Brenda Ann Spencer: The Girl Who Didn’t Like Mondays

Shortly after 8.30am on 29th January, 1979, the school day at Grover Cleveland Elementary in San Diego, California, had barely begun. Children were gathering outside the gates, waiting for them to open, when gunfire suddenly erupted from a house directly opposite the school.

Within minutes, the scene descended into confusion and panic. Principal Burton Wragg, aged 53, and school custodian Mike Suchar, aged 56, were both fatally shot while attempting to protect pupils. Eight children were wounded, along with responding police officer Robert Robb, who was struck in the neck.

The person firing the rifle was not a soldier or a hardened criminal. It was Brenda Ann Spencer, a 16 year old girl.

Brenda Spencer had a reputation for being a “problem child” who struggled with numerous health issues.

A Voice on the Telephone

As police surrounded the house and a standoff developed, a reporter dialled random phone numbers in the neighbourhood in an attempt to gather information. One call reached Brenda herself.

Asked why she was shooting at children, she replied with a sentence that would echo through popular culture for decades.

“I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

The quote would later inspire a chart topping song by Boomtown Rats, written by frontman Bob Geldof, but at the time it offered a chilling glimpse into a deeply disturbed teenager whose life had been marked by neglect, instability, and untreated mental illness.

Growing Up in Neglect

Brenda Ann Spencer was born on 3rd April, 1962, the youngest of three children. Her parents, Dorothy and Wallace Spencer, divorced in 1972 after years of marital breakdown. Brenda remained living with her father in a small, deteriorating house directly opposite the school she would later target.

Accounts from neighbours and social workers described conditions of extreme neglect. The house was cluttered and unsanitary. Brenda and her father reportedly slept on a single mattress on the floor. Wallace Spencer drank heavily, often disappearing for days at a time. Brenda was frequently left alone, isolated, and largely unsupervised.

Teachers described her as withdrawn and disengaged. One recalled routinely checking whether she was awake during lessons. Despite this, she showed occasional flashes of ability. She once won a photography competition run by the Humane Society, suggesting an aptitude that was never nurtured or developed.

Her troubling behaviour, however, became increasingly difficult to ignore.

Warning Signs Ignored

By her early teens, Brenda openly expressed violent fantasies. Classmates later recalled her talking about shooting police officers, referring to them as pigs, and celebrating news reports of officers being killed. Her peers largely avoided her, describing her as unpredictable and frightening.

In 1978, she was arrested for shooting out windows at Cleveland Elementary using a BB gun. Later that year, she was placed in a programme for troubled students. Officials warned her parents that she was suicidal. A psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer concluded that she required hospitalisation for severe depression.

Her father refused.

Instead, on Christmas morning 1978, Wallace Spencer gave his daughter a Ruger 10 22 rifle, fitted with a telescopic sight, along with 500 rounds of ammunition.

Brenda later reflected on the gift with chilling clarity.

“He bought the rifle so I would kill myself.”

The arrest of school shooter Brenda Spencer, shortly after her infamous “I don’t like Mondays” quote.

The Attack

On the morning of 29th January, 1979, Brenda positioned herself at a window in her home and began firing at children waiting outside the school gates. She discharged 36 rounds in total.

One of the first victims was nine year old Cam Miller, reportedly targeted because he was wearing blue, Brenda’s favourite colour.

When Principal Wragg and teacher Daryl Barnes ran to assist the wounded children, Brenda shot Wragg, killing him instantly. Mike Suchar was fatally wounded while attempting to shield a pupil from gunfire.

Officer Robert Robb was struck as he arrived at the scene, becoming one of the first police officers injured in a modern school shooting.

Police eventually blocked Brenda’s line of sight by positioning a refuse truck between her house and the school. After a six hour standoff, she surrendered. Reports later stated she was coaxed out with the promise of food.

Standing just 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 89 pounds, she was described by one officer as “too small to be scary”. The damage she had inflicted told a very different story.

Standing 5’2″ tall and weighing 89 pounds, Brenda Spencer was once described as “too small to be scary.”

Trial and Imprisonment

Brenda was tried as an adult. She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, receiving a sentence of 25 years to life.

While incarcerated at the California Institution for Women in Chino, she was diagnosed with epilepsy and treated for depression. She worked repairing electronic equipment and remained largely isolated from other inmates.

Over the years, her explanations for the attack shifted. In 1993, she claimed she had hoped police would kill her. In 2001, she alleged that her father had physically and sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Wallace Spencer denied the claims, and parole boards repeatedly dismissed them as unreliable, citing her long history of self harm and inconsistent accounts.

She carved words such as “alone” and “unforgiven” into her own skin after a prison relationship ended.

She has been denied parole multiple times, most recently in 2025.

In 1993, Brenda Spencer told CBS 8 San Diego that she didn’t remember saying, “I don’t like Mondays.”

Brenda Spencer’s attack is widely regarded as the first high profile elementary school shooting in the United States. While earlier school related shootings had occurred, none had combined mass civilian victims, extensive media coverage, and a juvenile perpetrator in the way this case did.

San Diego County deputy district attorney Richard Sachs later said:

“She hurt so many people and had so much to do with starting a deadly trend in America.”

Spencer herself acknowledged this grim influence during a parole hearing in 2001.

“With every school shooting, I feel I’m partially responsible. What if they got the idea from what I did?”

Later tragedies at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School would cement the pattern she helped usher into public consciousness.

In the years following the tragedy, Cleveland Elementary closed in 1983 due to declining enrollment. The school building was eventually demolished in 2018 to make way for housing, though a plaque remains in honour of the victims.

Almost exactly a decade later, in 1989, another Grover Cleveland Elementary (this time in Stockton, California) was the site of another deadly school shooting. Survivor Christy Buell, one of Spencer’s original victims, expressed horror upon hearing of the new attack.

“I Don’t Like Mondays”

Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, read about the shooting while in Georgia. Struck by Brenda’s haunting statement, he turned it into a song. Released in July 1979, “I Don’t Like Mondays” became a massive hit in the UK and Ireland, though it faced backlash in San Diego. Spencer later allegedly wrote to Geldof, saying she was “glad she’d done it” because he had “made her famous.” Geldof, troubled by the notion, dismissed the claim. Spencer denies ever writing to him.

The Woman Behind the Gun

Now in her sixties, Brenda Ann Spencer remains incarcerated. Over the years, she has offered shifting explanations for her actions, including later claims that she was physically and sexually abused by her father, Wallace Spencer. Those allegations were denied by him and ultimately dismissed by parole boards as unreliable. What is not in dispute, however, is the extent of neglect that shaped her childhood and the repeated warnings that went unheeded.

Mental health professionals had flagged Brenda as suicidal. A psychiatric assessment concluded she required hospitalisation for severe depression. Her father refused to authorise treatment. Instead, he bought her a semi automatic rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. At the time, his actions were not illegal under California law, and he was never charged. Investigators later described the decision as profoundly irresponsible but not criminal.

After the shooting, Wallace Spencer sold the house opposite Cleveland Elementary School and withdrew from public life. He rejected suggestions that he bore responsibility for the attack and never publicly expressed remorse. He died in 2011, having lived quietly and largely unseen in the decades following the crime.

What happened on that Monday morning in 1979 was not an isolated act of madness. It was the consequence of prolonged neglect, unchecked access to a firearm, and a system that failed to intervene when clear danger signs were present. A vulnerable teenager was identified as a risk to herself and others, yet no effective safeguards were put in place.

The children who survived grew up carrying those memories. The families of the dead were left with permanent absence and grief. And the United States entered a dark chapter of school violence that has yet to close, shaped as much by inaction as by intent.

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