Speaker 1: Coo Zone Media. There was a little bit of snow
Speaker 1: on the ground as Rebecca Williams pulled her rental car
Speaker 1: up to a padlocked gate at the end of a
Speaker 1: gravel driveway near Big Sugar Creek State Park in southwest Missouri.
Speaker 1: She was already three years into living as Becca Stevens,
Speaker 1: an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
Speaker 1: so she was no stranger to strange conversations with dangerous men.
Speaker 1: But she was flying without an Nette this time. The
Speaker 1: AGF agents were sending her in alone.
Speaker 2: They were very.
Speaker 1: Curious about what was going on at this two hundred
Speaker 1: acre compound in the Ozarks, but they couldn't get close.
Speaker 1: The area was so remote they wouldn't even be able
Speaker 1: to listen in during her visit, and wearing a wire
Speaker 1: was out of the question. Anyway. She'd be dead before
Speaker 1: the agents reached that locked gate if she was found out.
Speaker 1: Before she left her briefing that morning, an ATF agent
Speaker 1: clipped a small recording device to her keychain and tied
Speaker 1: a bright pink ribbon in her hair. The ribbon was
Speaker 1: so they could see her on aerial surveillance. They said
Speaker 1: it was January of two thousand and eight, when Rebecca
Speaker 1: visited that Missouri compound owned by Robert Joe's. He chatted
Speaker 1: idly about bomb making as he gave her a tour
Speaker 1: of his property, pointing out hidden entrances to the caves
Speaker 1: where he stored caches of weapons and survival foods. He
Speaker 1: told her that if anybody ever betrayed his confidence, they'd
Speaker 1: just disappear into one of those caves. As the ice
Speaker 1: crunched softly under her boots in the woods, Rebecca wondered
Speaker 1: if that pink ribbon in her hair was only there
Speaker 1: to help identify her body. This was her first of
Speaker 1: several visits with Robert Joe's, a man preaching a dangerous
Speaker 1: mix of apocalyptic Christianity and sovereign citizen anti government extremism
Speaker 1: from his compound in the Ozarks. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: of his followers shot a Missouri state trooper who had
Speaker 1: arrested Jo's on a misdemeanor charge. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: the morning a bomb went off inside the Office of
Speaker 1: Diversity and Dialog in Scottsdale, Arizona, Robert Joe's was the
Speaker 1: first person the bomber called, and it was that bomber
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon who had introduced Rebecca to Robert Joe's as
Speaker 1: Becca Stevens. She'd developed a close friendship with Dennis Mayhon
Speaker 1: and his twin brother Daniel, so close, in fact, that
Speaker 1: Dennis had fallen desperately in love with her. He begged
Speaker 1: her to let his twin brother impregnate her. He was impotent,
Speaker 1: but he reasoned that if his identical twin got her pregnant,
Speaker 1: the resulting baby would still be his biological child. Over
Speaker 1: the years on this undercover assignment, the brothers had told
Speaker 1: her on several occasions that if things ever got bad
Speaker 1: for them, this is where they would go. They could
Speaker 1: hole up in those caves where no one would ever
Speaker 1: find them. Rebecca Williams was not the first ATF informant
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon had fallen in love with. It was his
Speaker 1: relationship with Carol Howe, a Tulsa debutante turned Nazi turned
Speaker 1: in foremant turned Nazi again that inspired ATF agent Tristan
Speaker 1: Morland to hire an exotic dancer to woo Mayhon into
Speaker 1: confessing to that two thousand and four bombing in Arizona.
Speaker 1: But unlike Carol Howe's testimony about Mahon's possible ties to
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing. Rebecca's work paid off. She put
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon in federal prison for building a bomb. I'm
Speaker 1: Molly Conger, and this is weird, little guys. When we
Speaker 1: left off last week, it was nineteen ninety. Dennis Mayhon
Speaker 1: was leading a clan splinter group called the White Knights
Speaker 1: of the Ku Klux Klan, and he was Tom Metzker's
Speaker 1: right hand man in the White Arean Resistance. After spending
Speaker 1: most of the nineteen eighties underground years he spent by
Speaker 1: his own account, carrying out minor acts of terror for
Speaker 1: the clan, bombing federal office buildings, abortion clinics, and synagogues.
