[82Rigger]

...Whitman wrote two letters. Here are excerpts from them:

?I don?t quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter,? he wrote. ?Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed.? He went on to say he?d increasingly been a victim of ?many unusual and irrational thoughts? and that his attempt to get help with his problems (the visit to Dr. Heatly) had failed. He expressed a wish that his body be autopsied after his death to see if there was a physical cause for his mental anguish. As he continued, he outlined his plan for the coming 24 hours. ?It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from work at the telephone company,? he revealed. ?The prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in, and am prepared to die, and I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it.? He continued, ?similar reasons provoked me to take my mother?s life also.?

Margaret Whitman was dead by 12:30 a.m., at which time Charlie sat down to write another letter of explanation. ?I have just taken my mother?s life,? he wrote, ?I am very upset over having done it?I am truly sorry that this is the only way I could see to relieve her sufferings but I think it was best.?

If I recall correctly, during Whitman's autopsy a brain tumor was discovered.