards being atheist has literally nothing to do with like interconflicts of this magnitude. Yeah. I think that's important to point out. Like, you know what I mean? I think he has a lot of interconflicts. But I don't think him being an atheist is one of them. I think that's I'm like, okay. That's just the thing. Yeah. He also said the gym was halfway intelligent. But when you dealt with him, you always felt a little uneasy about the way he harbored something inside. He was pent up. He was a loner and he had kind of an explosive personality. Those are definitely his inner conflict. And that's what everyone said is specifically explosive. Even after marriage and buying a house, his interpersonal skills never got much better than when he was a kid, and he was still struggling to control his explore. low-suvinger. Small conflicts at work usually escalated really quickly with Jim taking out way more offense at some, you know, light things like teasing or perceived slights. Like, I don't like teasing either. I hate teasing. But like, you can't explode and go off the handle. And sometimes people are just trying to like have a good time. Like, I don't think they were necessarily like bullying him, you know? No, and the best thing to do in those situations is to tell someone like, "Hey, I don't really love, I don't really love being teased like that." It kind of like sets something off and they'll be like, "Oh, shit. All right. That's a true thing." That's how you get to know people. And also that's how you teach people how to treat you. Yeah, because that's what you have to do. Exploding an anger at someone because they do something like that won't get you anywhere. They're not going to learn anything except while you're an asshole. Yeah, I don't want to be around you. And it's like, if you just, I hate teasing. So there's been times where I've had to say to people, "Hey, like, I actually don't love that." They don't poke me. And they're like, "Oh, shit. Sorry." And then they know how to treat you. Yeah. Teach him. Teach him everybody. That's true. But even people who attempted friendly conversation or like small talk found him to be very unpleasant and all described him as hostile. His gun obsession got way worse as well. He covered his entire home and guns. His coworker Jim Aslan's recalled, "No matter where he was sitting or standing in the house, he could reach over and get a gun." To me, that's too much. That's scary to me. That's no opinion. I think that's too much. My personal thing is like, I don't have anything against guns. Like, if you are something you responsibly use as a gun. Oh, awesome. All the far too. Like, good for you, man. Like, I really don't have a problem with it. If you are responsible with it, I fully support it, having, I don't understand having that many. Yeah. But that's just something I don't understand. That's just something I don't understand. I'm not saying you're a bad person for it. I just mean I don't get it. One I also think, especially in this case, because later on he does go on to have two children. Guns should not just be accessible in the home like that. Yeah. You should not be able to reach anywhere and get a gun if you have like kids in the house. No. It's just not so dangerous. It's just not safe. No. We've seen it. And again, Jim could also usually be found sitting by the front door of his house, door open with a shotgun across his lap. So, he was like, he was like, he was like, he's waiting. Yeah. And that's not responsible. Absolutely. That's not really a responsible gun owner. It was precisely that type of bizarre threatening behavior that he was constantly exhibiting that convinced his coworker Jim as lanes that he did not want to get to know him outside of work. He said, it was little things like that just showed me there was something wrong with him, which is very astute. In 1972, Etna gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter who was followed by a second daughter two years later. If anyone expected fatherhood to change or soften Jim Huberty, there were going to be sorely disappointed. Not only was he unwilling to change his increasingly confrontational reckless behavior, because he saw no need to set the safety on any of his guns, even with toddlers in the house. And that's the kind of thing I'm saying is it's like he was a very irresponsible gun owner. Yeah. And just an asshole. Yeah. Like, he literally didn't care about his kids. Not at all. But he also seemed mostly uninterested in parenting altogether, which like, why did you have kids? Exactly. Years later, after the couple moved to San Diego, many of the neighbors would recall that, well, Jim seemed to have a general dislike for most people. He seemed to lose children, which like, how do you not like kids? You don't have to be around them if you don't want to. No. Like, I get it. Some kids are annoying, for sure. Like, I usually only like the ones related to me. Yeah. Like, kids are adorable. Come on. I, here's the thing. If people make a choice not to have kids more power to you, fully like hell, yeah. One, if you're making that choice, clearly, that's the right choice for you. Because that's the choice you're being a responsible human and you're saying, you know what? I don't want that. Right. You don't need to have that or want that. Good for you, in fact. I applaud you. But when people make it their entire personality that they hate children, that's weird. That's weird. That's weird. That's weird. Because it's like, you don't need to have them. Yeah. So it's not a requirement. So just don't. I do think it's okay. I will say, I think back then, it did feel like more of like a requirement. I was for sure. You got married and then you had to have kids. Yeah. And I think a lot of people feel like weird societal pressure. Yeah. I'm sure Etna did, you know? Yeah, for sure. So, but still. Yeah. Maybe not with Jim babe. Maybe not like Jim. Jim doesn't seem like he's, he's great here. No. And again, like him less like a loathing children. I'm like, you know, or something's weird. A former neighbor of his told the New York Times, everybody talks about that here. He was always yelling at kids. That would have pissed me off. Who? Who? Uh, now, when it came to the children in his neighborhood, Jim's frustration and anger was limited to yelling and calling them names. I know. Normal adult behavior with children in his limits. With his own children, on the other hand, he was known to have been verbally, emotionally and physically violent, on one occasion, just a week or two before the shooting spree. This is horrendous. This is really the way the Huberties neighbor Wanda was surprised when Jim's older daughter showed up at her door with welts all over her face. And when she asked what happened, the girl replied, her daddy had slapped her around. That's so sad. Fuck. Jim. Huberties. And to just like say that so openly, like that's a normal occurrence. He didn't give a shit because he's willing to send his daughter. Yeah, he doesn't care. And he knows she's going to say what happened. And she's saying it like isn't this just something that happened? That's what dads do, right? Yeah. That's horrific. So sad. In the winter of 1971, their house caught fire while they were all out of the house. At that time, Jim was storing large containers of gunpowder in the basement. And when the fire reached that area of the house, it just went up