Just after midday, on 19 August 1987, the 27-year-old unemployed Ryan entered a secluded area of Savernake Forest. Fifteen other people were also shot but survived. Find Hungerford Michael Ryan stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. But this did actually ring true. The dust was flying up from the ground around my feet as the bullets hit. She thinks he saw Mrs Godfrey and her children having a picnic and enjoying themselves. "I said I needed a bit of help at home but I didn't say what had happened. There he announced that he had commissioned a report on the massacre from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Colin Smith. He was still labouring under the impression that there might have been a shooting accident. Instead, Sgt Ryan said: "I dont know how to tell you this. Further delays were caused by the firearms squad being in training about 40 miles away. Not academically gifted nor particularly driven, Ryan was unremarkable at school. "It was just routine. After the murders, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 was passed following a report commissioned by then-Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. Police during the investigation in August 1987, Killer Michael Robert Ryan murdered several people while they were driving, The remains of Michael Ryan's house in South View, after he set fire to it. Gunshots were often heard from Hungerford Common, at one end of South View. I was on the floor. Ryan picked up the picnic groundsheet and ordered Susan to walk with him into the woods. When Ryan was old enough, he purchased a shotgun and began to collect other weapons, which he proudly displayed in a glass cabinet in his bedroom. Paying no attention to the police or the press, Ryan seemed oblivious to anything other than his hell-bent mission to kill everyone in his path. He claimed he had been taken under the wing of a retired colonel who was going to buy him a house and a Ferrari. She had been at work in Hungerford when the news about the shootings came on the radio. Having failed to kill Dean, Ryan quickly returned to his car and drove off towards Hungerford. Ryan said he would not exit the building until he had news of his mothers condition.Some of the things Ryan shouted out the window to Brightwell were, Hungerford must be a bit of a mess; If only the police car hadnt turned up. Seeing two of his neighbours, Roland and Sheila Mason, in their back garden, he shot Roland six times and Sheila once, in the head. 20th August 1987. The teenager was still standing up when Mrs Pascoe arrived to help her. Ryan was lying slumped in the corner, near a window, apparently dead.The rest of the unit entered the room and checked that he was not wired with explosives as a booby trap. Luckily she hadn't been injured. She shouted at him, saying, Is that you making that noise? No-one blamed me. He wounded a further 15 before turning the gun on himself. He took the firearms, packed the pockets of his flak jacket with ammunition and marched off down the road. The week before the shootings he had helped Ryan bring a heavy cabinet down the stairs. "Breaking in or shooting into a house and killing the inhabitants and then holding the position for a while before moving on, would have appealed to his military ideals and fantasies," says Prof Jackson. He died instantly from chest wounds. Ryan intimated he might be prepared to give himself up. He also had several different firearms: a Beretta 9 mm semi-automatic pistol; an M1 carbine semi-automatic assault rifle; and a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle loaded with armour-piercing bullets. Mrs Gibbs died several days later, in hospital. The Hungerford Report The British Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, travelled to Hungerford on Sunday, 23 August 1987. Other victims included Susan Godfrey, of Reading, who was killed while picnicking with her children; Roland and Sheila Mason, who were killed in their home; Kenneth Clements, who was shot while walking to Hungerford Common. I saw Robert Clements hed been walking the dog with his dad, Ken, and just witnessed him shot dead in South View. The phone lines were inundated with people trying to call police - journalists were taking up many of the lines - and the police radio system, which only had three channels, was similarly overloaded. Flowers began arriving at the town hall, where the flag flew at half-mast. Healthwise, we're struggling. Stop it, you stupid bugger!. What she found was houses on fire, people lying dead in their gardens and smashed cars lining the street. Classmates remember he was quiet, seemed shy, "kept himself to himself" and was keen on the military. They lived a few doors from each other and their families were friends. What happened in the woods is the clue to why the shootings happened, Prof Jackson believes. Marching her away from her two young children, he shot her 13 times in the back. Ryan had holed himself up in a second-floor classroom and was shooting through the window at both police and press helicopters. He got me in my lower back. //-->