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Speaker 1: Coo Zone Media. There was a little bit of snow

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Speaker 1: on the ground as Rebecca Williams pulled her rental car

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Speaker 1: up to a padlocked gate at the end of a

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Speaker 1: gravel driveway near Big Sugar Creek State Park in southwest Missouri.

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Speaker 1: She was already three years into living as Becca Stevens,

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Speaker 1: an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,

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Speaker 1: so she was no stranger to strange conversations with dangerous men.

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Speaker 1: But she was flying without an Nette this time. The

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Speaker 1: AGF agents were sending her in alone.

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Speaker 2: They were very.

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Speaker 1: Curious about what was going on at this two hundred

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Speaker 1: acre compound in the Ozarks, but they couldn't get close.

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Speaker 1: The area was so remote they wouldn't even be able

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Speaker 1: to listen in during her visit, and wearing a wire

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Speaker 1: was out of the question. Anyway. She'd be dead before

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Speaker 1: the agents reached that locked gate if she was found out.

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Speaker 1: Before she left her briefing that morning, an ATF agent

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Speaker 1: clipped a small recording device to her keychain and tied

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Speaker 1: a bright pink ribbon in her hair. The ribbon was

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Speaker 1: so they could see her on aerial surveillance. They said

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Speaker 1: it was January of two thousand and eight, when Rebecca

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Speaker 1: visited that Missouri compound owned by Robert Joe's. He chatted

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Speaker 1: idly about bomb making as he gave her a tour

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Speaker 1: of his property, pointing out hidden entrances to the caves

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Speaker 1: where he stored caches of weapons and survival foods. He

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Speaker 1: told her that if anybody ever betrayed his confidence, they'd

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Speaker 1: just disappear into one of those caves. As the ice

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Speaker 1: crunched softly under her boots in the woods, Rebecca wondered

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Speaker 1: if that pink ribbon in her hair was only there

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Speaker 1: to help identify her body. This was her first of

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Speaker 1: several visits with Robert Joe's, a man preaching a dangerous

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Speaker 1: mix of apocalyptic Christianity and sovereign citizen anti government extremism

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Speaker 1: from his compound in the Ozarks. In nineteen ninety four,

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Speaker 1: of his followers shot a Missouri state trooper who had

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Speaker 1: arrested Jo's on a misdemeanor charge. In two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: the morning a bomb went off inside the Office of

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Speaker 1: Diversity and Dialog in Scottsdale, Arizona, Robert Joe's was the

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Speaker 1: first person the bomber called, and it was that bomber

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Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon who had introduced Rebecca to Robert Joe's as

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Speaker 1: Becca Stevens. She'd developed a close friendship with Dennis Mayhon

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Speaker 1: and his twin brother Daniel, so close, in fact, that

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Speaker 1: Dennis had fallen desperately in love with her. He begged

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Speaker 1: her to let his twin brother impregnate her. He was impotent,

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Speaker 1: but he reasoned that if his identical twin got her pregnant,

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Speaker 1: the resulting baby would still be his biological child. Over

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Speaker 1: the years on this undercover assignment, the brothers had told

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Speaker 1: her on several occasions that if things ever got bad

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Speaker 1: for them, this is where they would go. They could

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Speaker 1: hole up in those caves where no one would ever

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Speaker 1: find them. Rebecca Williams was not the first ATF informant

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Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon had fallen in love with. It was his

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Speaker 1: relationship with Carol Howe, a Tulsa debutante turned Nazi turned

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Speaker 1: in foremant turned Nazi again that inspired ATF agent Tristan

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Speaker 1: Morland to hire an exotic dancer to woo Mayhon into

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Speaker 1: confessing to that two thousand and four bombing in Arizona.

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Speaker 1: But unlike Carol Howe's testimony about Mahon's possible ties to

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Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing. Rebecca's work paid off. She put

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Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon in federal prison for building a bomb. I'm

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Speaker 1: Molly Conger, and this is weird, little guys. When we

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Speaker 1: left off last week, it was nineteen ninety. Dennis Mayhon

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Speaker 1: was leading a clan splinter group called the White Knights

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Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan, and he was Tom Metzker's

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Speaker 1: right hand man in the White Arean Resistance. After spending

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Speaker 1: most of the nineteen eighties underground years he spent by

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Speaker 1: his own account, carrying out minor acts of terror for

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Speaker 1: the clan, bombing federal office buildings, abortion clinics, and synagogues.

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Speaker 1: He'd emerged as a figure of some importance in the clan.

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Speaker 1: He'd just won a legal battle against the city council

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Speaker 1: in Kansas City over his right to broadcast a public

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Speaker 1: access television show called Klansas City Cable, and public access

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Speaker 1: television wasn't the only medium the White Knights of the

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Speaker 1: KKK were using to reach people in Missouri. Mayhon's fondness

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Speaker 1: for telephone hotlines will come up again a bit later.

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Speaker 1: He was known to run a dial a racist operation.

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Speaker 1: It's not an uncommon tactic, particularly in the pre internet days.