in a huge, giant fire mall. Like a legit explosion. Yeah. Like down to the foundation. But they actually bounced back pretty quick and they bought a three, like a big three-story home on the lot next to where their old house was. And then on the now vacant lot, they built a six-unit apartment building that would eventually provide them extra income. Imagine, Jim, you werety being your landlord. No, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he didn't really handle anything. Probably not. According to one author, any success that they experienced during this time was probably certainly Edna's hard work. For most, if not all of their marriage, she did literally everything. She managed the household, the children, she dealt with the world outside of the home because he couldn't. In the morning, she would get her husband and children out of bed, lay out their clothes, pack their lunches, and get them to their various locations. She had three children. Yeah. And she was always going out of her way to limit Jim's interactions with the people around them, terrified that any conversation or miscommunication would escalate into like physical violence or him exploding, which gives, in this sense, I feel so horrible because Edna obviously felt terrified like this was her lot. Well, in the other things, she was just trying to limit his exposure to other people. Exactly. And I'm sure a part of her was probably terrified to leave him. Oh, she was probably horrified. I'm not condoning the fact that she didn't because obviously he's beating her and their children. Yeah. That's awful. But she's probably so scared. He has a zillion guns. That's the thing. It's like he's going to see that as like another slight who's to say he's not going to go after you and your babies. And again, it's easy for us to sit here from a place where we have like loving, safe partners and say, you know, like I would get out of that house. I don't know what that feels like, and I can't sit here and claim that I do or feel like I would be the superwoman that knew what to do when our entire house is covered in insane amounts of guns. To the point where I'll explode if there's a fire. I can't leave and hurting all of us and threatening all of that like I don't. That's living hell. Not only that. I can't fathom that. It wasn't easy for a woman in the 70s to break out on her own with two children. No. You couldn't even get a fucking credit card. Exactly. So it's like that's horrific. It really is. Like it's horrific. Oh, I hate it. It's so sad. But yeah, she was always just trying to keep him from getting in trouble, essentially. And behind closed doors, though, he had no trouble taking out his anger on the entire family. He said, and this is so sad. She said, quote, generally, it was just one hit, but there were other times that he would beat them all relentlessly. He even threatened one of his daughters with a butcher knife on literally. Literally. And they're kids. Like young kids. I mean, I don't even care if your daughter's 35 years old, they threatened her with a butcher knife. What the fuck is wrong with you? He's a horrific monster. He really is. For just about anyone who knew or even those who had just met him, Jim Heurity's rage and extremely unpleasant demeanor were definitely the primary problems. But just beneath that were other more subtle signs of emotional distress that generally went overlooked. Because again, that's the same thing we're saying. He's just a nasty, mean, violent, bad person who is severely, mentally unwind. Right. On top of all of that. He's probably one of the scariest types of people you can imagine. Oh, yes. He's been a kindhearted person who has a mental health crisis. This is a bad monster who is currently suffering really, severely with mental health problems. It's like, that is the worst combination I can think of. Absolutely. Truly. Which makes me feel for his children and his wife even more because living with that is unthinkable. Because you just never know what you're going to get. And you just know it's all bad. gotta be dark. Yeah. Like there's no way of getting beneath mental health crisis because underneath is a bad person. So there's no like light at the end of the tunnel with him. It's just really sad. But as early as the mid 1970s, Edna started encouraging her husband to seek mental health, like help, which like Kudo seems like she was the only person that did that. She was trying. And in one instance, Jim told her God and Jesus Christ were consulting him about the government and president Carter, which shows you right there. He's mentally unwell. In another instance, Jim told a coworker, he, and this is really sad, he'd killed one of his dogs for speaking to him. And he went on to explain that the dog hadn't spoken him verbally, but had communicated through his eyes in a way that Jim understood and didn't appreciate. I can't imagine my coworker looking at me and telling me about it. Like that's chill you to your spine scary. Now to Jim, everybody was always out to get him in one way or another. And in time, he became consumed by his desire to get back at anyone who slated him. If he received bad customer service somewhere, he would make harassing phone calls or pick at the business. If a neighbor did something he didn't like, he would set up an elaborate scheme that took weeks of planning to get revenge on them. And while he knew he couldn't take out his anger on the neighborhood children physically, only because he would get in trouble. That didn't stop him from enrolling his daughters in karate classes, not for their own betterment. No, but so that he could direct them to assault the other children that lived around them. Which like if you take karate, you know, is the exact opposite of what they're teaching. They do an entire oath in the beginning that says that they will not use it for that. Right. So you're like, and you're directing your children to be your little agents of chaos. To go beat children. You don't beat children because you don't like them. Like that's beyond. And then you're making your children pariahs. Yeah. You're continuing this awful toxic cycle. Things in his life took a serious downturn in 1982. When after 13 years of employment, he was laid off from his job at the factory. Just about everyone who knew him has acknowledged that this is where his life started really spiraling out of control. And he had done nothing to manage the stress. I mean, yeah, this is for sure where he spiraled. He was already nothing good was coming out of the sky. Like that was a who's not he was not killing it. Now rapidly running out of money and sensing her husband was on the verge of a breakdown. Etna put the couple's property on the market and gently approach Jim about what to do. Jim was too consumed with paranoia to be much of a help. And instead he spent most of his time focused on his belief that the factory closing was just evidence of a larger conspiracy to ruin him and he was determined to get even with everyone telling one former coworker he was going to kill himself and quote, take everyone with him. Guys, you got to call someone. Yeah. Like he is literally spelling it out for people around him. What is everyone doing? That's the thing. Yeah. As it's like he is like you just he is spelling it out. Yeah. All right. There to everyone. Those paranoid delusions got even worse when a deal for both properties