Robert Smith

Mass Murderer

Robert Benjamin Smith: The Rose-Mar College of Beauty Massacre

Overview

Robert Benjamin Smith, an 18-year-old high-school senior from Mesa, Arizona (born February 10, 1948, in Houston, Missouri), carried out one of Arizona’s deadliest school-related mass murders on November 12, 1966. Smith deliberately entered the Rose-Mar College of Beauty and executed a meticulously planned and horrifying attack, later admitting he was inspired by earlier mass murderers and driven by a desire for notoriety.

Details of the Crime

On the morning of November 12, 1966, Smith arrived at the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Mesa, Arizona, armed with a .22-caliber single-action revolver, nylon cord, plastic sandwich bags, and hunting knives. With cold calculation, he initiated the attack:

• He fired a warning shot into a mirror, commanding everyone’s attention.
• He forced five women, a three-year-old girl, and an infant into a back room.
• He arranged them to lie down in a circle—“like the spokes of a wheel.”
• After the sandwich bags proved too small, he began shooting victims one by one—aiming at their heads.
• One victim, Joyce Sellers (27), who tried to move after being shot, was stabbed in the back by Smith to ensure she was dead.
• Amid gunshots, Eveline Cummings, the operator of the school, entered the building, heard “funny popping noises,” fled, and called police.
• The police arrived shortly thereafter; Smith surrendered calmly, indicated the gun in his paper bag, and later said, “I wanted to get known, just wanted to get myself a name.”

Victims

• Mary Margaret Olsen, 18 (student) — killed.
• Glenda Sue Carter, 18 (student) — killed. (Sometimes “Glenda Carter”)
• Carol Pope Farmer, 19 (student) — killed.
• Joyce Faye Sellers, 27 (customer, mother) — killed (shot and then stabbed).
• Debra LaRae Sellers, 3 (child of Joyce Sellers) — killed.
• Bonita Sue Harris, 18 (student) — injured (shot twice but survived by playing dead).
• Tamera (Tamara) Sellers, 3-month-old infant — injured (shot in the arm) but survived, shielded by her mother’s body.

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Confirmed Victims: (5)

Joyce Sellers 27 yr old Female

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1966 Rose-Mar College of Beauty shooting

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