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Speaker 1: Someone with a message she wants to get out can

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Speaker 1: set up a voicemail box and pass out flyers or

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Speaker 1: business cards with the phone number on it. Interested party

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Speaker 1: call the number and listen to the recording. It's sort

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Speaker 1: of like a private on demand radio show. The original

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Speaker 1: podcast I guess it came up in the Very Black

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Speaker 1: episodes back in October two. Black's clan hotline was used

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Speaker 1: for clan announcements about upcoming events. But in October of

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, Dennis Mayhon wasn't handing out his clan hotline

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Speaker 1: number to white guys at bars that he hoped to

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Speaker 1: recruit his organization. He was targeting children. According to his

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Speaker 1: statement from the director of the Kansas City YWCA, students

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Speaker 1: at area elementary and middle schools were given a number

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Speaker 1: to call to hear a message from the host of

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Speaker 1: a popular children's television show. Nothing I could find elaborated

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Speaker 1: on that at all. It's unclear if flyers had been

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Speaker 1: posted at or near schools or playgrounds, or if someone

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Speaker 1: had actually physically approached elementary schoolers with this material. Either

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Speaker 1: possibility unsettling, but however, they got it. The children called

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Speaker 1: a number to hear a message from the host of

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Speaker 1: Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Mister Rogers himself after a tiny rendition

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Speaker 1: of the theme song from the TV show. The children

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Speaker 1: did not hear the warm, familiar voice of Fred Rogers. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it was a clansman imitating his voice and mannerisms, delivering

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Speaker 1: a foul message of bigotry. In one message, this false

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Speaker 1: mister Rogers mocks gay people, calling aid's divine retribution from

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Speaker 1: God to punish them. In another, the voice tells a

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Speaker 1: story about a young black boy on a playground. The

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Speaker 1: message is riddled with racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and

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Speaker 1: the story ends with the description of the little boy

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Speaker 1: being lynched. It's a horrifying thought that a child would

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Speaker 1: hear that at all, But if you're old enough to

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Speaker 1: have watched Mister Rogers Neighborhood TV when you were a kid,

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Speaker 1: you know that adds a whole extra layer to this.

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Speaker 1: The show ran for over thirty years from the late

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Speaker 1: sixties until two thousand and one. Generations of kids loved

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Speaker 1: and trusted mister Rogers. The show talked to kids like

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Speaker 1: they were people, tackling difficult subjects gently and in a

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Speaker 1: way that was appropriate for preschoolers and older kids alike.

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Speaker 1: Often through song, mister Rogers talked to kids about divorce, death, anger, grief,

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Speaker 1: and friendship. And even if you've never seen the show,

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Speaker 1: you've surely heard one of his more enduring lessons to

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Speaker 1: look for the helpers, telling kids in uncertain times. When

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Speaker 1: I was a boy and I would see scary things

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Speaker 1: in the news, my mother would say to me, look

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Speaker 1: for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping.

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Speaker 1: And he wasn't afraid to make waves in his own

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Speaker 1: gentle way. In nineteen sixty nine, when public swimming pools

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Speaker 1: in much of the country were still segregated in practice,

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Speaker 1: if not by law, mister Rogers shared a waiting pool

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Speaker 1: with Francois Clemons, one of the first African American actors

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Speaker 1: to have a recurring role on a children's TV show.

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Speaker 2: Oh there's offscer Clemens, high offser clements.

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Speaker 1: Come in.

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Speaker 2: How are you mine?

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Speaker 3: Won't you sit down?

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Speaker 1: Oh?

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Speaker 3: Sure, just for a moment.

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Speaker 2: It's so warm. I was just putting some water on

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Speaker 2: my feet.

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Speaker 3: Oh it sure is.

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Speaker 2: Would you like to join me?

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Speaker 3: It looks often enjoyable. But I don't have a towel

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Speaker 3: or anything. Oh, you share mine? Okay, sure, I lie,

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Speaker 3: I'll put some more water in here.

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Speaker 1: Oh. Without mentioning race or segregation at all, Fred Rogers

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Speaker 1: showed kids that there was nothing unusual about cooling off

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Speaker 1: on a hot day with a friend whose skin isn't

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Speaker 1: the same color as yours. The episode aired shortly after

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Speaker 1: the show began filming in color, and the camera zooms

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Speaker 1: in close on their bare feet, black and white, side

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Speaker 1: by side in the blue wading pool. It doesn't sound

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Speaker 1: like much now, but it was a significant barrier to

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Speaker 1: break on TV in nineteen sixty nine. All that to say,

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Speaker 1: Fred Rogers was probably very upset when he heard children

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Speaker 1: were hearing hateful words in his voice. Within days of

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Speaker 1: the story reaching the media, mister Rogers himself had filed

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the clan. There was a press conference

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Speaker 1: in Kansas City on a Friday afternoon, with local civil

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Speaker 1: rights groups and faith leaders condemning the messages, and by

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Speaker 1: Monday morning, an army of entertainment lawyers had descended on

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Speaker 1: the Federal Court House in Kansas City. The ACLU didn't

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Speaker 1: rush to the clan's defense. This time they were on

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Speaker 1: their own. Had the Klan not used the theme song

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Speaker 1: from Mister Rogers Neighborhood, this may have dragged on and

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Speaker 1: become another battle over free speech. But the suit wasn't

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Speaker 1: about the vile and offensive content of the messages. It

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Speaker 1: was about copyright infringement. You can trick children into hearing

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Speaker 1: violent racist propaganda, but you can't mess with the corporation's

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Speaker 1: intellectual property. Klansman Edward Stevens, Fourth, Adam Troy Mercer, and

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Speaker 1: Michael Brooks settled almost immediately. Dennis Mayhon wasn't sued by name,

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Speaker 1: but he signed the settlement agreement as the representative for

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Speaker 1: the White Knights. The court ordered the men to destroy

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Speaker 1: all copies of the tapes they'd used to record and

