Alan Winterbourne

Mass Murderer

Alan Winterbourne and the 1993 Oxnard Unemployment Office Massacre

Overview

On December 2, 1993, Alan Winterbourne carried out a deadly shooting rampage in Ventura County, California, killing four people and wounding four others before he was fatally shot by police. The attack began inside a state unemployment office in Oxnard, continued during a police pursuit, and ended outside another unemployment office in Ventura. The entire sequence lasted less than twenty minutes. Winterbourne was a 33-year-old unemployed computer systems engineer who had spent approximately eight years attempting to find steady work. He had reportedly contacted hundreds of companies and submitted more than 2,000 job applications. Winterbourne became convinced that his former employer, the Northrop Corporation, had damaged his career and was preventing him from obtaining another position. Rather than directing his anger at anyone personally connected to his employment problems, he attacked workers he had never met.

Background and Employment Problems

Winterbourne had studied computer technology and briefly worked as a computer systems engineer for Northrop Corporation after leaving college in 1985. His employment there ended after a relatively short period. He later claimed that he had encountered improper conduct within the company and believed that his knowledge of sensitive matters had resulted in him being secretly blacklisted. During the following eight years, Winterbourne kept detailed records of his attempts to find employment. He saved advertisements, applications, rejection letters and correspondence with prospective employers. A notebook found among his belongings reportedly documented at least one employment contact each weekday from February 14, 1986, through the day of the shooting. Friends and relatives knew that Winterbourne had become deeply frustrated by unemployment, but those closest to him did not expect him to become violent. On the morning of December 2, 1993, he spoke briefly with his mother without revealing what he was preparing to do.

Visit to the Ventura Newspaper

At approximately 11:15 a.m. on December 2, Winterbourne entered the offices of the Ventura County Star-Free Press in Ventura. He was dressed in a dark sports coat, gray trousers, a white shirt and a tie. He asked to speak with opinion-page editor Timm Herdt. Winterbourne handed Herdt a large envelope containing documents associated with his employment history, his work at Northrop and his belief that he had been treated unfairly. He also left a box filled with job advertisements, applications and rejection letters. Winterbourne calmly told the editor that he would call later to discuss the material. Herdt placed the documents aside without immediately examining them. Winterbourne then drove approximately ten minutes south to the California Employment Development Department office in Oxnard. ...

Confirmed Victims: (4)

Richard M. Bateman 65 yr old Male

Ventura still healing from mass shooting 25 years before Thousand ...