fell through and Jim and Etna ended up selling their properties at a loss. To Jim, this was just further evidence of the conspiracy. So he sued his realtor. Now when everything fell apart for them in Ohio, Jim decided it was evidence of his long standing belief that the entire country was in fact on the verge of collapse. Rather than relocate to any other city or state, he picked up his entire family in the spring of 1983 and moved them to Tijuana. When they left Ohio, he really didn't bother to bring much of their furniture or personal belongings. Instead, he just filled the car with his massive gun collection and a huge stock of ammunition. Those poor children. Just poor children. To be uprooted from your already insanely dark and chaotic life and then packed up in a car with a bunch of guns moved to Mexico. Yeah. We're like you don't know anybody. They don't speak the language. And then your father is this terrifying man who like nobody wants to be around. So you're even more isolated. Yeah. And it's getting worse and worse. His delusions, his paranoia. So there's no shortage of, you know, irrational motives for moving the entire family to Mexico in his mind. Of course. Ultimately though, they only lasted three months before moving back to the U.S. Because remember, he's also violently racist. Yeah. So. And they settled in the San Isidro neighborhood of San Diego. And once they settled into their two bedroom apartment, it didn't take long for the old problems. And bad habits just crop right back up. Several neighbors were called hearing Jim yelling at at the girls on multiple occasions. So sad. The one neighbor who lived next door told a reporter he'd never heard the couple so much as argue. I think he just didn't want to get. I was like to this. While their new neighbors initially tried to be friendly and welcoming, they became decidedly less friendly when Jim made his dislike of minorities known to everyone within your shot. Reporter Carlos, Ameska said he was very anti-immigrant. He hated immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants. So that's like sitting. You're a terrible person. Yeah. And also, why move into immigrant communities if you hate immigrants? Why are you infiltrating their safe place? Yeah. You're infiltrating their place. Like you can go, I mean, you up and moved your family to Tijuana for a swan and a racist piece of shit. So like, so that makes sense. Yeah. And then you moved to San Isidro. San Isidro. Yeah. San Isidro. That's a very well-known Mexican community. Mexican community. Yeah. What are you doing? So go move somewhere where you'll you can spout your nastiness, other angry white people. Yeah. Or like what do you? Or go fuck yourself. Or go fuck yourself. You choose. But like why are you infiltrating their community and talking shit about them? Right. Like what the fuck? Jim never felt settled in California. If he never felt settled in his entire life. Edna said, in his mind, everything in Ohio is done right. And he could not adjust to the way things were done in California. So he was unemployed, surrounded by people he disliked because of his extreme racism. And the entire landscape was foreign to him. And in the past, he probably wouldn't have had any trouble finding a job as a welder. But a recent car accident had left him shaky. And that ruled out any work like that. And I'm sure a lot to even greater conspiracy. Exactly. Then one day he saw newspaper ad for a federally funded job training program. It offered grants to low-income individuals interested in training to be a security guard. So the course was several weeks long. And Jim excelled at every aspect, especially the target shooting. He did. That's crazy. Yeah. He was placed in the expert category. Once he'd finished the training, he was granted a two-year registration as a trained security guard in the state of California, and he said about looking for work. In comparison to the training as a security guard, finding actual work was exponentially harder for him. On paper, he was an ideal candidate. But as soon as he sat down in front of potential employers, things would change quickly. As he can't speak to people. Just a few days after completing the training course, he got an interview with Bernstein security services. Owner Rudy Bernstein recalled, he told me how well he handled himself and how he would only work for top security firms. But he was put off by his arrogance, bad attitude, and obvious lies. Yeah. After he left the interview, Bernstein took measures to ensure that the candidate was not going to get the job. He wrote, no, in bold, four-inch letters on Jim's application, and then traced over it again with a darker marker to make it clear. Really making sure. That took me out when I heard about. Jim did manage to find work with another security firm nearby in Chula Vista, working the undesirable 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. That's pretty brutal. This guy with lack of sleep is probably not a great mix either. Well, just buy himself out of post. And when he wasn't working, sleeping or renting, he was shopping, buying new guns, gun parts, military uniforms, you know. So scary. Despite their very limited income, Jim spent money freely. But whenever Etna needed to spend money on essential items or something for their children, Jim would explode an anger. On one occasion, when Etna told her husband, one of the girls needed braces, he burst into the girl's bedroom, waving around an oozzy. Oh my god. And shouted, why spend money on the girl's teeth? She'll be dead anyway. Like, what the fuck? That's also just plainly telling your wife that you're going to kill all of you. I'm going to kill all of you. That's so fucking scary. And these poor fucking kids. Well, think of like how old you are when you got your first braces, like your young teenager, like your dad is literally bursting into your room with an oozzy shouting about how you're going to be dead anyway. So why do you need braces? I so hope that these girls are doing okay now. And like, yeah, received the help they need because they their childhood was some of the worst I can imagine. I can't even. Well, things at home were deteriorating fast. Things at work weren't going very well for Jim either. His credentials and training made him a good candidate for the job. But his bosses at the security company were like, yeah, I don't know if this guy can actually do the job because he's wild. He also like might just shoot somebody because he wants to. He was edgy. He constantly seemed paranoid at jumpy. His attitude was terrible. He was exploding up people. He was just being Jim Heuberty. You know, not somebody that you want on your property with a gun. No. On July 10th, 1984, he was fired from the security job after his boss determined he was quote, too nervous for the work. Although he reacted to his firing about as well as anyone would expect, losing his job also seemed to be like a little bit of a wake up call. For Jim, after his job loss, he started speaking a little more openly about his mental health and wondering out loud whether he should seek help from a professional, which is what led him to place a call to the mental health center. on July 17th. But when Jim didn't get the call back in a few hours, he became a rationally angry and stormed out of the apartment. By that time, Etna had become frightened for Jim's safety and the safety of