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Speaker 1: disseminate the messages. Not long after making that trip to

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Speaker 1: the Federal court House in Kansas City to sign the paperwork,

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Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon appeared again in federal court, but this time

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Speaker 1: it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it wasn't for his

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Speaker 1: own case. He took the stand as a character witness

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Speaker 1: at a detention hearing for a friend. It isn't unusual

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Speaker 1: to have someone testify on your behalf at this sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. When the government wants to hold someone in

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Speaker 1: custody before they go to trial, all party involved appear

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Speaker 1: before a judge and make their case. The government explains

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Speaker 1: why they think pretrialed attention is necessary, whether because they

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Speaker 1: believe the defendant will fail to show up for court

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Speaker 1: or because there's a significant chance they'll commit another crime,

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Speaker 1: and the defendant's lawyer may put on a parent or

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Speaker 1: an employer to vouch for him, offering testimony about their

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Speaker 1: ties to the community, their responsibilities at home and work,

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Speaker 1: and things like that. I'm not a lawyer. We've been

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Speaker 1: over that, so maybe there's a strategy here that I'm

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Speaker 1: just not getting. But if I were choosing character witnesses

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Speaker 1: to convince a judge that I'm not a danger to

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Speaker 1: the community, I wouldn't pick a prominent leader of the

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Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan. But that's just me though, because Daniel

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Speaker 1: Rouche did. When Dennis took the stand in December of

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, he called Daniel Ruche quote the most honorable,

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Speaker 1: non violent, decent young man I've ever met in my life,

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Speaker 1: and he said his friend probably would prefer not to

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Speaker 1: live around minorities, but quote, I don't think he'd hurt them.

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Speaker 1: Daniel Rouge was one of fifteen members of a Nazi

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Speaker 1: skinhead group arrested in Oklahoma in nineteen ninety on hate

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Speaker 1: crime charges. For years, the skinheads had been harassing patrons

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Speaker 1: at Club Nitro, a punk club in Tulsa owned by

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Speaker 1: Khaled Rahal, a Lebanese immigrant. In nineteen eighty nine, they

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Speaker 1: waited in the parking lot until the bar closed and

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Speaker 1: attacked Rahl, beating him with a brick. A month later,

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Speaker 1: they set fire to the club with Molotov cocktails. Later

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Speaker 1: that year, Rush and at least a dozen others jumped

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Speaker 1: a patron in the parking lot, kicking him with their

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Speaker 1: steel toed boots until the teenager lost consciousness. This particular act,

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Speaker 1: a group assault with a heavy emphasis on kicking the

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Speaker 1: victim in the head, is called a boot party, and

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Speaker 1: the kind of guy who likes to have a boot

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Speaker 1: party is sometimes called a boot boy, which is why

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Speaker 1: Rouge's band was called the Midtown boot Boys, a name

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Speaker 1: you may remember from last week. The Midtown boot Boys

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Speaker 1: were the headline act at Aaryan Fest nineteen eighty eight

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Speaker 1: that racist woodstock that Tom Metzger held on a farm

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Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. And it turns out that concert in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight wasn't a one off thing. When I mentioned

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Speaker 1: it last week, it was really just because I saw

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Speaker 1: it in an old issue of Metzger's newsletter, and I

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Speaker 1: thought the name was funny. I didn't expect to spend

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Speaker 1: all week learning about an OI band from Oklahoma, But

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Speaker 1: apparently Metzger was a huge supporter of the Midtown boot Boys.

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Speaker 1: A year after that inaugural riyan Fest, Metzger invited them

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Speaker 1: to headline an event he was calling aryan Woodstock in Napa, California.

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Speaker 1: The event ended a day early due to poor attendance

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Speaker 1: and cold, and the band played Arianfest again a few

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Speaker 1: months later. In nineteen eighty nine, issues of Metzger's White

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Speaker 1: Arian Resistance newsletter offered the band's tapes for sale. In

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Speaker 1: his cultural history of the Skinhead movement, professor Jack Moore

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00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 1: describes a nineteen eighty eight recording of Metzger hawking the

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Speaker 1: tapes in one of his weekly addresses, writing that Metzger

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Speaker 1: sounds hopelessly square when he describes the album as a

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Speaker 1: hot tape. A local paper in Tulsa noted in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight that the Midtown boot Boys weren't just a

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Speaker 1: punk band. They were the center of skinhead organizing and

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Speaker 1: recruitment in the Tulsa area, and the skinheads they rolled

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Speaker 1: with called themselves war Skins, denoting their affiliation with Metzgers

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Speaker 1: White Arian resistance. That article refers to the local skinhead

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Speaker 1: leader as a man named Rip, which was the pseudonym

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Speaker 1: used by Daniel Rusche. The Oklahoma Separatist, a racist magazine

241
00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:21,120
Speaker 1: published by Oklahoma clansman Joe Grego, named Daniel Rusche Racist

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Speaker 1: of the Month in their July nineteen eighty eight issue,

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00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:29,040
Speaker 1: offering praise for his music, artwork, and propensity for violence.

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Speaker 2: Rip works diligently in the field of skinhead recruiting. He

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Speaker 2: is a longtime veteran of the Tulsa streets and is

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Speaker 2: well known for his hard driven lifestyle. Rip support of

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Speaker 2: the KKK War and the Aryan Nations have been exemplary,

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Speaker 2: and yes, girls, he is a single man. We feel

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Speaker 2: that his example is a fine one for others to follow.

