Hungerford massacre

The first shooting occurred seven miles (11 km) to the west of Hungerford in Savernake Forest in Wiltshire, at 12:30 in the afternoon of 19 August. Susan Godfrey, 35, had come to the area with her two children, Hannah (4) and James (2), from Reading for a family picnic. Ryan approached them with his gun raised and forced Susan to place the children in her Nissan Micra. He then marched her into bushes at gunpoint and shot her 13 times in the back, using the whole magazine of the Beretta pistol. Police were alerted to the scene after Godfrey's two children approached a lone pensioner, Myra Rose. Hannah told Rose that a "man in black has shot our mummy."[10] Authorities were still responding when Ryan continued his massacre.[11]

Ryan drove his silver Vauxhall Astra GTE from the forest along the A4 towards Hungerford, and stopped at the Golden Arrow petrol station just outside the village of Froxfield, three miles (5 km) from the town.[12] After waiting for a motorcyclist, Ian George, to depart from the garage, he began to pump petrol into his car before shooting at the female cashier, Kakaub Dean, missing her. Ryan entered the store and again tried to shoot her at close range with his M1 carbine,[8] but the rifle's magazine had fallen out, probably because he inadvertently hit the release mechanism. He then left and continued towards Hungerford. Meanwhile, George, having witnessed the attempted shooting of Dean, stopped in Froxfield and placed the first emergency call to the police, reporting that he had seen an attempted armed robbery.

At around 12:45, Ryan was seen at his home in South View, Hungerford. He loaded his car with his weapons and attempted to drive away, but the car would not start. He then fired four shots into the right side of the car. Neighbours reported seeing him agitatedly moving between the house and the car before he returned indoors and shot and killed the family dog or dogs (accounts disagree on whether there were one or two dogs in the house). Ryan then doused his home with the petrol he had bought earlier in the day and set his house alight. The fire subsequently destroyed three adjoining properties.[13] Ryan then removed the three guns from the boot of his car and shot and killed Roland and Sheila Mason, who were in the back garden of their house: Roland was shot six times and Sheila once in the head.[6]

Ryan walked towards the town's common, critically injuring two more people; Marjorie Jackson was shot once in the lower back as she watched Ryan from the window of her living room and 14-year-old Lisa Mildenhall four times in both legs and abdomen as she stood outside her home. Mildenhall later recalled that Ryan smiled at her before crouching and shooting. Mildenhall was treated in a nearby home and survived.[14] Meanwhile, Jackson pulled 77-year-old Dorothy Smith into her home as she rebuked Ryan for making noise. Jackson first called 999 before telephoning George White, a colleague of her husband Ivor Jackson. She informed White that she had been injured. Her husband insisted on returning home and White offered to drive him. Jackson survived; Smith was uninjured.[15]

On the footpath towards the common, Ryan encountered a family walking their dog.[16] Upon seeing Ryan with his weapons, 51-year-old Kenneth Clements raised his arms in a gesture of surrender, diverting Ryan's attention as Clement's family climbed over a wall and ran to safety. Ryan ignored the gesture and shot Clements once at close range in the chest, killing him instantly. He fell to the ground still clutching the lead of his dog.[1] Looping back to South View, Ryan fired 23 rounds at PC Roger Brereton, a police officer who had just arrived at the scene in response to reports of gunfire. Brereton was hit four times in his chest:[17] his Vauxhall Senator veered and crashed into a telephone pole. He died sitting in his patrol car, radioing to his colleagues that he had been shot.[18] Ryan next turned his weapons on Linda Chapman and her teenage daughter, Alison, who had turned onto South View moments after Brereton was shot. Ryan fired 11 rounds from his semi-automatic into their Volvo 360; the bullets travelled through the bonnet of the car, hitting and critically wounding Alison in her right thigh. Ryan also shot through the windscreen, hitting Linda with glass and a bullet in the left shoulder. As Ryan reloaded his weapons, Linda reversed, exited South View and drove to the local doctor. A bullet was subsequently found lodged at the base of Alison's spine; during an operation to remove it, surgeons decided that the risk of paralysis was too great, and the bullet was left in place.[19]

After the Chapmans had driven away from South View, George White's Toyota Crown drove towards Ryan; Ivor Jackson was in the passenger seat. Ryan opened fire with his Type 56, killing White with a single shot to the head and leaving Jackson severely injured in his head and chest. White's Toyota crashed into the rear of Brereton's police car. Jackson played dead and hoped that Ryan would not move in for a closer look.[20]

Ryan moved along Fairview Road, killing Abdul Rahman Khan while he was mowing his lawn. Further along the road he wounded his next door neighbour, Alan Lepetit, who had helped build Ryan's gun display unit. He then shot at an ambulance which had just arrived, shattering the window and injuring paramedic Hazel Haslett, who sped away before Ryan was able to fire at her and her colleague again.[16]

Ryan shot at windows and at people who appeared on the street. Ryan's mother, Dorothy, then drove into South View and was confronted by her burning house, her armed son, and the dead and injured strewn along the street.[21] Ivor Jackson, who was still slumped in White's Toyota, heard Dorothy open the door of the car and say, "Oh, Ivor..." before attempting in vain to reason with her son.[17] Ryan shot her in her abdomen and legs before firing two fatal shots into her back as she lay on the ground.[21] Ryan then wounded Betty Tolladay, who had stepped out of her house to admonish Ryan for making noise, as she had assumed he was shooting at paper targets in the woods.[22] Ryan then ran towards Hungerford Common.