others, and she started frantically calling mental health centers in the area, trying to locate the one Jim had called that day. She intended to tell the receptionist that contrary to what he told them, he was in fact seriously suicidal or dangerous. And hoping that would be enough to get him an appointment immediately. Unfortunately, because the receptionist wrote his name down wrong, when Etna did eventually land on the right mental health center, the person on the other and looked over the call log and told her they hadn't had any calls from someone named Huberti. Which I'm also like, Huberti. You didn't see Huberti and say, maybe they wrote it down wrong. Like come on, come on, guys. Now the next morning, July 18th, Jim and Etna were doing traffic court related to just like a minor infraction. According to the clerk on duty that day, Huberti Jim was pleasant and waited patiently until his name was called, never becoming agitated or angry. Interesting. In fact, Jim even successfully managed to win the sympathy of the clerk, who, feeling sorry that the Hubertis had to wait so long, cancelled the fine altogether. Wow. After leaving the court house, Jim and Etna took the kids to the zoo where they spent a few hours walking the paths looking at the animals. To Etna, Jim seemed uncharacteristically calm. That's so scary. Yeah. But every now and then, he would make a comment that she said she found disturbing. At one point, they stopped to watch the animals and apropos of nothing. Jim just said, well, society had its chance and then walked away. Oh my God. That would horrify me. Honestly, I don't even know what they would be able to do, but you have to call the police if your husband ever fucking says that to you. That's, I suppose, society had its chance. I don't even know. That's so scary. In the fact that he was weirdly calm. That must have been really scary for his family. And they're so sad that they couldn't even actually enjoy the fact that he was calm and they probably know what does this mean. Yeah. The family arrived home in the early afternoon and Etna made lunch for the girls. And she finished cleaning up the kitchen. She went into the bedroom to lay down for a little while. A few minutes later, Jim entered the bedroom wearing a full camouflage outfit and carrying a large bundle wrapped in a black and white checkered outfit. And he said, I want to kiss you goodbye. Oh, God. When he stood up to leave the room, Etna asked where he was going and he replied, I'm going hunting. I'm going hunting people. Did she call someone? We're going to move forward. From the balcony of the apartment, one of their daughters watched as her father loaded this bundle into the car, then pulled out the parking lot, drove the 200 or so yards down the street where he pulled into the parking lot of the post office just across from the McDonald's. This was only 200 yards away from his house. So you could see it probably. The restaurant was a very popular in the neighborhood and was a place parents frequently bought their children to play. So that afternoon, there were about 50 people inside. It was about 4 p.m. when John Arnold clocked in for a shift at McDonald's. He was standing at the register, but he didn't see Jim Heuberty come through the door. All he remembers was hearing his coworker Guillermo Flores yell, hey, John, that guy's going to shoot you. Oh, my God. Arnold turned around and saw Heuberty pointing a shotgun in his direction. He said he was pointing that gun right at me. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. And he brought it down and started messing with it. When Jim lowered the gun, John relaxed a little, thinking like was this just a prank? Like, what is this? But it wasn't the guy. The gun had just jammed. Heuberty fiddled with the shotgun briefly before finally clearing the jam and firing it into the ceiling. The noise got everyone's attention, which is when Jim pulled out his 9-millimeter semi-automatic oozy from the bundle he was carrying and fired at 22-year-old manager, Niva Kane, hitting her several times before she dropped to the ground. Oh, my God. Employee Albert Leo said, I saw him come in until everyone to get to the floor, then he just started shooting at everyone. The people who tried to get out to run out of the McDonald's, he started shooting at them. Waving his gun around furiously, he shouted, I'm going to kill you all. He then referred to everyone in the restaurant as dirty swine, telling them he'd killed many in Vietnam and he was going to kill 1,000 more. Jesus. He had not served in Vietnam. Yeah. He tried to enlist, but was de-deemed unfit for service. I wonder why. But in that moment none of that mattered. After killing Niva Kane, Heuberty turned and began firing through the windows at the people across the street at the donut shop. Twelve-year-old Joshua Coleman and his friends David Flores and Omar Hernandez had gone to the shop to get ice cream that afternoon and were walking out just as he started shooting in their direction. Flores was killed immediately, walking out with his ice cream. Omar Hernandez was shot multiple times and ended up dying on the ground. Joshua Coleman was hit in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Coleman was panicked and terrified that if he moved, the shoot would realize he was still alive and fire at him again, so he stayed completely still struggling to breathe. He was shot in the chest. He later said, I needed air and I couldn't get enough. I had to take short quick breaths. Oh God. Inside the McDonald's, Jim turned his gun on the families in the play area, firing indiscriminately into the crowd as parents just grabbed their children and huddled under the stone tables. This is? Nightmares? Not even the correct word. Keith Thomas later recalled, we got under the table and I got shot in both arms. He was a kid. Oh my God. That afternoon Keith had gone out to a late lunch with his best friend Mateo Herrera and Mateo's father, Ronald. The two boys squeezed beneath the table, Ronald, the father, shielded them both with his own body. But in the end, it wasn't enough. Mateo was shot and killed and Keith was shot seven times. Oh my God. But Keith credits Ronald with saving his life that day. Seven times. And that's like his best friend's father saved him with his own body. That's the thing. The heroes that come out of these stories, like, like, shatters your heart. People that literally shield others with their own bodies. Has no one should have to do this? There should not be such thing as a human shield. No. The first call came into San Diego 9-1-1 a few minutes after the shooting started. When someone dragged one of the victims, a young girl off the sidewalk and into the post office across the street. Officer Miguel Rosario said, the call came in. If I can remember as some type of disturbance where a little girl had been shot, I had no clue what I was about to enter into. God. The communication. Here is awful. Art to finish the story. At that time, there were two McDonald's restaurants in Santa Cedra, one on the west side and one on the east side, because there was some confusion around where the incident was taking place. Rosario was dispatched to the wrong location and didn't receive the correction until he was about a block away from the east side, McDonald's. As a result, emergency services were delayed by anywhere between three and five minutes, as