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Speaker 1: This mentioned in nineteen eighty eight of Ruche being a

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Speaker 1: skinhead organizer who is also active in the Clan whit

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Speaker 1: Aan resistance and the Aryan Nations is fascinating. You might

253
00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:08,680
Speaker 1: just slide right over a description like that, lots of

254
00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:10,600
Speaker 1: guys are in more than one hate group, what's so

255
00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:15,920
Speaker 1: special about that? But this is unique, This silly little

256
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,600
Speaker 1: racist of the Month column actually captures a turning point

257
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Speaker 1: in the movement. Tiffany Travis's History of the American Skinhead

258
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 1: Movement notes that skinheads in Tulsa were the first to

259
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:32,920
Speaker 1: openly affiliate with paramilitary groups and the Aryan Nations. She

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00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:36,280
Speaker 1: doesn't name the Midtown boot Boys in particular, but she's

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00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:40,240
Speaker 1: talking about Tulsa in nineteen eighty eight. She's talking about

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00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:45,360
Speaker 1: Daniel Rusche. In nineteen eighty seven. Tom Metzker started trying

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00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 1: to organize skinheads in California. The first chapter of War

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00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,240
Speaker 1: Skins started out there in nineteen eighty seven, and a

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Speaker 1: year later we're seeing these local news reports in Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: about Tulsa's Skins calling themselves war Skins. Travis's book credits

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00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:04,840
Speaker 1: Metzker as being the first big name white supremacist to

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Speaker 1: embrace the potential of skinhead culture and welcome them into

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Speaker 1: the movement. Metzger has quoted saying, I give them guidance

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00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:15,679
Speaker 1: on the law to stay out of trouble, and I

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00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,600
Speaker 1: give them our ideology. They have their own subculture and

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00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: tampering with it would destroy it. Metzger helped skinhead groups

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Speaker 1: set up post office boxes to use for recruitment and

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Speaker 1: networking with other racist organizations, and he set up White

275
00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:36,000
Speaker 1: Arean resistance phone lines in their cities. By the late eighties,

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00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:39,400
Speaker 1: leaderless resistance was the name of the game, and Metzger

277
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:43,199
Speaker 1: thought he could use Race's skinheads to his advantage. They

278
00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,960
Speaker 1: would spread his message, attract rowdy, youthful audiences he could

279
00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:50,199
Speaker 1: recruit from, and they would carry out acts of racist

280
00:17:50,280 --> 00:17:54,520
Speaker 1: violence that wouldn't trace directly back to him. He quickly

281
00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:58,200
Speaker 1: realized he'd made a mistake, though, In nineteen eighty eight,

282
00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:03,040
Speaker 1: war Skins in Portland murder Mulagetta Sarah. By nineteen eighty nine,

283
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:07,200
Speaker 1: war Skins in California, Texas, and Oklahoma were committing hate

284
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Speaker 1: crimes at an alarming rate, and the FBI was starting

285
00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:14,480
Speaker 1: to round them up. He'd been trying to quietly extricate

286
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,320
Speaker 1: himself from the skinhead movement when a lawsuit brought by

287
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:21,320
Speaker 1: Mulagetta Sara's family took him for everything. He had a

288
00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:27,000
Speaker 1: jury in Oregon didn't buy the leaderless resistance defense. Travis's

289
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:31,320
Speaker 1: book attributes this effort to organized skinheads directly to Metzger personally,

290
00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:36,440
Speaker 1: and that's fair, it's accurate. It was being done at

291
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,439
Speaker 1: his direction, and when it started in California, he had

292
00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:43,959
Speaker 1: a personal role in it. But the person actually directly

293
00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:48,600
Speaker 1: responsible for organizing the Skins in Oklahoma was almost certainly

294
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:55,439
Speaker 1: Metzger's Midwest lieutenant Dennis Mayhon. By nineteen ninety, Dennis Mayhon

295
00:18:55,520 --> 00:19:00,399
Speaker 1: had moved to Catusa, just outside of Tulsa, and all sudden,

296
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,160
Speaker 1: the local skinheads have ties to the clan, the Aryan

297
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:09,320
Speaker 1: Nations and White Aryan Resistance, just like Dennis. And when

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00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:13,080
Speaker 1: Tulsa's Skinheads got rounded up by the FBI, there's Dennis

299
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:16,119
Speaker 1: on the witness stand, testifying that he'd been friends with

300
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:21,120
Speaker 1: Daniel Rouge for years. In his own newsletter later that month,

301
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:24,440
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon said he was organizing local clansmen to sell

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00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 1: their guns to raise money for Ruche's defense, but there

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00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,600
Speaker 1: would be no defense. Despite Dennis Mayhan's confident statements to

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00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,760
Speaker 1: the press that the case was pure persecution of the

305
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 1: skinheads for their beliefs. Daniel Rushe entered a guilty plea

306
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:42,639
Speaker 1: in January nineteen ninety one and was sentenced to forty

307
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:46,480
Speaker 1: two months with time served in good behavior. He was

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00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:50,680
Speaker 1: released in November of nineteen ninety three. Unfortunately for the

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00:19:50,760 --> 00:19:53,720
Speaker 1: Midtown boot Boys, though they only got their basist back.