Speaker 1: He'd emerged as a figure of some importance in the clan.
Speaker 1: He'd just won a legal battle against the city council
Speaker 1: in Kansas City over his right to broadcast a public
Speaker 1: access television show called Klansas City Cable, and public access
Speaker 1: television wasn't the only medium the White Knights of the
Speaker 1: KKK were using to reach people in Missouri. Mayhon's fondness
Speaker 1: for telephone hotlines will come up again a bit later.
Speaker 1: He was known to run a dial a racist operation.
Speaker 1: It's not an uncommon tactic, particularly in the pre internet days.
Speaker 1: Someone with a message she wants to get out can
Speaker 1: set up a voicemail box and pass out flyers or
Speaker 1: business cards with the phone number on it. Interested party
Speaker 1: call the number and listen to the recording. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like a private on demand radio show. The original
Speaker 1: podcast I guess it came up in the Very Black
Speaker 1: episodes back in October two. Black's clan hotline was used
Speaker 1: for clan announcements about upcoming events. But in October of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, Dennis Mayhon wasn't handing out his clan hotline
Speaker 1: number to white guys at bars that he hoped to
Speaker 1: recruit his organization. He was targeting children. According to his
Speaker 1: statement from the director of the Kansas City YWCA, students
Speaker 1: at area elementary and middle schools were given a number
Speaker 1: to call to hear a message from the host of
Speaker 1: a popular children's television show. Nothing I could find elaborated
Speaker 1: on that at all. It's unclear if flyers had been
Speaker 1: posted at or near schools or playgrounds, or if someone
Speaker 1: had actually physically approached elementary schoolers with this material. Either
Speaker 1: possibility unsettling, but however, they got it. The children called
Speaker 1: a number to hear a message from the host of
Speaker 1: Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Mister Rogers himself after a tiny rendition
Speaker 1: of the theme song from the TV show. The children
Speaker 1: did not hear the warm, familiar voice of Fred Rogers. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was a clansman imitating his voice and mannerisms, delivering
Speaker 1: a foul message of bigotry. In one message, this false
Speaker 1: mister Rogers mocks gay people, calling aid's divine retribution from
Speaker 1: God to punish them. In another, the voice tells a
Speaker 1: story about a young black boy on a playground. The
Speaker 1: message is riddled with racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and
Speaker 1: the story ends with the description of the little boy
Speaker 1: being lynched. It's a horrifying thought that a child would
Speaker 1: hear that at all, But if you're old enough to
Speaker 1: have watched Mister Rogers Neighborhood TV when you were a kid,
Speaker 1: you know that adds a whole extra layer to this.
Speaker 1: The show ran for over thirty years from the late
Speaker 1: sixties until two thousand and one. Generations of kids loved
Speaker 1: and trusted mister Rogers. The show talked to kids like
Speaker 1: they were people, tackling difficult subjects gently and in a
Speaker 1: way that was appropriate for preschoolers and older kids alike.
Speaker 1: Often through song, mister Rogers talked to kids about divorce, death, anger, grief,
Speaker 1: and friendship. And even if you've never seen the show,
Speaker 1: you've surely heard one of his more enduring lessons to
Speaker 1: look for the helpers, telling kids in uncertain times. When
Speaker 1: I was a boy and I would see scary things
Speaker 1: in the news, my mother would say to me, look
Speaker 1: for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't afraid to make waves in his own
Speaker 1: gentle way. In nineteen sixty nine, when public swimming pools
Speaker 1: in much of the country were still segregated in practice,
Speaker 1: if not by law, mister Rogers shared a waiting pool
Speaker 1: with Francois Clemons, one of the first African American actors
Speaker 1: to have a recurring role on a children's TV show.