the officer had to backtrack and make his way to the right location. Three and five minutes. It's a journey. A journey. Oh my God. Inside the restaurant, everything was chaos. The alarms. This is, for some reason, this detail sent me. The alarms on the friars and other heating elements were all going off because the food was getting burned. Because it's, it's just madness. So now people are crying, screaming and moaning and pain and there's friar alarms going off and like other heating element things, just being like me, me, me, me, me, like just crazy. And then on top of that, whatever wasn't being drowned out by the alarms was covered up over. Are you ready? The pop music, blaring out of the portable stereo that Hubertie had brought with him. No. Every now and then, he would fiddle with the radio, changing the station to find a song he liked. And then he would start firing wildly across the restaurant again. Oh my God. I never got to that detail. Oh no. I thought you were going to say the pop music, like over the next dog, no he brought his own and would change it to a song. Change the storyline. He didn't like a song. That just made me like physically ill. Like that is beyond evil. An outside local reporter, Carlos Amesca, happened to be coming out of the post office when the shooting started, making him the first reporter on the scene. Oh my God. He said later, before I could even realize it, I heard the whistles of shots going by my head. I hit the ground so hard that I thought I'd been shot because I had blood on my face and hands. I'd actually hit my nose on the pavement. Oh my gosh. As Carlos scrambled for cover behind the cars, Miguel Rosario finally arrived, pulling his patrol car into the parking lot of the post office. And remember, he was the one that was sent to the wrong location. It's just him. At that point, Rosario still hadn't been informed of exactly what was going on. So he thought it might have been a robbery or other public disturbance. He later said, walking to the post office is when I first realized something was very wrong. People were hiding behind cars. They were looking towards the McDonald's. So he looked in the direction of the restaurant, just in time to see Jim Heuberty raise the oozee in his direction and fire. Oh my God. He was able to dive behind a truck to avoid being hit. The cover gave him just enough time to radio for backup and tell them, "Hey, get here now. Get the fuck over here." To the correct McDonald's. His call went out at 4.10pm, 10 minutes into the assault. And you have to think about 10 liters of water. - Really? - Honestly, set a fucking timer for 10 minutes right now. - And sit there for 10 minutes. That is such a long time in this kind of situation. - Because you hear 10 minutes and you go 10 minutes, like, oh, I'll be there in 10 minutes and no big deal. Like, that sounds like whatever. Sit for 10 minutes. - 10 minutes. I set a timer at night for my mouth wash for one minute. - And it's like a one minute is so long. - Like, it's crazy. - I set a timer for two minutes every time the girls brush their teeth. And even I'm like, oh my god. - Do you have two minutes in a row? - That's a long time. So 10 minutes in this, 10 minutes sitting there is a long time. 10 minutes in this kind of absolute nightmare scenario. - And this man has got, I don't even know how many guns you said. - Yeah. - And how much ammunition is like, he knows how to make his own him, you know? - Yeah. - So it probably is. - Oh, he had hundreds. - He was able to get off hundreds of rounds. - Hundreds of rounds. - And McDonald's were families went to play with their kids. - And he knew that. - Why so wish that in a strange way? 'Cause that we already know. I wish that he hadn't been killed. And I wish that he was sitting in prison to this day too. - Just rotting. - Tortured. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Now later, after everyone had learned the full details of the massacre, several people did question my no one inside the restaurant, which I'm like, guys, like this makes me crazy. People were questioning why no one in the restaurant had done anything to try to stop him. - What are you gonna do? He has a million guns. - And that's the thing. 'Cause they're all like, well, any attempt would have been better than nothing. - You're gonna get killed. - Exactly. In Albert Leo's, somebody who was there, which it's like, how will we listen to the people that were experiencing it? - Right. - Because we can all sit here on our ass in our comfy, safe home. - Why aren't you trying to bomb Rasha? Why didn't you try to do that? - What the fuck would you do? - You don't know what the fuck you would do. You don't know what your fighter flight is gonna do in that moment. - No. - You weren't in there watching kids get shot, and parents trying to save their kids in like so many people don't realize that a lot of people's fighter flight response is free. - Exactly. And it's not anyone's fault. - No, it's just what your body does. - Biology, it's just the way it is. But Albert Leo said there was just no way. When you have someone who's armed the way he was, it's not like in the movies where someone can jump on him. There's just no way. - No. - Like semi-automatic and automatic rifles. - Like Jim Huberti had come prepared that afternoon. He carried an Uzi semi-automatic, which also an automatic or a semi-automatic, you're not getting a moment between these shots. - No. - Like he's able to just mow down. - It's like Call of Duty. - Exactly. - It's literally like something out of a horrible, horrible action. - Isn't it what they, do they use that in worse? Those in worse? - I have no idea. - I actually don't know. - I'm not even gonna try to say it. - But they use that for like mass carnage. - Any kind of like automatic weapon is horrifying. Like it just is for like, you know? But so he was carrying an Uzi semi-automatic, a nine millimeter handgun and a Remington pump-action shotgun. Whenever one gun ran out of bullets, he would simply pull another out and start firing again. - And you also have to think he's an expert. Like he shows, he's a gun, he can reload quick. He can fix jams. - Cause I'm sure so many people like would take this moment to say or back then like, oh, he took a minute to reload. - Yeah. - He probably, it was full of seconds. - Yeah. - He's done this his whole life. It's the only thing he's been obsessed with. And again, no one knew how long they might have between breaks when he would stop to reload. So no one wanted to take the chance to go rush at him and start another shooting spree. - You could get yourself killed. - Cause also you're not even just getting yourself killed. And I'm sure these people are thinking this. He's not shooting one shot at a time. It's not just gonna be you going down, you standing up and rushing at him could take out everyone around you. - Right. - And so they're probably thinking in that scenario, like is it worth me getting up and having him mow down a whole group of kids behind me? - That's the thing, there's kids everywhere. - Yeah, like this is awful. It's an awful situation. I can't imagine being in it. Now once crime scene technicians had processed the scene later, they determined that Huberti had managed to fire, like I said, hundreds of rounds in all directions. And when he wasn't blindly firing, ranting or listening to music, he would walk through the