On November 12, 1966, 18-year-old Robert Benjamin Smith shot and killed five people—four women and a toddler—and injured two others at the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Mesa, Arizona, United States.

[3] Smith entered the Rose-Mar College of Beauty and brandished his weapon to gain the attention of the people inside.

The gunman, 18-year-old Robert Benjamin Smith (February 10, 1948 – April 21, 2024), was born in Houston, Missouri, and was a resident of Mesa, and he surrendered without incident to responding police.

Smith told investigators that he had scoped out a high school and another beauty shop as a place to attack and that he had considered returning to Houston and committing a crime at a bank where he knew people.

[5] It was later observed that Smith had become captivated with historical figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, and later Adolf Hitler.