Crime at Bedtime30 Jul 2025

"I don't like Mondays" Inside the Mind of Brenda Ann Spencer

On a quiet Monday morning in January 1979, the peace outside Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego was shattered by gunfire. Sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, armed with a .22-calibre rifle her father had given her for Christmas, opened fire from the window of her home—just across the street from the school gates.

In a shooting that stunned the nation, Spencer killed the principal and a custodian as they tried to protect children, and wounded eight students and a police officer. When asked why she did it, her response would become one of the most haunting quotes in American criminal history:

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

In this episode we explore the disturbing life of Brenda Ann Spencer. From her neglected and troubled upbringing to the many red flags ignored by adults and authorities, we uncover the events that led up to that horrific day. We follow the chaos of the shooting, the chilling phone call to a journalist, and the police standoff that followed. We then trace her path through the justice system, where she was tried as an adult, and examine her life behind bars, parole hearings, and the claims of abuse that emerged years later.

This is not just the story of a school shooting. It’s the story of a system that failed to see what was coming—and the lives that changed forever because of it.

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