restaurant, shooting people, several of whom were already dead. - Just shooting them more. - And when the noise became too much, he would shout at everyone, demanding that parents keep their children quiet because they were making him anxious. - What? Like how do you expect anybody to calm their child in this situation? - What the fuck, dude? - Maria Rivera was one of those parents hiding under the tables trying to keep her children quiet. She told them the bullets were just little pieces of ice flying out of the broken ice machine, but she didn't think that they believed her. She later said, he came to our table and kicked me and I had to pretend I was dead. - Oh my God. - He thought we were dead because there was a lot of blood around us. In the end, Maria's arm was graced by a bullet and one of her daughters was shot in the leg, but all three did survive. - And also, that is such a fucking mom right there. In that situation to come up with something even remotely comforting, and start like this man is killing everybody around us. It's the ice machine, like props to the mom. - That's being a mom. - That's next level. - Now after about, are you ready? 40 minutes of terror. - Truly is shocking. - Almost an hour. - And shocking that anybody made it out of death alive. - Yeah. - Some people decided to try to make a run for the emergency exit, hoping that they could reach the door before he spotted them. Cashier, Wendy Flanagan recalled, "The girl that was at the cash register with me, Maggie, she saw that I was not running and she went behind me and she was pushing me the whole way as I ran. I imagined I was running through rain." She said, "I felt like I was running through rain and I heard bing, bing, bing because I believe now he was shooting with the machine gun." And he was shooting at us and the bullets were ricocheting all over. And when Maggie, and then Maggie, got really heavy and she was keeping me from running. So she slipped from my arm and I ran down the stairs into a closet and she never came. - Like, oh. - Wendy didn't think these are like young girls working these registers. Wendy managed to reach the emergency exit on her own, but when she hit the door, she discovered it had been locked by the management who feared the employees might steal food if they had an unmonitored exit. - You gotta be fucking kidding me. - I hope some shit came out of this. - So thinking fast, Wendy turned and ran through the door that led to a small supply room at the bottom of short flight of stairs. Where several others were also hiding. - Okay. - Outside the supply room, they could hear their coworker Albert Leo get shot five or six times, including two serious wounds in his arm and leg. He already only stopped shooting Leo's when he ran out of ammunition and had to return to the counter where he'd left his supply. In that moment, Leo's used the opportunity to drag himself to the supply room door and then he dragged himself down the flight of stairs where the other people were hiding. Despite how seriously he was injured, he knew if he made any noise, he was gonna give away their position. So he bit down on a rolled up rag and used shoelaces as tourniquets on his arms and legs. - Wow. - Now having spent nearly an hour, trapped in the restaurant with this absolute maniac, the remaining survivors couldn't understand why. After having shot through the windows and killing people outside on the street, the police hadn't shown up to stop him. - You're like, where are they? - This must have been, because sitting there and having this happen for so long, you're like, where are they? - Yeah. - Like where are the people that are supposed to save us? Like I don't understand this. Throughout the late 1970s and early 80s, Americans had watched their local police departments become much more militarized as well and heavily armed with military-grade weapons, supposedly to prevent or stop incidents like this. And yet there they were, trapped inside with puberty, and there was no sign of law enforcement to be seen, at least as far as they knew. - Right. - In reality though, which this is the reality, there was a heavy presence outside police presence, but their attempts to intervene kept getting hindered by several factors. For one thing, the windows were covered with a tinted film, making it difficult for anyone outside to see in. - Oh man. - That visibility was further hampered by the fact that after puberty fired through the windows, the double-pained glass didn't shatter. It just cracked into like a spider web pattern, making it a little impossible to see inside. Also challenging was their physical location. Although it surely wasn't planned that way, the McDonald's was all glass on three sides, and puberty could see through all of them. - Right. - So any time one of the officers tried to get close to the building, he would see them and unleash a torrent of semi-automatic gunfire at them. This not only put the responding officers at risk, but everyone else who was still pinned down outside the restaurant when the shooting started. - Yeah. - Eventually the SDPD called in fire trucks to position around the perimeter to block the pedestrians. This allowed them to remove the wounded from the scene, but the trucks like outside the scene, but trucks took heavy damage, 'cause he was just firing into them. And at least one fireman was shot in the process. Now, after an hour, the San Diego police SWAT team had arrived at the scene, and I was like, an hour? - An hour. - You brought the SWAT team in and after an hour? - The SWAT team should have been called immediately. - They took up their positions with sniper Chuck Foster, atop the room of the post office across the road. restaurant, the roof, excuse me, of the post office. He later said, I got up on top of the room along with my spotter, Barry Bennett, at about 5.02 p.m. I was like, um, what? Because I'll start around 4.00 p.m. He said, once I got up onto the post office roof, I could look down upon the McDonald's. I could see a few bodies lying inside the restaurant. I could see a few times when the shooter was firing out towards the street, with the fire trucks. The shooter within the McDonald's had a lot of advantages where he was at. Yeah. As soon as he was in position on the roof, foster had the same problems that the officer on the ground had. The windows were both tinted, heavily cracked. He just couldn't see anything. Under those conditions, there was a high likelihood that if he took a shot, foster could have missed or hit one of the people inside. Yeah. Also, the officers outside the restaurant knew very little about what was actually happening inside the restaurant. And they thought that if there was more than one shooter, which they thought there was considering how many shots were being fired, they said, taking one out might prompt the other one to kill everyone else inside. Yeah. Because they also didn't know if this was like a hostage situation. And they were like, if we kill one, that might negate any hope that we have of getting anyone else out. Right. This isn't impossible situations. It is. Now, after about 15 more minutes of holding in position, Chuck Foster finally saw he already walked to the front of the restaurant and hop up on the counter. From his position, it looked like Jim was reloading his guns, but foster could only see him from the waist down and didn't have a clear shot. He later said it was impossible to see inside the McDonald's through those windows. I didn't get a chance to see him at all until just before shooting him. Wow. The only reason I could see inside was because his gunshots shattered a double door of safety glass. Chuck saw he already get off the counter and take a few steps towards the front doors, which have been blown out entirely. Worried that he might not get another chance, he drew in a deep breath. And as soon as Jim appeared through the broken glass of the front door, he fired a single shot that ripped right through Hubert's heart, killing him instantly. Wow. At 517 PM, after a full 77 minutes of carnage and complete terror, the massacre inside the Santa C.D.R. McDonald's had finally come to an end. 77 minutes. 