( CNN ) -- Howard Unruh , a World War II veteran accused of killing more than a dozen people in a deadly shooting spree in New Jersey 60 years ago , died Monday , authorities said . He was 88 . Howard Unruh died Monday in a nursing home in Trenton , New Jersey . Although he was never found competent to stand trial , authorities and witnesses say Unruh methodically walked Camden 's 32nd Street on the afternoon of September 6 , 1949 , targeting several business owners on a hit list and firing at others who crossed his path , including children . The weapon of choice was a German-crafted Luger pistol . The last victim was 2-year-old Tommy Hamilton , who happened to be looking out the window , according to accounts of the 20-minute spree compiled by TruTV 's Web site . ( TruTV , like CNN , is a part of Turner Broadcasting . ) Another boy was killed while getting a haircut . The barber , 33-year-old Clark Hoover , had been on the list . Though the case never went to trial , Unruh was considered by some as the first single-episode mass murderer in the United States . Unruh 's mental status was reviewed by the courts , reviews that always resulted in his continued commitment , according to the Camden County prosecutor 's office . He died Monday at Providence Nursing Home in Trenton at 3:35 p.m. after an extended illness , officials said . Ron Dale was inside a shoe shop off 32nd when the gunman came through the door and fired twice at shoemaker John Pilarchi , 27 , who died instantly . `` He shot the shoemaker , turned around , looked at me and walked out the door , '' Dale , who was 8 at the time , told CNN Radio . `` It just was n't my turn . '' It was the weekend before school started . Dale said he ran home but knew that his big brother and other kids would be getting haircuts and doing other stuff for first day of school . `` Back in those days , there was no such thing as people going around with guns like they do today , '' said Dale , now a military veteran and retired ironworker . Even as police scrambled to catch the gunman , he reached his apartment , where he barricaded the door . Witnesses had identified the shooter as Unruh , described as 28-year-old recluse and `` religious nut , '' according to the accounts compiled by TruTV . Dozens of police officers surrounded the two-story building that housed Unruh 's apartment , which sat next to the pharmacy owned by Maurice and Rose Cohen . The couple and Maurice Cohen 's mother were all killed in the spree , but their 12-year-old son , Charles , survived by hiding in a closet . Officers , armed with rifles and machine guns , riddled the building with bullets . He finally surrendered after police tossed cans of tear gas through a bedroom window . During questioning , he gave County Prosecutor Mitchell Cohen a play-by-play of the massacre , according to the Tru TV accounts . Unruh had left his home that day , he told Cohen , with one bullet in the chamber , 16 loose bullets and two clips of eight , because his neighbors `` had been making derogatory remarks about my character . '' After a battery of tests were conducted , Unruh was diagnosed with `` dementia praecox , mixed type , with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring '' and was ruled criminally insane , making him immune from prosecution . Ron Franscell , a Texas-based author , has researched the Camden massacre for a book about victims who have survived mass killings in modern American history . He 's walked Unruh 's `` walk of death '' and interviewed several witnesses of the shooting . Franscell described Unruh as a strange character who was a good soldier in World War II . `` But he does odd things while he 's there ; he keeps detailed notes of the Germans he kills , '' he told CNN Radio on Monday . He returned home a changed man . Unruh was an introvert in his neighborhood , known to dress up in a suit and tie , with combat boots and a Bible tucked under his arm . He would walk around the streets and quote scripture , Franscell said . `` He 's not right . ... He just came back a little different . '' Among the Camden survivors Franscell spoke with was Charles Cohen , the son of the slain pharmacist . Franscell said Cohen coped by stashing scores of newspaper clippings on the 1949 shooting into a suitcase . Through the years , Cohen `` really saw a day in the future when Howard Unruh would die and he saw it as a release for him , '' Franscell said . `` His hope was to see Howard Unruh 's day come so he could take that suitcase out and bury it . Cohen never saw that day . He died two months ago . CNN Radio 's Ninette Sosa contributed to this report .
Ninette Sosa Unruh accused of killing 16 people in U.S. in 1949 . Courts ruled that World War II veteran was not competent to stand trial . Witnesses and survivors of shooting recount 1949 's horror , aftereffects . Unruh was considered first single-episode mass murderer in U.S. history .