Brenda Spencer "I Don't Like Mondays" Crime Scene Lawn Clippings Frame

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) is an incarcerated American murderer who in 1979 committed a school shooting at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District in the San Carlos neighborhood of San Diego, California. At the time, she lived in a house across the street from the school. Aged 16 at the time of the shooting, she was 5'2" (157 cm) and had bright red hair. After her parents separated, she allegedly lived in poverty with her father, Wallace Spencer. Both father and daughter slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles from alcoholic drinks.

Acquaintances said Spencer expressed hostility toward policemen, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. Although Spencer showed exceptional ability as a photographer, winning first prize in a Humane Society competition, she was generally uninterested in school. She attended Patrick Henry High School, where one teacher recalled frequently inquiring if she was awake in class. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. It was attributed to an accident on her bicycle.

In early 1978, staff at a facility for problem students, into which Spencer had been referred for truancy, informed her parents that she was suicidal. That summer, Spencer, who was known to hunt birds in the neighborhood, was arrested for shooting out the windows of Grover Cleveland Elementary with a BB gun and for burglary.

In December, a psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer recommended that Spencer be admitted to a mental hospital for depression, but her father refused to give permission. For Christmas 1978, he gave her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition. Spencer later said, "I asked for a radio and got a rifle." Asked why he had done that, she answered, "He bought the rifle so I would kill myself."

A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day", which inspired Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers to write the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays".

This is a 4x6 inch frame of lawn clippings collected from the site the Spencer home, and where the school shooting occurred.

Note: No two frames are the same. Do not expect do get the exact frame pictured, because you wont.