Speaker 2: Oh there's offscer Clemens, high offser clements.
Speaker 1: Come in.
Speaker 2: How are you mine?
Speaker 3: Won't you sit down?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Sure, just for a moment.
Speaker 2: It's so warm. I was just putting some water on
Speaker 2: my feet.
Speaker 3: Oh it sure is.
Speaker 2: Would you like to join me?
Speaker 3: It looks often enjoyable. But I don't have a towel
Speaker 3: or anything. Oh, you share mine? Okay, sure, I lie,
Speaker 3: I'll put some more water in here.
Speaker 1: Oh. Without mentioning race or segregation at all, Fred Rogers
Speaker 1: showed kids that there was nothing unusual about cooling off
Speaker 1: on a hot day with a friend whose skin isn't
Speaker 1: the same color as yours. The episode aired shortly after
Speaker 1: the show began filming in color, and the camera zooms
Speaker 1: in close on their bare feet, black and white, side
Speaker 1: by side in the blue wading pool. It doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like much now, but it was a significant barrier to
Speaker 1: break on TV in nineteen sixty nine. All that to say,
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers was probably very upset when he heard children
Speaker 1: were hearing hateful words in his voice. Within days of
Speaker 1: the story reaching the media, mister Rogers himself had filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against the clan. There was a press conference
Speaker 1: in Kansas City on a Friday afternoon, with local civil
Speaker 1: rights groups and faith leaders condemning the messages, and by
Speaker 1: Monday morning, an army of entertainment lawyers had descended on
Speaker 1: the Federal Court House in Kansas City. The ACLU didn't
Speaker 1: rush to the clan's defense. This time they were on
Speaker 1: their own. Had the Klan not used the theme song
Speaker 1: from Mister Rogers Neighborhood, this may have dragged on and
Speaker 1: become another battle over free speech. But the suit wasn't
Speaker 1: about the vile and offensive content of the messages. It
Speaker 1: was about copyright infringement. You can trick children into hearing
Speaker 1: violent racist propaganda, but you can't mess with the corporation's
Speaker 1: intellectual property. Klansman Edward Stevens, Fourth, Adam Troy Mercer, and
Speaker 1: Michael Brooks settled almost immediately. Dennis Mayhon wasn't sued by name,
Speaker 1: but he signed the settlement agreement as the representative for
Speaker 1: the White Knights. The court ordered the men to destroy
Speaker 1: all copies of the tapes they'd used to record and
Speaker 1: disseminate the messages. Not long after making that trip to
Speaker 1: the Federal court House in Kansas City to sign the paperwork,
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon appeared again in federal court, but this time
Speaker 1: it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it wasn't for his
Speaker 1: own case. He took the stand as a character witness
Speaker 1: at a detention hearing for a friend. It isn't unusual
Speaker 1: to have someone testify on your behalf at this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. When the government wants to hold someone in
Speaker 1: custody before they go to trial, all party involved appear
Speaker 1: before a judge and make their case. The government explains
Speaker 1: why they think pretrialed attention is necessary, whether because they
Speaker 1: believe the defendant will fail to show up for court
Speaker 1: or because there's a significant chance they'll commit another crime,
Speaker 1: and the defendant's lawyer may put on a parent or
Speaker 1: an employer to vouch for him, offering testimony about their
Speaker 1: ties to the community, their responsibilities at home and work,
Speaker 1: and things like that. I'm not a lawyer. We've been
Speaker 1: over that, so maybe there's a strategy here that I'm
Speaker 1: just not getting. But if I were choosing character witnesses
Speaker 1: to convince a judge that I'm not a danger to
Speaker 1: the community, I wouldn't pick a prominent leader of the
Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan. But that's just me though, because Daniel
Speaker 1: Rouche did. When Dennis took the stand in December of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, he called Daniel Ruche quote the most honorable,
Speaker 1: non violent, decent young man I've ever met in my life,
Speaker 1: and he said his friend probably would prefer not to
Speaker 1: live around minorities, but quote, I don't think he'd hurt them.
