WEBVTT - The Co-Conspirators: Dennis Mahon, Pt. 5 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:09.080 Col Zone Media. A little after six a m. On 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.280 June twenty fifth, two thousand and nine, there was a 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.400 knock at the door. Dennis Mayhan looked outside and saw 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.279 deputies from the Ogle County Sheriff's Office standing on the 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.840 stoop of his parents farmhouse, but he said he wasn't 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.920 coming out unless they had a warrant. A deputy held 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.640 up the paperwork copies of arrest warrants and search warrants 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.280 for the property, but Dennis still wouldn't open the door. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.080 Dennis Mayhan and his twin brother Daniel, were nearly sixty 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.440 years old, and neither man had a criminal record until 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:47.080 that day. Their elderly parents were asleep in their beds upstairs, 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.120 but agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.160 had briefed the deputies that morning before they all set 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.560 out for the Mayhon farm. Dennis had once told their 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.320 confidential informant quote, as long as I have my gun 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:06.039 and my ammunition, my final act will be a total, complete, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.440 violent act against the government. I'm going to be dying 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.640 with the gun in my hands. He was cordial enough 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.479 at the door, but as the sound of his footsteps 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.640 were seated the officers saw the blinds go up in 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.360 an upstairs window. The officers scattered, fearing the brothers had 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.400 chosen to open fire instead of opening the door, but 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.680 nothing happened. For half an hour. They tried making contact 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:38.200 with the brothers, but Dennis and Daniel didn't answer the phone. 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.839 They were busy making phone calls of their own. Most 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.000 of their friends failed to answer the phone so early 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.000 in the morning, but Dennis left a voicemail for Becca Stevens, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.960 or at least the woman he thought was Becca Stephens. 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.040 He would soon find out that his friend Becca was 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.000 an ATF informant whose real name was Rebecca Williams, and 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.760 he would later claim that he'd long suspected that she 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.080 wasn't who she said she was. But at dawn on 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.560 the day of his arrest, he called a woman he'd 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.360 been in love with for years and told her he 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:16.320 was considering going down shooting, but he didn't. At six 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.320 forty five a m A deputy tried Dennis's cell phone again, 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.680 this time from a number he wouldn't recognize. He picked 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.320 up and agreed to surrender. Officers entered the house and 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:34.280 arrested both brothers. They were just sitting calmly feet away 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.760 from a loaded AK forty seven lying on the table. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.120 For the next two hours, the brothers sat in a 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.080 van on their parents' front yard as ATF agent searched 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.720 the house. They didn't know it yet, but ATF agents 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.680 were searching the homes of their longtime friends Tom Metzker 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:54.840 in Indiana and Robert Joes in Missouri. Sitting side by side, 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.240 hands cuffed in their laps in a minivan, the twins 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:03.080 discussed their situation. Dennis seemed to regret his choice, saying 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.000 they should have had a shootout. Daniel seemed less ready 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.800 to die, asking his brother what good it would have 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.720 done to take out those agents. They were offered snacks 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.120 and drinks, and the air conditioning was on. They took 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.680 a few bathroom breaks, but mostly they sat and talked 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.240 to each other as the agent searched the house. They 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.800 speculated about what the agents might find him there, illegal 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:33.520 armor piercing rounds, ornography, white supremacist literature, guns, and bomb 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.760 making supplies. They worried about their mother, over whom they 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.560 had recently been appointed legal guardians due to her advancing 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:46.440 Alzheimer's disease, and they agreed that they'd stay silent. When 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.560 Denis climbed out of the van to stretch his legs, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.120 around nine thirty, there was a man in a suit 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.640 standing in his parents' front yard. He looked the man 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.119 up and down and said, you know, I think I've 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:03.000 seen you before, and atf Agent Tristan Morland, the man 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.240 Dennis had known up until that moment as a neo 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:14.400 Nazi named Jimmy the Wolf, answered, yes you have. I'm 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:35.480 Molly Conger. And this is weird little guys. This is 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:40.000 the last chapter of Dennis Mayhon's life. It has to be. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:42.880 It ends with a seventy four year old man who 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.120 isn't scheduled to get out of federal prison until he's 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:51.000 ninety three. He will almost certainly die there. And I 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.839 really didn't intend for this to become a five part series. 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:59.360 That's too many parts. Even with the cuts and compromises 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.920 I've made, there's still so much left to say about 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.440 the life this man led. But we can't let this 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.479 become the Dennis Mayhon Show. There are too many weird 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.919 little guys whose stories I've promised to tell you for 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.840 us to spend any more weeks on Dennis. But one 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.520 thing we keep discovering together on this show is that 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:24.040 no Weird Little Guy is an island. Their lives intersect 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:29.440 and intertwine and overlap. They share hate group affiliations, They 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.520 date the same women, their suspects, and the same crimes. 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.320 They attend the same cross burnings, and subscribe to each 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:39.800 other's racist newsletters. I found a photo this week of 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.600 Dennis Mayhon's White Berets at a clan rally in Tennessee 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:48.080 in nineteen ninety three, where the headline speaker was Past 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:53.839 Weird Little Guy's subject Berry Black. The influence their hate 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.320 and violence has on the world can be devastating, but 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:03.719 their worlds are actually pretty small, and through the lens 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.280 of Dennis's life, we've traveled through several decades of hate, 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.720 meeting side characters like the Tulsa Midtown boot Boys, a 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.560 neo Nazi skinhead band in Oklahoma that was linked to 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:19.360 years of racist violence. We followed Dennis to Germany, where 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.200 he stoked the flames of anti immigrant violence amidst a 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:26.520 resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. We met Carol Howe, 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.440 the first ATF informant that Dennis fell in love with, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.560 and we followed Carol and Dennis to Alohem City, a 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:39.719 white separatist compound with blurry connections to bombings and bank robberies. 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.400 A lot of the bit players in Dennis's story will 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.800 be back because they have whole stories of their own, too, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.920 like Daniel Rush, the bassist from the Midtown boot Boys, 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.520 a few years after we left him in the early nineties, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.360 after his stint in prison for racially motivated violence, Strated 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.120 a Nazi comic book that William Luther Pierce wrote for children. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.080 Or Wolfganroga, the German born neo Nazi Dennis was trying 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.520 to visit in Canada when he got deported in nineteen 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.960 ninety three. A few years before he invited Dennis to Toronto, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.800 he was a key player in a hair brained scheme 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:25.040 to overthrow the government of Dominika. That plan failed, but 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.680 in a roundabout way, it's why the Nazi message board 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:34.160 Stormfront exists. The website's founder, Don Black, learned how to 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.480 use a computer during his prison sentence for attempting to 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:42.040 coo the government of a Caribbean nation. So I think 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.320 maybe you can understand why I've had so much trouble 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:50.880 getting myself out of this rabbit hole. Admittedly, I often 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.280 find that I am completely at the mercy of my curiosity. 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.160 I have a list of episode topics ten pages long, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.720 and Dennis wasn't even on it. Back in November, I 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.760 was reading a book written by Kelvin Pierce, the son 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.120 of National Alliance founder William Luther Pierce. I was just 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.480 trying to squeeze in a little research where I could 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.240 for whenever the day comes that I try to tackle 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:20.520 that story. And I got fixated on the question of money. 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.920 If you can even remember back nearly two months ago. Now, 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.480 this all started with a question of money. William Luther 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.160 Pierce almost certainly paid for his West Virginia compound with 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.280 stolen cash given to him in nineteen eighty four by 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:42.720 Robert Matthews. But then I wanted to know what happened 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.199 to the other four million dollars those Nazis stole out 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.960 of the back of a brinkstruck. From there we got 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.439 to the three hundred thousand dollars that ended up in 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.160 the hands of Tom Metzger, the founder of White Arian Resistance. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.679 Have you ever read the children's book If You Give 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.320 a Moose a muffin? I think there's one about a 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.440 mouse and a cookie too. But when I was a kid, 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.480 I was a moose and muffin girl. Basically, the moose 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.760 asks for a muffin, but once he gets the muffin, 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.040 he realizes he needs jam to go with it, and 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.360 it's so delicious that when he's done, he wants to 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.160 go to the store to get more muffin ingredients, but 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.079 it's cold outside, so he needs to put on a 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.880 sweater to go to the store. But when he puts 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:26.880 on the sweater, he loses the button and he wants 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.200 to mend it, and before you know it, that one 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.480 little muffin has turned into an afternoon long ordeal that 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.640 has nothing at all to do with muffins. And that's 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.240 kind of where I am right now, except there's no 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:47.040 BlackBerry jam and there's a lot more hate crimes. Because 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.280 while I was digging around into what Tom Metzker's immediate 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.000 next move was after getting that mountain of cash, it 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.320 was his nineteen eighties public access TV show, And that's 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.360 where I first found Dennis. When we first encountered him, 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.440 he was a side character in someone else's story. He 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.200 was just one of many men around the country who 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.000 were trying to air copies of Tom Metzger's show on 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.440 their own local TV channels. I made a passing reference 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.520 to his story ending with a bomb and a prison sentence, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.040 but I didn't realize i'd find all of this in between. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.439 I figured it would be a quick one and done 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.720 follow up on the story of that bomb. It was 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.199 a pretty well publicized case, and maybe I wouldn't even 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.080 have to read any books or spend a lot of 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.319 money on court documents to get a good story out 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.600 of it. I have never been more wrong in my life. 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.560 So after nearly two months on this story, let's finally 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:54.880 get to the only bomb anybody ever proved Dennis Mayhon made. 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.160 In two thousand and four, a package bomb exploded in 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.959 the hands of Don Logan, director of Scottsdale, Arizona's Office 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.120 of Diversity and Dialogue. He and two other city employees 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:10.200 were injured. The Mayhon brothers were arrested in two thousand 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.920 and nine and went to trial in twenty twelve. The 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.520 jury found Dennis guilty, but acquitted his twin brother, Daniel. 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.600 I'm telling you the ending here at the beginning, because 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.560 this isn't an episode of Law and Order as easy 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.320 as it would be to tell you a straightforward story 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.160 of a trial, which is what I set out to 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.079 do two months ago. I drove myself to the brink 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:43.480 of madness instead, because those facts alone, that timeline raises 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:49.920 a really big question. What took so long? You might think. 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.520 The answer is, will investigations take time? Maybe they didn't 0:11:54.559 --> 0:12:01.640 know it was him, but they did almost immediately a 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.040 few months before the bombing, Dennis Mayhon was unhappy to 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.400 see that the city of Scottsdale was celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.800 so he called the Office of Diversity and Dialog to 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.040 share his feelings with them. He called from his own phone, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.520 and he introduced himself as Denis Mayhon of the White 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:26.520 Arian Resistance of Arizona. He left a rambling, racial slur 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:33.400 laden voicemail that ended kind of ominously quote, anyway, we've 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.000 got lots of support. The White Arian resistance is growing 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.800 in Scottsdale. There are a few white people who are 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:47.040 standing up. So Dennis Mayhon was on investigator's radar pretty quickly, 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.679 and his name was already very familiar to agents from 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.240 the ATF. They'd had their eye on Dennis for nearly 0:12:55.320 --> 0:13:00.120 twenty years, but it still took another year before they 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:04.520 began their undercover investigation into the Mayhun brothers. So at 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.160 this point you might be thinking, Okay, they've got their suspect, 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.839 they've got an undercover operation, but they're going to want 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.520 to get him dead to rights. And maybe it took 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.240 a long time for the informant to get him to 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:21.480 confess on tape another reasonable assumption, but you'd be wrong again. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.040 In January of two thousand and five, nearly a year 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.760 after the bombing, the Mayhun brothers were living in a 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.880 trailer park in Catoosa, Oklahoma. The ATF arranged for their informant, 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.120 Rebecca Williams, to move in a few trailers down and 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:42.520 try to befriend them. Within hours of this beautiful blonde 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.320 new neighbor's arrival on a Wednesday afternoon, the brothers were 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:51.000 drinking in her trailer with ATF agents listening in. In 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.720 their very first meeting, Dennis boasted about his long history 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.719 of bombings. Mid drinks, he ran back to his own 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.679 trainlor to get his photo album because he was eager 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.240 to show his new friend Rebecca pictures of him in 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.280 his clan robes. By the time the weekend rolled around. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.160 They were all drunk on Ever Clear, and the brothers 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:17.640 were regaling her with stories of bombings and drive by shootings. Daniel, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:22.600 the quieter brother, explained that when he blew up people's cars, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.440 it wasn't out of anger, it was a sense of duty. 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.920 Barely a week into their budding friendship, Rebecca told Dennis 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.920 a made up story about a child molester. She said 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:37.840 there was a man she knew who was molesting a 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.400 young relative of hers, and she wanted to hurt him. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:45.840 She was thinking of using a mail bomb. Dennis responded 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.040 by describing what kind of bomb a person might make 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.160 in such a scenario, and the bomb he described was 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.760 identical to the one that had blown up in Scottsdale. 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.280 In a conversation that took place inside her train, Tayler 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.400 captured on audio and video recording live streamed to agents 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.240 from the ATF, he said that he had successfully made 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.040 such a bomb and that it blew the fingers off 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:18.520 the diversity officer in Scottsdale, Arizona. Now he's probably drunk. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.760 He usually is, and he says things he shouldn't say 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.720 when he's drunk, and he backtracks pretty quickly, saying, actually, 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.160 he didn't build that bomb. It was the Scottsdale Police 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.960 Department who did that, but he'd taught them how to 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.240 do it. He would maintain for years that it was 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.800 in fact, disgruntled white police officers in Scottsdale who built 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:49.160 the bomb. The ATF did investigate those leads. Several employees 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.080 of the Scottsdale Police Department where polygraphed, their phones were tapped. 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.280 They were investigated and cleared, But that was the story 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:03.320 Dennis stuck with for a long time. But still here 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.240 he is on tape, just days into this undercover operation, 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:14.040 linking himself to that bomb. Within weeks, Dennis was taking 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.360 Rebecca to the gun show to buy the parts he'd 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.000 need to teach her how to build a bomb. Over 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:27.000 and over and over again for years, Dennis Mahon makes 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:32.640 incriminating statements on tape to a federal informant. He admits 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.640 to having machine guns and illegal silencers. He teaches her 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.040 how to make a letter bomb that will only injure 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.800 and not kill its recipient. They discuss the Scottsdale bomb often. 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.480 After she moves to Arizona, he asks her to mail 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.800 him news clippings about the ongoing investigation. A year into 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.920 their friendship, she sent him a news story where Don Logan, 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:01.280 the victim of that bombing, was interviewed. Afterwards, he called 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.520 her to talk about it, and he's clearly in a 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.159 rage to see that his victim is still carrying on 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.000 the work of the diversity office. He called Logan a 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.640 quote very arrogant bastard who just might get what's coming 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:19.240 to him again. And he said, quote, I just wanted 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.240 to teach the motherfucker a lesson the first time, and 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.240 there will be no lesson to learn a second time. 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.280 And it was still another three years after that phone 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:36.080 call before cops showed up on his front porch. What 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.360 could they possibly have been waiting for. They had enough 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.280 evidence to arrest him on a wide variety of federal charges, 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.159 and they clearly planned to because they kept pouring resources 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:56.680 into the investigation, but they waited four years. I think 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:02.440 the answer, though, is pretty simple. They had enough evidence 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:09.720 to arrest Dennis, but they didn't just want Dennis. In 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.520 last week's story, we flirted a little bit with conspiracy theory. 