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00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:58,040
Speaker 1: The band's vocalist, Christopher Jones, received a slightly longer sentence,

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Speaker 1: and he had to serve time for an assault brought

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00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: by the state of Oklahoma first. One of the other

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00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:07,560
Speaker 1: skinheads sentenced alongside them, a man named Michael Lewis Lawrence,

314
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:11,720
Speaker 1: was given nine years on top of the four years

315
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 1: he was already serving in Texas for a separate hate

316
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:18,720
Speaker 1: crimes case involving skinheads in Dallas. When Lawrence went to

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00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:21,760
Speaker 1: trial in Texas, one of his co conspirators testified that

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00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 1: they had been attempting to re enact Christallnacht on the

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00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:28,400
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the nineteen thirty eight pograms in Germany.

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00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:32,440
Speaker 1: When the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions

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00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:36,240
Speaker 1: in the Texas case, the opinion notes that Aryanfest eighty

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00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 1: eight was a pivotal moment writing. After defendants attended an

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Speaker 1: Aryan fest in June nineteen eighty eight, during which various

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00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:48,399
Speaker 1: speakers encouraged skinhead groups to become the backbone and foot

325
00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:52,040
Speaker 1: soldiers of the white supremacist movement, the group became more

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00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:57,200
Speaker 1: determined to use violence to achieve its philosophical objectives. That

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00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:02,960
Speaker 1: speaker was Tom Metzker. At that hearing in nineteen ninety

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00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 1: to determine if Daniel Rouge could be granted bond on

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00:21:05,520 --> 00:21:09,399
Speaker 1: charges of racially motivated assault, he admitted to the judge

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Speaker 1: that he had written the lyrics quote throw a boot

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Speaker 1: party for the left wing commie scum end quote we

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00:21:18,359 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 1: find a drunken n word and beat him black and blue,

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00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:29,360
Speaker 1: lyrics that do describe the crimes he's accused of. From

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00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: what I can piece together of the band's discography, the

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00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 1: track Tulsa Tonight, which seems to describe the crimes half

336
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:40,800
Speaker 1: the band went to prison for, was actually recorded after

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00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: they served their time An Me Die Tonight.

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Speaker 3: Their streets are off, shined up light to find the

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00:21:53,520 --> 00:22:00,959
Speaker 3: streets up all night, shine up light to find all

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00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 3: of that.

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00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: I may be a bit prejudiced in my assessment of

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00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 1: the band's music in part because the lyrics are violently racist,

343
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:19,159
Speaker 1: but also I'm just not a huge fan of OI music,

344
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: this particular subgenre of punk. It all kind of sounds

345
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:27,400
Speaker 1: the same to me. I watched several hours of footage

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00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: from aran Fest nineteen eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine,

347
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 1: and honestly, I couldn't actually tell which of the acts

348
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 1: was the Midtown boot Boys because they all sound the

349
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,439
Speaker 1: same to me. Track listings for their tapes show songs

350
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 1: with titles like blood Will Run and Downright Hateful. When

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00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,679
Speaker 1: Hitler's deputy fear Rudolph hess died, they honored him with

352
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: a song called sleep Well Rudolph Hesse, and they praised

353
00:22:57,320 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: the crimes of the Nazi terrorist group The Order in

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00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:04,119
Speaker 1: their song Free the Order. The band had to go

355
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 1: on hiatus in nineteen ninety one because Daniel Ruche, the bassist,

356
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: and Christopher Jones, the vocalist, both went to prison after

357
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to civil rights violations and hate crimes. When

358
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:17,719
Speaker 1: Rouche got out in nineteen ninety three, he and the drummer,

359
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 1: a man named Stacy, started a metal band called Berserker,

360
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 1: playing under that name until getting the Midtown boot Boys

361
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,120
Speaker 1: back together. When Jones was released in nineteen ninety six.

362
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,880
Speaker 1: It's not completely clear when Stacy became the band's drummer,

363
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,480
Speaker 1: but it must have been after their previous drummer testified

364
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: against the Skinheads in Texas. As of twenty thirteen, Christopher

365
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: Jones owed Daniel Ruche's sister more than sixteen thousand dollars

366
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: in child support, and I can't find any information about

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00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,159
Speaker 1: whether or not her restraining order against Jones impacted the

368
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 1: band at all. It really was a family affair, though.

369
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: Shortly after Daniel Rusche got out of prison, he married

370
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: Boot Boy's guitar as Tony Loretti's sister. But this is

371
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: an episode about Dennis Mayhon, and I don't think Dennis

372
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: Mayhon was ever in a punk band. In footage of

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00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,960
Speaker 1: the Midtown boot Boys set at arian Fest nineteen eighty nine,

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00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: the camera pans slowly over a solidly middle aged looking

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00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:23,679
Speaker 1: Dennis bobbing his head slightly offbeat. I couldn't find the

376
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: end of this thread, but it seems like Dennis Mahon

377
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: didn't stay friends with the Skinheads forever. An article published

378
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 1: by the Southern Poverty Law Center in nineteen ninety nine

379
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: makes a passing mention of the time that Dennis Mayhon

380
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: was beaten and stabbed by a group of skinheads in Georgia,

381
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: but it doesn't say when that happened. In nineteen ninety,

382
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 1: a young race assist in Germany wrote Dennis Mayhan a letter.

383
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: Carston Sepanski was a twenty year old skinhead from Berlin.