Speaker 1: Daniel Rouge was one of fifteen members of a Nazi
Speaker 1: skinhead group arrested in Oklahoma in nineteen ninety on hate
Speaker 1: crime charges. For years, the skinheads had been harassing patrons
Speaker 1: at Club Nitro, a punk club in Tulsa owned by
Speaker 1: Khaled Rahal, a Lebanese immigrant. In nineteen eighty nine, they
Speaker 1: waited in the parking lot until the bar closed and
Speaker 1: attacked Rahl, beating him with a brick. A month later,
Speaker 1: they set fire to the club with Molotov cocktails. Later
Speaker 1: that year, Rush and at least a dozen others jumped
Speaker 1: a patron in the parking lot, kicking him with their
Speaker 1: steel toed boots until the teenager lost consciousness. This particular act,
Speaker 1: a group assault with a heavy emphasis on kicking the
Speaker 1: victim in the head, is called a boot party, and
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who likes to have a boot
Speaker 1: party is sometimes called a boot boy, which is why
Speaker 1: Rouge's band was called the Midtown boot Boys, a name
Speaker 1: you may remember from last week. The Midtown boot Boys
Speaker 1: were the headline act at Aaryan Fest nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: that racist woodstock that Tom Metzger held on a farm
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. And it turns out that concert in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight wasn't a one off thing. When I mentioned
Speaker 1: it last week, it was really just because I saw
Speaker 1: it in an old issue of Metzger's newsletter, and I
Speaker 1: thought the name was funny. I didn't expect to spend
Speaker 1: all week learning about an OI band from Oklahoma, But
Speaker 1: apparently Metzger was a huge supporter of the Midtown boot Boys.
Speaker 1: A year after that inaugural riyan Fest, Metzger invited them
Speaker 1: to headline an event he was calling aryan Woodstock in Napa, California.
Speaker 1: The event ended a day early due to poor attendance
Speaker 1: and cold, and the band played Arianfest again a few
Speaker 1: months later. In nineteen eighty nine, issues of Metzger's White
Speaker 1: Arian Resistance newsletter offered the band's tapes for sale. In
Speaker 1: his cultural history of the Skinhead movement, professor Jack Moore
Speaker 1: describes a nineteen eighty eight recording of Metzger hawking the
Speaker 1: tapes in one of his weekly addresses, writing that Metzger
Speaker 1: sounds hopelessly square when he describes the album as a
Speaker 1: hot tape. A local paper in Tulsa noted in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight that the Midtown boot Boys weren't just a
Speaker 1: punk band. They were the center of skinhead organizing and
Speaker 1: recruitment in the Tulsa area, and the skinheads they rolled
Speaker 1: with called themselves war Skins, denoting their affiliation with Metzgers
Speaker 1: White Arian resistance. That article refers to the local skinhead
Speaker 1: leader as a man named Rip, which was the pseudonym
Speaker 1: used by Daniel Rusche. The Oklahoma Separatist, a racist magazine
Speaker 1: published by Oklahoma clansman Joe Grego, named Daniel Rusche Racist
Speaker 1: of the Month in their July nineteen eighty eight issue,
Speaker 1: offering praise for his music, artwork, and propensity for violence.
Speaker 2: Rip works diligently in the field of skinhead recruiting. He
Speaker 2: is a longtime veteran of the Tulsa streets and is
Speaker 2: well known for his hard driven lifestyle. Rip support of
Speaker 2: the KKK War and the Aryan Nations have been exemplary,
Speaker 2: and yes, girls, he is a single man. We feel
Speaker 2: that his example is a fine one for others to follow.