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.960 Carol Howe provided information to the ATF in nineteen ninety 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.600 four that Dennis mayhon was talking about blowing up a 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.800 federal building. A few months later, someone else actually did 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.520 blow up that federal building, but there was never anything 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:36.439 substantial that actually connected Dennis to the Oklahoma City bombing. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.080 There are a lot of unanswered questions, some of which 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.400 are aggravated by Dennis's own habit of getting drunk and 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.639 bragging about having been involved. But as far as the 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.960 official record goes, the only connection between Dennis Mayhon and 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.439 Timothy mcveay is that they possibly once met at a 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.760 gun show. This week, though we aren't talking about a 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:07.280 conspiracy theory, we're talking about conspiracy in the legal sense. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.080 In twenty twelve, a federal jury found Dennis Mayhon guilty 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:18.200 of three things, distribution of information about explosives, malicious damage 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.560 of a building by means of explosives, and conspiracy to 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:27.720 damage buildings in property by means of explosives. That's a 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.880 lot of words to say he talked about making a bomb, 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.520 planned to build a bomb, and set off a bomb. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:40.119 But the conspiracy charge is what I want to talk about. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.760 A criminal conspiracy is just an agreement between two or 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.560 more people to do something illegal. The conspirators discuss an 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:53.639 illegal act, they intend to commit this illegal act, and 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.280 at least one of them takes some kind of step 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.080 to carry the plan out. It's a little bit more 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.159 complicated than that, but this isn't a criminal law class, 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.520 so let's not get bogged down. The thing to understand 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.120 here is that a conspiracy requires more than one person. 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.640 In this case, the government did indict Dennis's twin brother Daniel, 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.280 on a single count of conspiracy, but the jury found 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:25.320 him not guilty. Two people is enough for a conspiracy, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.080 and these were the only two people who got charged 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.280 in this one. But the ATF's theory of the case 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:38.840 involved a much wider cast of characters, people all over 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:44.439 the country. Halfway through this investigation, Agent Morland filed an 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.680 application for a wire tap. In it, he reveals who 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.520 he thinks might be involved. An heir to a banking 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:54.800 fortune who is locked in a legal battle over his 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.720 family's charitable foundation. A pair of Nazi brothers who did 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:00.760 time in the eighties for a fouridi plot to blow 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.919 up an elementary school in Ohio. A Christian identity preacher 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.240 hiding machine guns and precious metals in caves on his 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:13.359 compound in the Ozarks, an infamous white nationalist leader and 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.520 a wealthy farmer from Illinois who once got us teeth 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:34.520 knocked out by Heraldo Rivera at a clan rally. We 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.920 should start with the bomb. At the end of last 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.680 week's episode, Dennis was at Arionfest and Phoenix, Arizona. It 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.360 was the end of January two thousand and four. Dennis 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.120 was fifty three years old and claimed to be retired 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.720 from the movement. He spent the weekend listening to white 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.879 power bands and speeches from movement leaders like his friend 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:01.520 Tom Metzger, Arian Nation's leader, Richard Butler, and Billy Roper, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:08.680 and he got really, really drunk. A reporter from the 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.080 Phoenix New Times overheard him bragging to some young neo 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.240 Nazis about having been involved with Timothy McVeigh. When the 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:18.840 article came out a few weeks later, Dennis left the 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:23.800 reporter several very trunk voicemails trying to explain to her 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.160 that he had actually been cleared in the investigation into 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.960 the Oklahoma City bombing, and he wanted her to make 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:34.359 that clear in the article. Tom Metzker, whose speech at 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.960 arian Fest included what you might interpret as incitement to 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:43.879 carry out bombings, also responded to the article, emailing the 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:51.040 reporter quote amusing article. If only you knew, but you will. 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.520 Years later, a man named Alan was arrested for defrauding 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:02.919 buyers on eBay. Alan Ellen wasn't at Arianfest. He's not 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.080 involved in any of this. I think he's just a 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.919 normal guy who did a pretty staggering amount of wire fraud. 