384
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: He was sharing an apartment with Andreas Pohl, a Nazi

385
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 1: skinhead who'd spent most of the eighties as the drummer

386
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: in one of Germany's oldest skinhead bands, Kraft der Freude,

387
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: and by the early nineties Pohl was leading the German

388
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: neo Nazi group Nationalist Front. It's not clear in any

389
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,200
Speaker 1: of the sources I could find exactly how Sepanski came

390
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 1: to write to Mahon, but it's possible that Pole's connections

391
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: with skinhead bands in Britain and the United States played

392
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: a part. Soon after they began exchanging letters, Sepanski began

393
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 1: publishing a clan style newsletter called Dos Feuerkreutz or The

394
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: Fiery Cross. It had a bit of original material information

395
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: about immigrants in Germany that would be of interest to

396
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: a German neo Nazi, but it was almost entirely just

397
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: translated articles taken from Dennis Mayhan's clan newsletter called The

398
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: White Beret. This wasn't the first time American clan influence

399
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: had reached Germany, but most of the earlier hotspots of

400
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: clan activity in Germany connect back to American service members

401
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: stationed at US military bases there. In the nineteen sixties,

402
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: the spokesman for the clan in Germany was a U.

403
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: S Army officer stationed in Bavaria. In the early eighties,

404
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: the leader of the clan in Germany was an American

405
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,919
Speaker 1: Air Force sergeant named Murray Cockel. But in nineteen ninety

406
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: one there was a new clan in town. In April

407
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: of that year, two hundred Neo Nazisan skinheads arrived in

408
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: the German town of Hereford. They were there to celebrate

409
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: Hitler's birthday. A few months later, three teenagers were arrested

410
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 1: Innuenrata for throwing rocks at a building that was home

411
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 1: to Turkish and Albanian immigrants. Police confiscated pistols and Molotov cocktails,

412
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: and one of them had stickers in his pocket bearing

413
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: recruitment information for a clan chapter in Bielefeld. The Beilafeld

414
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 1: chapter seems to have been under the direction of bern Schmidt,

415
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 1: but in Berlin Carston Sepanski was calling himself the Grand

416
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 1: Dragon of the German White Knights of the ku Klux Klan.

417
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen ninety one, there were more

418
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 1: than two hundred arson attacks targeting immigrants in Germany, focused

419
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: mainly on housing facilities for asylum seekers. The attacks culminated

420
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: in the Heierz Verda riots in September, after a group

421
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: of young Neo Nazis was arrested for attacking a Vietnamese

422
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 1: street vendor. The group retaliated by attacking a hostel that

423
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: housed Mozambicon contract workers. Over the next week, the violence escalated.

424
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: An apartment building that housed asylum seekers was bombed. The

425
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: German government responded by evacuating all of the asylum seekers

426
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: in Heuierz Verde. Other immigrants left on their own, no

427
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: longer feeling safe from the town the racist had won.

428
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 1: They declared hoyersvada ouslander fry free of foreigners. The violence

429
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: was contagious. It wasn't just happening in heuers Verde, and

430
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 1: the days that followed hundreds of Romanians fled Leipzig. A

431
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: dozen Neo Nazis were arrested in Hereford after bombing several

432
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: cars outside of a home for asylum seekers. A Ghanian

433
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: man was burned to death in saw Louis when his

434
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: apartment was firebombed. And that's what was happening in Germany.

435
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: When Denis Mahon got off a plane in Frankfurt, he

436
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: took a nine day, twenty five city tour of Germany

437
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: at the end of September of nineteen ninety one, at

438
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: the invitation of Carston Sepanski. After visiting the Reichstag building

439
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: in Berlin, Dennis said, quote, it was very inspiring to

440
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: walk up the same steps that Adolf Hitler walked up.

441
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: When Mahon mced a cross burning an hour south of Berlin,

442
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: the heiers Verda riots were on going. As the cross burned,

443
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: he told the assembled crowd of a few dozen German

444
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: Neo Nazis that the violence in Heerz Verde was a

445
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: great victory for Germany. He later explained to a reporter

446
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: that the cross burning quote called up the spirits of

447
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: the Vaffiness and the Teutonic Knights. The next day, Carson

448
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: Sepanski drove Dennis Mayhon to Sarbruken, where they attended a

449
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: Screwdriver concert. After the show, he met with Ian Stewart Donaldson,

450
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: the frontman of the Nazi punk band, and gave him

451
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: a white beret, the symbol of Dennis's clan group. I

452
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: did find contemporary reporting about this trip from both American

453
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: and German news outlets. I read accounts of this trip

454
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: in several books and tracked down the sources those authors

455
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: cited and read those two. But the most thorough accounting

456
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: of Dennis Mayhon's trip to Germany was written by Dennis himself.

457
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: After an exhaustive effort to locate issues of his newsletter

458
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: The White Beret, I only found one. I know was

459
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: published for years, from maybe nineteen eighty nine through at

460
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: least nineteen ninety five. But I only found one issue,

461
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: the December nineteen ninety one January nineteen ninety two issue.

462
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: And I didn't find it in a university special collection

463
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: or a library database of old extremist literature. I didn't

464
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: find it on the Internet archive or in some old

465
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: ADL special report. The person who held on to a

466
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: hard copy of this old clan newsletter for three decades

467
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: was Dennis Mayhon's twin brother, Daniel Mayhon, and in twenty

468
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: twenty two, this issue was among the archival materials that

469
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: Daniel Mayhon provided to an Adam Waffen splinter group that

470
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: was trying to digitize and preserve important artifacts of right

471
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: wing terrorist history. Not to spoil the ending, but Daniel

472
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: Mayhon was arrested and charged in connection with that two

473
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: thousand and four bombing in Arizona, but unlike his brother,

474
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: he was acquitted. Daniel Mayhon is legally speaking, completely innocent.