77 minutes. That has to be one of the longest shootings. I can't imagine this. In that time, Jim Hubert had murdered 21 people, many of them children, and injured nearly two dozen others. And those who managed to survive this whole thing, having escaped with their lives, would suffer from profound post-traumatic stress disorder for decades, probably for the rest of their lives. Oh, I can't even imagine. And also, there are children suffering PTSD from this. Oh, yeah. Who are going to have to grow up with this? Like, truly? That's my, like, this time of year when I think about, like, fireworks and that kind of thing. And just, yeah, obviously, like, it's a thing that happens. But I just feel for people who are triggered by that because that has got to send you into such a catastrophic state. That sound. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can't imagine surviving this and then hearing fireworks, especially when like, I think it's so annoying. And I don't care how I come off. I feel exactly what you're saying. I feel the same way. After the Fourth of July, cut the shit. All done. Cut the shit. Because when people start doing them on random week nights at like 11 p.m. You're an asshole. You're an asshole. And that's just how I feel when I literally care. I'm like that. I just think you're an asshole to do that. Like, truly. And especially when people start it weeks earlier, they do it for weeks after the Fourth of July. There's a designated day today. There's a designated day. And you do, I realize the world is not like fully, you know, a safe space for everyone and can't cater to everyone's, you know, triggers or whatever the hell anybody wants to say. But there are certain things we can do that are just really easy to do. Yeah. And it's like, do your fireworks on the Fourth of July? Come on. And then you just don't need to do them. Think about this this year. Like really think about this. Yeah. Just think about this and thinking about somebody who lived through this. And then two weeks after Fourth of July, someone decides to out of fucking nowhere in the middle of the night shoot off fireworks a couple of houses down. Not only like what that would do to someone. Because also, you have to think of how many people at this point in life and where we are through a map through this. So way more people have lived through this. And like you really do need to take that into consideration. Just into consideration. Yeah. Which I feel like it's worth saying. I feel like a lot of our listeners are just I know. I'm sure we pissed off a couple people. I'm sure we got a couple people that are pissed off. It's really worth saying. It's just the way it is. But I think most of our listeners right now, I think you guys listening are the kind of people that are considerate and think of those things. And also don't do that stuff. I'm sure you know, you're always going to get people. But just if you are one of those people that loves to shoot off fireworks a few weeks after the Fourth of July, just think about this. Yeah. Think take a second. If you decide to do it anyway, that's that's on you. But like we're not as close as we thought we were. But like let's be friends and just all agree not to do that. Yeah. Now, once Hubert was dead, the survivors came running out of the building in all directions, not towards police or any other members of law enforcement, just away from the fucking building as fast as they could. It was only after they managed to wrangle the survivors and get the wounded to the hospital that the STBD finally started to understand the scope of what happened here. Because remember they still don't know what the fuck was going on. Like is there still a hostage? Miguel Rosario recalled nobody knew that this guy was in there by himself and just arbitrarily shooting people. Because why would your mind even think that one especially at this time? Exactly. It wasn't from outside the restaurant. All they knew was that someone was shooting inside. So they naturally thought it was a robbery or a hostage situation. And that was really the most shocking element of the story. Although they've become obviously tragically common now, which is horrific and shame on all of us for. In 1984, mass shootings were exceedingly rare. So much, so in fact that law enforcement didn't recognize it when it happened in Santa Cedra. Jim Hubert he hadn't gone to McDonald's to rob anyone or make some kind of political statement even by taking hostages. He'd gone there for the sole purpose of killing as many people as humanly possible before being taken out by the police. And he did exactly that. He sure did. Police officers and crime scene technicians worked through the night to process the scene and identify the bodies. According to the coroner, 13 of the victims died immediately upon being shot while the rest likely died within a few minutes of being struck down. Because so many of the victims were children and didn't have identification on them. Staff members from the coroner's office were forced to use photographs of the victims from the shoulders up to show the mass of people who disembleed outside the office looking for their loved ones. By the following day they'd managed to identify all of the victims. I'm going to read them out. Elsa Herlinda Borboa Fierro was 19. Niva Denise Cain was 22. Michelle Dianne Carncross was 18. Maria Elena Cole Monero Silva was 19. Gloria Lopez Gonzalez 22. Blyth Regan Herrera 31. Mateo Herrera 11. Pauline Aquino Lopez 21. Margarita Padilla 18. Claudia Perez 9. 