Speaker 1: This mentioned in nineteen eighty eight of Ruche being a
Speaker 1: skinhead organizer who is also active in the Clan whit
Speaker 1: Aan resistance and the Aryan Nations is fascinating. You might
Speaker 1: just slide right over a description like that, lots of
Speaker 1: guys are in more than one hate group, what's so
Speaker 1: special about that? But this is unique, This silly little
Speaker 1: racist of the Month column actually captures a turning point
Speaker 1: in the movement. Tiffany Travis's History of the American Skinhead
Speaker 1: Movement notes that skinheads in Tulsa were the first to
Speaker 1: openly affiliate with paramilitary groups and the Aryan Nations. She
Speaker 1: doesn't name the Midtown boot Boys in particular, but she's
Speaker 1: talking about Tulsa in nineteen eighty eight. She's talking about
Speaker 1: Daniel Rusche. In nineteen eighty seven. Tom Metzker started trying
Speaker 1: to organize skinheads in California. The first chapter of War
Speaker 1: Skins started out there in nineteen eighty seven, and a
Speaker 1: year later we're seeing these local news reports in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: about Tulsa's Skins calling themselves war Skins. Travis's book credits
Speaker 1: Metzker as being the first big name white supremacist to
Speaker 1: embrace the potential of skinhead culture and welcome them into
Speaker 1: the movement. Metzger has quoted saying, I give them guidance
Speaker 1: on the law to stay out of trouble, and I
Speaker 1: give them our ideology. They have their own subculture and
Speaker 1: tampering with it would destroy it. Metzger helped skinhead groups
Speaker 1: set up post office boxes to use for recruitment and
Speaker 1: networking with other racist organizations, and he set up White
Speaker 1: Arean resistance phone lines in their cities. By the late eighties,
Speaker 1: leaderless resistance was the name of the game, and Metzger
Speaker 1: thought he could use Race's skinheads to his advantage. They
Speaker 1: would spread his message, attract rowdy, youthful audiences he could
Speaker 1: recruit from, and they would carry out acts of racist
Speaker 1: violence that wouldn't trace directly back to him. He quickly
Speaker 1: realized he'd made a mistake, though, In nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: war Skins in Portland murder Mulagetta Sarah. By nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: war Skins in California, Texas, and Oklahoma were committing hate
Speaker 1: crimes at an alarming rate, and the FBI was starting
Speaker 1: to round them up. He'd been trying to quietly extricate
Speaker 1: himself from the skinhead movement when a lawsuit brought by
Speaker 1: Mulagetta Sara's family took him for everything. He had a
Speaker 1: jury in Oregon didn't buy the leaderless resistance defense. Travis's
Speaker 1: book attributes this effort to organized skinheads directly to Metzger personally,
Speaker 1: and that's fair, it's accurate. It was being done at
Speaker 1: his direction, and when it started in California, he had
Speaker 1: a personal role in it. But the person actually directly
Speaker 1: responsible for organizing the Skins in Oklahoma was almost certainly
Speaker 1: Metzger's Midwest lieutenant Dennis Mayhon. By nineteen ninety, Dennis Mayhon
Speaker 1: had moved to Catusa, just outside of Tulsa, and all sudden,
Speaker 1: the local skinheads have ties to the clan, the Aryan
Speaker 1: Nations and White Aryan Resistance, just like Dennis. And when
Speaker 1: Tulsa's Skinheads got rounded up by the FBI, there's Dennis
Speaker 1: on the witness stand, testifying that he'd been friends with
Speaker 1: Daniel Rouge for years. In his own newsletter later that month,
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon said he was organizing local clansmen to sell
Speaker 1: their guns to raise money for Ruche's defense, but there
Speaker 1: would be no defense. Despite Dennis Mayhan's confident statements to
Speaker 1: the press that the case was pure persecution of the
Speaker 1: skinheads for their beliefs. Daniel Rushe entered a guilty plea
Speaker 1: in January nineteen ninety one and was sentenced to forty
Speaker 1: two months with time served in good behavior. He was
Speaker 1: released in November of nineteen ninety three. Unfortunately for the
Speaker 1: Midtown boot Boys, though they only got their basist back.