475
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: He's never been convicted of a crime. So I'm very

476
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: intrigued by this relatively recent contact he seems to have

477
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: had with today's aspiring Nazi terrorists. I wonder how often

478
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: they talk. That lone issue of the White Beret that

479
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: I was able to find goes into great detail about

480
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon's travels. In September of nineteen ninety one, he

481
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: describes his visit to the site of the Saxenhausen concentration camp,

482
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: writing that he quote had a real laugh at the

483
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: wild stories, and he says that compared to American prisons,

484
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: the work the camp was closer to a Marriott or

485
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: a Hilton. He claims to have urinated on a memorial

486
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: to Holocaust victims that was placed at the site of

487
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: the camp's crematorium. The newsletter also includes an advertisement for

488
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: Bob Matthew's memorial t shirts honoring Robert J. Matthews, the

489
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: leader of the Order who died in a standoff with

490
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: the FBI in nineteen eighty four. The shirts cost just

491
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars, payable by money order to a man named

492
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 1: Drew in Ontario. Readers were also told that they could

493
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: send a money order to a PO box in Hayden Lake,

494
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: Idaho for some quote good news, and they'd receive in

495
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: return an updated list of celebrities who had contracted HIV.

496
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: An announcement towards the end of the newsletter recommends subscribing

497
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: to a new publication from Canada's Heritage Front. That's a

498
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: bit of foreshadowing for Dennis. In nineteen ninety three, he

499
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: would try to visit the publication's author, both gung T,

500
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: but the Canadian government intercepted him at the airport and

501
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: deported him. Not long after Jennis Mahon's tour of Germany,

502
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: his host, Carson Sepanski attacked a schoolteacher from Nigeria at

503
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: a nightclub in Brandenburg. He and nearly a dozen others

504
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: surrounded the man, kicking and punching him until he lost consciousness.

505
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: When a waitress tried to intervene, one of the men said,

506
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: we'll kill him. He's not human anyway, and as the

507
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: beating escalated, Sepanski reportedly tried to get a chant of

508
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: Ku klux Klan Ku klux Klan going. As the punches landed.

509
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: They dragged the man outside and tried to set him

510
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: on fire, but his coat wouldn't catch. They threw him,

511
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: unconscious into a nearby lake instead. An employee from the

512
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: nightclub was able to pull him out of the water

513
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: before he drowned, but the man was in a coma

514
00:33:56,200 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: for days. It was while he was in prison for

515
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: this attempted murder that Carston Sepansky became an informant for

516
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: the German police. When he was called to testify in

517
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen in the trial for the National Socialist Underground murders,

518
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 1: he was asked about that cross burning in nineteen ninety one,

519
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: he agreed that the point had been to spread fear.

520
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety two, Dennis Mayhon was living in Tulsa,

521
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: and he tried his hand at politics again, despite the

522
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: abject failure to even get any attention when he ran

523
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: for aldermen in Northmore a few years earlier. Dennis was

524
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: one of nearly sixty people who threw his hat into

525
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: the ring for the special election after Tulsa Mayor Roger

526
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: Randall resigned in nineteen ninety two. He didn't win, obviously.

527
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 1: The county GOP chair said the Republican Party will do

528
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: anything and everything to distance itself from the message this

529
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: particular candidate has, adding that it was obvious that Mayhan

530
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: was only running to get a platform to read his

531
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: message of Aryan resistance. He's in the paper a few

532
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 1: other times that year, mostly related to his efforts to

533
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: recruit new members to a clan chapter in Madison, Wisconsin,

534
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: of all places. He set up a diala racist hotline

535
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: up there to aid in those efforts, and for some reason,

536
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: the Capital Times newspaper in Madison published lengthy excerpts from

537
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: the recorded messages, slurs and all. He also received a

538
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: cease and desist letter from an attorney representing the company

539
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 1: that owns the rights to the Garfield comic strip after

540
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: he published an issue of The White Beret with the

541
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 1: cartoon cat on the cover. The newspaper doesn't say what

542
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 1: Garfield was doing, but I'd be willing to stake at

543
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: least ten bucks that it's a picture of Garfield wearing

544
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: a clan robe or giving a Nazi salute, or something

545
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: distasteful like that. Those articles in Wisconsin quote a local

546
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: man who disputes genesis claim that the dial of racist

547
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 1: hotline was getting a lot of call. You can't really

548
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: take him in his word, considering he told the paper

549
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: that he wasn't a member of any hate groups, despite

550
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 1: the fact that he was running the Clan hotline out

551
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: of his home. But he says he's only received about

552
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: a dozen calls in total, which is a far cry

553
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,399
Speaker 1: from the hundreds per week that Maehon was boasting about.

554
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 1: So maybe the Nila Rasis hot line wasn't a phenomenally

555
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: effective recruitment tool. But we do know at least one

556
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: person whose entire life changed after she called Dennis's hotline.