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.520 But in two thousand and nine he was being held 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.960 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. Dennis Mahon was 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.919 there too. He'd just been arrested and he was awaiting 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:24.040 extradition to Arizona to be tried for the bombing, and 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.760 for a week in July two thousand and nine, Dennis 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:32.200 and Allen shared a sell. During their time together, Alan 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.959 asked Dennis what he was in for, and Dennis refused 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:40.280 to say. This prompted Alan to speculate that if you 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:44.920 won't say, it must be pedophilia, and that apparently made 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:48.879 Dennis angry enough to tell the truth. He said he 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:53.280 was in for making bombs, specifically that he was the 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:57.280 Scottsdale bomber. I think it's fair to say that you 0:23:57.320 --> 0:23:59.919 always have to take the story of a jailhouse informant 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.399 with a grain of salt. Allan was definitely hoping to 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.840 exchange this information for some consideration in his own case, 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:11.920 and ultimately he did. But from the time he claims 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.640 he had these conversations with Dennis, until he was interviewed 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:20.280 by federal agents about it, he was in seg He 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:25.280 wasn't involved in the movement, He had no connection to Scottsdale, Arizona. 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.359 I can't promise you that everything he said is true, 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:31.760 but I do think it's very safe to say that 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:37.200 everything he told those agents really was something Dennis told him, 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.000 because there's just no other way he could have produced 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:45.200 any of these details. Some of the things Dennis told 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:49.639 Alan are not true, but they are consistent with the 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:53.560 kinds of lies Dennis is known to tell. He boasted 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.560 about his friendship with Timothy McVeigh and even hinted that 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:59.000 he had been one of the John Does that witnesses 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:02.399 saw with McVeigh on the morning of the bombing. He 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.119 claimed to have opened fire on civilians during the Miami 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:08.800 riots in nineteen eighty and we've talked about both of 0:25:08.800 --> 0:25:12.200 those claims in previous episodes. These are lies that have 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:14.480 come up before, and I don't think either of those 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:18.840 things are true, but there are things that Dennis sometimes 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:22.840 wants you to think are true. He also told Alan 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:25.240 that he'd been on the phone with Tom Metzger on 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:27.840 the morning he was arrested, and that it had been 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:31.119 Tom Metzger who convinced him to surrender, telling him he 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:33.720 didn't need to go down shooting, that he'd get him 0:25:33.720 --> 0:25:39.159 out of this, and that may be true. Metzger certainly 0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:41.439 would not have wanted to end up charged in connection 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:45.280 with the deaths of a bunch of federal agents. The 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:51.719 other revelations from Alan are intriguing. By his account, Dennis 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:54.280 decided to build that bomb in February of two thousand 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:57.600 and four because he'd recently met a man that he 0:25:57.640 --> 0:26:04.080 wanted to impress. Alan couldn't remember anyone's names, but he 0:26:04.080 --> 0:26:07.240 says shortly before the bombing, Dennis met a man from 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.480 Europe who had recently been released from a prison in 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:15.239 the UK for blowing up a building. It struck me 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:19.600 as completely extraneous at first, but this next detail is 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:24.240 the most important one. He mentions that the man was Protestant. 0:26:25.440 --> 0:26:28.800 This is all very vague. This sounds like it could 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:32.359 be nothing, but hear me out because I'm going to 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:36.880 do a little wild speculation based in half a day 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:42.040 of wasted research. Let's go back to arian Fest two 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:45.720 thousand and four for a second. It takes a lot 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:48.280 of work to pull off a Nazi picnic, so there 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:52.000 were several groups involved in planning the event. It was 0:26:52.080 --> 0:26:55.480 organized mainly by a group called Folksfront, but that's not 0:26:55.560 --> 0:27:01.280 important right now. A lot of the on the ground logistics, camping, food, 0:27:01.800 --> 0:27:09.679 communication were handled by women. Obviously, specifically, it was a 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:14.600 group called Women for Aaryan Unity. The group's newsletter indicates 0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:19.000 that they had active chapters in several US cities and 0:27:19.080 --> 0:27:23.520 in Dublin. But I didn't need their newsletter to tell 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:27.199 me that the Women for Aaryan Unity probably know some 0:27:27.440 --> 0:27:33.399 Ulster loyalists. Victoria Cayhill was living in Colorado by the 0:27:33.440 --> 0:27:36.840 time she was responsible for the Women for Arian Unity's newsletter, 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:41.639