The police were now informed of the situation but the evacuation plan was not fully effective. Ryan's movements were tracked via police helicopter almost an hour after he set his home alight, but this was hampered by media helicopters and journalists responding to reports of the attacks. A single police officer, who observed Ryan, recommended that armed police be used, as the weapons he saw in Ryan's possession were beyond the capabilities of Hungerford police station's meagre firearms locker.[23]

On Hungerford Common, Ryan went on to shoot and kill young father-of-two, Francis Butler, as he walked his dog, and shot at, but missed, teenager Andrew Cadle, who sped away on his bicycle.[1] Local taxi driver Marcus Barnard slowed down his Peugeot 309 as Ryan crossed in front of him. Ryan shot him with the Type 56, causing a massive injury to his head and killing him. Barnard had been redirected towards the Common by a police diversion as communication between ground forces and the police helicopter remained sporadic. Ann Honeybone was slightly injured by a bullet as she drove down Priory Avenue. Ryan then shot at John Storms, a washing-machine repairman who had parked on Priory Avenue.[24] Hit in the face, Storms crouched below the dashboard of his Renault Express.[25] He heard Ryan fire twice more at his van and felt the vehicle shake, but he was not hit again. A local builder named Bob Barclay ran from his nearby house and dragged Storms out of his van and into the safety of his home.[26]

Ryan then walked towards the town centre of Hungerford, where police were attempting to evacuate the public. During this, Ryan killed 67-year-old Douglas Wainwright and injured his wife Kathleen in their car. Kathleen would later say that her husband hit the brakes as soon as the windscreen shattered. Ryan fired eight rounds into the Wainwrights' Datsun Bluebird,[10] hitting Douglas in the head and Kathleen in the chest and shoulder. Kathleen, seeing that her husband was dead and that Ryan was approaching the car whilst reloading, unbuckled her seatbelt and ran.[1] The pair were visiting their son, a policeman on the Hungerford force. Coincidentally, Constable Wainwright had signed Ryan's request to extend his firearm certificate only weeks earlier. Next was Kevin Lance, who was shot in the upper arm[27] as he drove his Ford Transit along Tarrant's Hill.[26]

Further up Priory Avenue, a 51-year-old handyman named Eric Vardy[28] and his passenger, Steven Ball, drove into Ryan's path while travelling to a job in Vardy's Leyland Sherpa. Ball later recalled that he saw Lance clutching his arm and running into a narrow side street. As Ball focused on Lance, Ryan shattered the windscreen with a burst of bullets. Vardy was hit twice in the head and upper torso[13] and crashed his van into a wall; he would later die of shock and haemorrhage from his neck wound. Ball suffered no serious injuries.[1]

Throughout his movements, Ryan had also opened fire on a number of other people, some of whom were grazed or walking wounded. Many of these minor casualties were not counted in the eventual total.

At around 13:30,[27] Ryan crossed Orchard Park Close into Priory Road, firing a single round at a passing red Renault 5. This shot killed the driver, 22-year-old Sandra Hill.[29] A passing soldier, Carl Harries, rushed to Hill's car and attempted in vain to apply first aid, but Hill died in his arms.[30]

After shooting Hill, Ryan shot his way into a house further down Priory Road and killed the occupants. Jack Gibbs was killed instantly as he attempted to shield his wheelchair-bound wife, Myrtle, from Ryan with his own body. Myrtle died of her injuries two days later. Ryan also fired shots into neighbouring houses from the Gibbses' house, injuring Michael Jennings at 62 Priory Road and Myra Geater at 71 Priory Road.[1] Ryan continued down Priory Road where he encountered 34-year-old Ian Playle, who was returning from a shopping trip with his wife and two young children in their Ford Sierra. Playle crashed into a stationary car after being shot in the neck by Ryan. His wife and children were unhurt. Harries again rushed over to administer first aid, but Playle's wound proved to be fatal[1] as he died in an Oxford hospital two days later.[31]

• J. G. Ballard's novel, Running Wild, centres on the fictitious Richard Greville, a Deputy Psychiatric Advisor with the Metropolitan Police Service who authored "an unpopular minority report on the Hungerford killings" and is sent to investigate mass murder in a gated community.[37] Ballard professed an interest in the Hungerford massacre and other "pointless crimes" such as that in Dunblane and the murder of Jill Dando.
• The Hungerford massacre inspired Christopher Priest's novel The Extremes (1998).[38]

• "Sulk", the penultimate track on Radiohead's album The Bends, was written as a response to the massacre.[39]
• "Guns don't kill people, rappers do" by Goldie Lookin Chain contains the lyric "Like Michael Ryan about to snap".

• The BBC screened a documentary on the Hungerford Massacre on 7 December 2004.[40]

• In September 2003, the BBC's third series of Waking the Dead featured a storyline in the episode "Multi-story" which closely resembled the events of the Hungerford massacre. The episode focuses on an unemployed and socially awkward man named Carl McKenzie who has been convicted of opening fire on a town centre crowd from a multi-storey car park, and killing a number of people including his own parents and a police officer.