Female Mass Murderers

Going Postal

Jennifer San Marco

Just after 9 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2006, Jennifer San Marco passed through a heavily guarded security station in a mail processing plant and distribution center in Goleta, Calif., by driving behind another vehicle to enter the building where she had worked two years earlier.  No one realized that she had just killed her former neighbor, Beverly Graham, with a shot to the head in her apartment.  They apparently also did not realize that she was armed with a 15-round, 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol and ammunition.

At gunpoint, San Marco took an employee's badge, according to early news reports. The 44-year-old then shot two people in the parking lot before entering the building to shoot four more before she turned the gun on herself, taking her own life.  Five died at the location from their wounds and the sixth person died two days later in the hospital.  Since San Marco had left behind no suicide note, her motives remain in question.

San Marco had a history of strange behavior, and it was her mental problems that apparently led to her retirement from the post office in 2003 after six years of employment.  At that time, she moved to New Mexico.  There, she attempted to start a publication, The Racist Press, in 2004, but did not have a license.   Those who attended a meeting with her at the time recalled that she sat mumbling to herself in a way that sounded as if she were two people arguing. 

And there were other issues: she would stare at people, and once she showed up at a local service station unclothed.  Those who knew her recalled her hostility toward minorities, particularly Asians. 

• Print version
• Email this
• Digg it
• del.icio.us

1. Going Postal
2. Paranoia
3. Mass Murderers
4. What about Women?
5. Rampage in Reno
6. Depression and Despair
7. Six Children Murdered
8. Sending Them to Heaven
9. Insanity or Murder?
10. A Woman Scorned
11. Sent on a Mission
12. Helter Skelter
13. Wicked Intent
14. Military Style
15. Widespread Damage
16. Bibliography