557
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Carol Howe got hurt. She would

558
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: later claim that she'd been pushed off a building by

559
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: a gang of black men. Other versions of the story

560
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 1: have her jumping off a roof to escape, but still

561
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: she's claiming it's because she was being chased by these

562
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: mysterious and frightening black men, conjuring the ultimate boogeyman in

563
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,840
Speaker 1: the mind of the racist, a beautiful white woman coming

564
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 1: to harm at the hands of black men. This is

565
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 1: her origin story. She told this version of events to

566
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: explain why she became a Nazi, and this is the

567
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 1: version of Carol's story that exists almost everywhere. Even sources

568
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: that note that you should view this with some skepticism

569
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: don't offer any alternative explanation for Carol Howe's broken feet,

570
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,439
Speaker 1: and those were real. She was on crutches for most

571
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:42,839
Speaker 1: of that year. In an audible original miniseries published last year,

572
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 1: investigative journalist John Ronson finally solved this mystery. Carol Howe's

573
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: ex husband, Gregg, explains to Ronson in an interview that

574
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: they'd been drinking in a public park around Easter of

575
00:37:56,920 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. A local Catholic church was putting on

576
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: their annual Passion play in the park, so there was

577
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: a bit of set dressing set up. They saw a

578
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: group of kids climbing the scenery and jumping off of it,

579
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 1: and Carol thought it looked fun, so she tried it,

580
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: but she landed badly, breaking bones in both of her feet.

581
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: Greg doesn't specify exactly what it was that Carol jumped

582
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: off of, just that it was something set up in

583
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: the park for the Passion play. A Passion play, if

584
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: you're not familiar, depicts the story of the crucifixion and

585
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: resurrection of Jesus Christ. I've never been to a live

586
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: Passion play, so I can't tell you with ironclad certainty

587
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: what the most common pieces of set decoration might be

588
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:50,720
Speaker 1: if you were to put one on in a public park.

589
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: But the only thing I can think of that would

590
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 1: be big enough to jump off of and hurt yourself

591
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: like that is the cross itself. So the question I'm

592
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: asking myself is, did Carol Howe break her feet drunkenly

593
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 1: jumping off of a cross? Is her racist origin story

594
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: of white victimhood and martyrdom just a cover for goofing

595
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: off on a giant cross? Because that would be very funny.

596
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: If you grew up in Tulsa and you ever went

597
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: to the Easter pageant at Chandler Park, do let me

598
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: know what you think. Carol jumped off of After her injury,

599
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: Carol Howe didn't leave the house for weeks. She had

600
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: to have surgery to repair the damage to her feet,

601
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: and Greg says her doctor's prescribed her any kind of

602
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: pills she asked for, so she laid in bed all day,

603
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: taking pain pills and calling in to the dial a

604
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: racist hotline to listen to the messages. And after a

605
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: few weeks of doing this, she decided she needed to

606
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 1: meet the man whose voice she had been listening to

607
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: every day. They spoke on the phone a few times

608
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: before meeting in a restaurant in Tulsa. Carol left her

609
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: husband soon after. Carol Howe was twenty years younger than

610
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: Denis Mayhon, and if you ignore the giant swastika tattoo,

611
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: she was very beautiful. She was the daughter of a

612
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: very wealthy man and had been a debutante in Tulsa.

613
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon told John Ronson that he really did try

614
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 1: not to fall in love with Carol. He saw a

615
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: lot of potential in her. He wanted to mold her

616
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: into the perfect mouthpiece for the movement. She was a

617
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: beautiful and intelligent young woman, educated and well spoken. He

618
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: wanted to get her on TV. After he showed her

619
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: how to make bombs, they set some off in the

620
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 1: woods together. Dennis said she was so thrilled by the

621
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 1: explosions that they had sex immediately, but the relationship soured quickly.

622
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: In August, just four months after they met, Carol went

623
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 1: to the courthouse in Tulsa to take out a restraining

624
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: order against him. She'd gone to the police after he

625
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: raped her, she says, and then he started leaving her

626
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,840
Speaker 1: threatening messages, saying if she pulled away from the movement,

627
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: he'd have to neutralize her. And he really did leave

628
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: Carol how threatening messages. In August of nineteen ninety four,

629
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: John Ronson was able to get access to some of those,

630
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: and they're included in that audible miniseries. But two weeks

631
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,439
Speaker 1: after she filed for the restraining order, she didn't show

632
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: up to court for the hearing, so the judge dismissed

633
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: the petition, and that was okay with Carol. She was

634
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: ready to get close to Dennis again, but not because

635
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 1: she'd forgiven him for sexually assaulting her. Two days after

636
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 1: she reported the assault, she was approached by agents from

637
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The next time

638
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 1: she saw Dennis, Carol Howe was an ATF informant. By

639
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: this time, Dennis was already a fixture around a little

640
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: spot out in the country about two hours southeast of

641
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: the city. He was still living in Tulsa, but for

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Speaker 1: a few years now he'd been spending weekends down there

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Speaker 1: in his airstream trailer. And in nineteen ninety four Dennis

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Speaker 1: Mahon and Carol Howe started spending a lot more time

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Speaker 1: together down in Elleheim City. And that I'm afraid is

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Speaker 1: a story you'll have to come back for. Wee Little

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Speaker 1: Guys as a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: It's research, written and recorded by me, Molly Conger. Special

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Speaker 1: thanks this episode goes to doctor Michelle Kahn for pointing

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Speaker 1: me in the direction of Carston Spanski. Most of the

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Speaker 1: material about his relationship with Dennis Mahon was in German

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Speaker 1: and I would not have been able to find it

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Speaker 1: without his name as a starting point, So thank you, Michelle.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Lettterman and Robert Evans. The

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Speaker 1: show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The

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Speaker 1: theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can email

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Speaker 1: me at Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com.

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Speaker 1: I will definitely read it, but I probably will not

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Speaker 1: answer it. It's nothing personal. You can exchange conspiracy theories

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Speaker 1: about the show. We have their listeners on the Weird

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Speaker 1: Little Guy Supred Hit. Just don't post anything that's going

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Speaker 1: to make you one of my Weird Little Guys