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When a Lone Wolf Assassin is Not Nuts or Alone
Dr. George Tiller was serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas when Scott Roeder walked up to him and shot him in the head.
The media at the time quickly adopted the lone nut or "lone wolf" theory of the murder. Having studied a number of similar anti-abortion crimes over the years, I said that while the murder may or may not have been a criminal conspiracy, there were very likely at the very least what I call "concentric circles of support". Even when such crimes are carried out alone, they tend to be well-planned and often draw on networks of social, ideological and even logistical support, sometimes unwitting. The murder of Dr. Tiller is best understood, after all, as an assassination -- arguably one of the most high-profile political murders in recent years. Such support can be hard to prove, especially by the standards of criminal law. But that does not mean it does not exist.
Now, a joint investigation by The Nation and Ms. magazine details what the circles of support around Roeder looked like. This ground-breaking work reveals much about the way that the revolutionary, antiabortion Army of God operates. |
Here are a few excerpts:
When Scott Roeder arrived at Regina Dinwiddie's house with Eugene Frye in 1994 or 1995 to meet Michael Bray, he was nearly giddy, by his own recollection to me:
Roeder: I think it was right after Paul Hill... [murdered Dr. Britton in Pensacola, FL] I got to meet [Bray] and I heard that he'd been on 60 Minutes. ...I just kept asking Mike [Bray] questions because I was so fascinated with him, you know... As a matter of fact, Gene [Frye] had to tell me to quit asking him
questions.
Amanda Robb: [But] did you guys discuss justifiable homicide? If it was justifiable to shoot a doctor?
Roeder: Oh yeah, yeah. We definitely discussed that, and like I say, Michael [Bray], he's been outspoken, and he's always said, as long as I've known him, he's always said it's been justified to do that.
Another admitted Army of God member that Roeder has become close to is Jennifer McCoy. In 1996, she was arrested and pled guilty to conspiring to burn down abortion clinics in Norfolk and Newport News, Va. During her two and a half years in prison, she was in contact with Bray, who honored her in absentia at the White Rose Banquet in Washington, D.C.--an annual event organized by Bray to recognize those jailed for their (mostly violent) antiabortion activities, and attended by many in the extremist network (including McCoy in 1996).
"We're like circles that overlap," McCoy told me in an anteroom in the Sedgwick County Courthouse near where Scott Roeder was being sentenced on April 1, 2010. "We all don't know each other--we may not agree on a lot of things, like religion, say--but we're all completely committed to one purpose: stopping abortion."
"Uh-huh," Dinwiddie concurred, looking up from the character statement she was getting ready to give on Roeder's behalf. "That's right." |
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