9. Ada Velasquez Victoria was 69. Jose Ruben Luzano Perez was 19. Carlos Reyes was eight months. Oh my God. Jacqueline Wright Reyes was 18. Victor Maximilian Rivera was 25. Aras Delzy Vuelvas Vargas was 31. Hugo Luis Velasquez excuse me was 45. Lawrence Herman Versluse was 62. David Flora Delgado was 11. Omar Alonzo Hernandez was 11. And Miguel Victoria Noah was 74 years old. Such like a vast range of ages there. Like people eight months to 74. Eight months like literally just starting your fucking time on this earth. And like 69 and 74. And you make it that long in your life. And this motherfucker is the one that ends your life. Yeah. Like that's just so cruel. And to be looking at people crying and begging for their lives and just indiscriminately shoot them seeing parents trying to shield their crying children and shoot them anyways. You're shooting baby. You got nothing. You're shooting 11 and 12 year olds. You're shooting parents. Jim Hubert had nothing inside of him. He was an empty vessel. Like truly an empty vessel. Like he was just he nothing would have made him stop. They really wouldn't know. When the news broke it shocked everyone from one end of the country to the other. Although it was it has unfortunately been surpassed in number by others since at the time the Santa C. Dramasica was the worst mass shooting in American history. Yeah. And most people found it impossible to understand how such a thing could happen. Which I wish we could say now that that's the same thing that happens now that everyone can't imagine this happening. However, those who knew Jim Hubertie were nearly as surprised. A former neighbor told a reporter he came across to me as cold. He looked like your average guy except for his facial expressions. I never saw a smile. I want 'em. - Now another person who wasn't entirely surprised by the shooting was Jim's wife, Etna. - I wonder if they heard it from their apart. - That's what I wondered. - They had to. - Yeah. But while being very well aware of Jim's long struggle with his poor mental health, his inability to manage his rage and the full extent of his decomposition in the day before the accident, Etna would go on to unsuccessfully sue the McDonald's corporation a few years later. - Allegeing that quote. - No. - Her deceased husband had been consuming copious amounts of McDonald's chicken nuggets in the days, weeks and months leading up to the shooting. - To blame this atrocity on chicken nuggets. - On overconsumption of chicken nuggets. - When you know-- - Is diabolical. - And especially you know who that man was. - You know right, well, who that man was. Always said that way copious amounts of chicken nuggets are not. - Yeah. - That's all I'm gonna say. - We've already given you like how we feel about like, Etna not leaving or whatever. Like we've said. - We've sympathized. - We've sympathized. - And I will continue to sympathize and empathize with her. - Not on this. - On this? - No. - No babe, I'm not empathizing with you. You're not blaming it on chicken nuggets. - You don't have to excuse me on this one. I'm not empathizing with the chicken nuggets. - I can't imagine being a surviving victim or the victim of a family member of a victim in hearing that this woman blamed it on chicken nuggets. - I'm saying the chicken nuggets made him do this. - No. - You have to be fucking kidding me. - She said that it contributed to his disorder mind. - It didn't. - He was already there. He had already said a million times to a million different people that he was gonna kill a lot of people. - He had been that way from childhood. And that is no fault of hers, but don't blame it on chicken nuggets. - That's why it was. - 'Cause that really trivializes it. - It really does. - And it makes it not his fault suddenly. - Yup. - And that's wild to do. - It absolutely is. - No, while most people wondered what it caused him to go on such a shocking rampage, the public was equally frustrated with local law enforcement and everyone wanted to know why and how he was able to continue killing people for well over an hour before police intervened. That was a long time. - That was a 77 minute. - And for them to only get swapped there, like an hour later, that's that I don't get. - I don't know. - I'll never understand that. To throw a sniper on a roof an hour later. - No. - What are you doing? Like what are you doing? - You could have been stopped earlier. - In truth, it seems there were several important factors that obviously did definitely hindered them from getting to him sooner. But the initial error in dispatching in the presence of a single officer to the heavy tinting on the glass, like to the spidering on the glass, like all these things contributed to this allowing, being allowed to go on for far too long. But still the event did go on to influence police procedure with regards to incidents of mass shootings and other acts of terrorism, changing everything from the language used in communication between agencies 'cause no one labeled this a mass shooting apparatus to the surveillance tools used and even the scale and scope of weapons carried by all officers. - Now in the wake of the massacre, the community struggled over what to do with the building. - I know, sure. - Some wanted it torn down completely while others thought it should remain. In the end, the building was demolished and a permanent memorial was installed in 1990. I think this was the best thing to do. - I think that's what I would have preferred to. - The memorial consists of 21 hexagonal white marble pillars, each bearing the name of a victim. In his statement to the press at the unveiling of the memorial designer Roberto Vales said, the 21 hexagons represent each person that died and they are different heights representing the variety of ages and races of the people involved in the massacre. They are bonded together in the hopes that the community and a tragedy like this will stick together like they did. - Wow, that's really beautiful. I've got to give you chills. - Yeah, I think that was the best thing they could have done for that location and what that was. - I mean, what can you do other than that? - Yeah, it's a horrific story. - It is. - But again, I think it's one that needs to be told one to make sure those people are remembered. - Yup. - And to really hammer in that mental health care and treatment for mental health is we can't ever get too good with it, man. - No, we just need to keep improving. - We're nowhere near it. So it's like we need to keep improving. And also, people need to say shit. When people are saying stuff, I know it's hard sometimes. - Of course. - Of course. - I realize that people are like, I don't want to sound like a crazy person calling and say this. I don't want to get somebody's life ruined. I don't want to do this. - Like people are saying the things that Jim Hueberia is saying. There's no such thing as overreacting to some of the statements. - And you can do it anonymously, just anonymously say, hey, I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't know if he was serious, but he said this really concerning thing. - Yeah. - You could be saving a lot of people. - You absolutely could. If you ever get a chance to, please do that. - Please do, honestly. All right, I am looking. - We need the funnest of that. - I'm really looking for a good one. Wow. This one. I don't know if I'll call it fun, but it's something. People once used corn cobs instead of toilet paper because they were soft, easy to hold, and there were a lot of them. (laughing) - I love the fact that there were a lot of them. - There were a lot of them. - There was so much corn. - No, just corn. (laughing) You can use it to wipe your butt. (laughing) - It has the juice. - I have to go now. - That's crazy. - I have to go now. - That is a pretty fun fact. - I have never heard that in my life. - That's wild. - I'm not quite sure if I'm better for it. - I feel like we're all better for it. - I think we are. - That's a crazy one. - I think we are. - All right, guys. - Jim. - Be kind to each other. - Think about fireworks this year. - Yeah. - And if somebody says something to you, that is so dark and chilling, that it rots you to your core, tell someone. (laughing) - That's a great way of explaining something. - And we hope you keep listening. - We hope you keep it. - Weird. - But not so weird that you got rotted to your core. - I don't do that. - I don't do anything. - Yeah. - Bye. - Bye. (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music)