He sent them a five-page letter in June, part of which said: "Please give me the satisfaction of some day laughing in the face of all those mostly white treacherous female vipers from those two towns [Killeen and Belton] who tried to destroy me and my family" and “You think the three of us can get together some day?” He also wrote that he was "truly flattered knowing I have two teenage groupie fans". Possible motive Hennard was described as reclusive and belligerent, with an explosive temper. He was discharged from the Merchant Marine on May 11, 1989 for possession of marijuana and racial incidents. That same month, Hennard's seaman papers were suspended after he had a racial argument with another shipmate. Numerous reports included accounts of Hennard's expressed hatred of women. An ex-roommate of his said, "He hated blacks, Hispanics, and gays. He said women were snakes and always had derogatory remarks about them, especially after fights with his mother." Survivors of the shootings later said Hennard had passed over men to shoot women. Fifteen of the 23 murder victims were women, as were many of the wounded. He called two of the victims a "bitch" before shooting them. In 1990, Hennard called Isaiah (Ike) R. Williams, a port agent for the national maritime union in Wilmington, California, stating that he needed a letter of recommendation in order to regain his papers and rejoin the Merchant Marine. "I don't recall having given him one", Williams claimed. Hennard had learned in mid-February that his attempt to be reinstated had been denied. Several months later, he entered a drug treatment program in Houston. Around two months before the shooting, Hennard entered a convenience store in Belton to buy breakfast. Mead, the clerk of the store, claimed that Hennard had leaned over the counter and said, "I want you to tell everybody, if they don't quit messing around my house something awful is going to happen." A week and a half before the shooting, Hennard collected his paycheck at a cement company in Copperas Cove and announced he was quitting. Hennard also wondered aloud what would happen if he killed someone. "He got to talking about some of the people in Belton and certain women that had given him problems", a coworker Bubba Hawkins claimed. "And he kept saying, 'Watch and see, watch and see'." On his 35th birthday, October 15, 1991,