Speaker 1: The band's vocalist, Christopher Jones, received a slightly longer sentence,
Speaker 1: and he had to serve time for an assault brought
Speaker 1: by the state of Oklahoma first. One of the other
Speaker 1: skinheads sentenced alongside them, a man named Michael Lewis Lawrence,
Speaker 1: was given nine years on top of the four years
Speaker 1: he was already serving in Texas for a separate hate
Speaker 1: crimes case involving skinheads in Dallas. When Lawrence went to
Speaker 1: trial in Texas, one of his co conspirators testified that
Speaker 1: they had been attempting to re enact Christallnacht on the
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the nineteen thirty eight pograms in Germany.
Speaker 1: When the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions
Speaker 1: in the Texas case, the opinion notes that Aryanfest eighty
Speaker 1: eight was a pivotal moment writing. After defendants attended an
Speaker 1: Aryan fest in June nineteen eighty eight, during which various
Speaker 1: speakers encouraged skinhead groups to become the backbone and foot
Speaker 1: soldiers of the white supremacist movement, the group became more
Speaker 1: determined to use violence to achieve its philosophical objectives. That
Speaker 1: speaker was Tom Metzker. At that hearing in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: to determine if Daniel Rouge could be granted bond on
Speaker 1: charges of racially motivated assault, he admitted to the judge
Speaker 1: that he had written the lyrics quote throw a boot
Speaker 1: party for the left wing commie scum end quote we
Speaker 1: find a drunken n word and beat him black and blue,
Speaker 1: lyrics that do describe the crimes he's accused of. From
Speaker 1: what I can piece together of the band's discography, the
Speaker 1: track Tulsa Tonight, which seems to describe the crimes half
Speaker 1: the band went to prison for, was actually recorded after
Speaker 1: they served their time An Me Die Tonight.
Speaker 3: Their streets are off, shined up light to find the
Speaker 3: streets up all night, shine up light to find all
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 1: I may be a bit prejudiced in my assessment of
Speaker 1: the band's music in part because the lyrics are violently racist,
Speaker 1: but also I'm just not a huge fan of OI music,
Speaker 1: this particular subgenre of punk. It all kind of sounds
Speaker 1: the same to me. I watched several hours of footage
Speaker 1: from aran Fest nineteen eighty eight and nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I couldn't actually tell which of the acts
Speaker 1: was the Midtown boot Boys because they all sound the
Speaker 1: same to me. Track listings for their tapes show songs
Speaker 1: with titles like blood Will Run and Downright Hateful. When
Speaker 1: Hitler's deputy fear Rudolph hess died, they honored him with
Speaker 1: a song called sleep Well Rudolph Hesse, and they praised
Speaker 1: the crimes of the Nazi terrorist group The Order in
Speaker 1: their song Free the Order. The band had to go
Speaker 1: on hiatus in nineteen ninety one because Daniel Ruche, the bassist,
Speaker 1: and Christopher Jones, the vocalist, both went to prison after
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to civil rights violations and hate crimes. When
Speaker 1: Rouche got out in nineteen ninety three, he and the drummer,
Speaker 1: a man named Stacy, started a metal band called Berserker,
Speaker 1: playing under that name until getting the Midtown boot Boys
Speaker 1: back together. When Jones was released in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: It's not completely clear when Stacy became the band's drummer,
Speaker 1: but it must have been after their previous drummer testified
Speaker 1: against the Skinheads in Texas. As of twenty thirteen, Christopher
Speaker 1: Jones owed Daniel Ruche's sister more than sixteen thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in child support, and I can't find any information about
Speaker 1: whether or not her restraining order against Jones impacted the
Speaker 1: band at all. It really was a family affair, though.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Daniel Rusche got out of prison, he married
Speaker 1: Boot Boy's guitar as Tony Loretti's sister. But this is
Speaker 1: an episode about Dennis Mayhon, and I don't think Dennis
Speaker 1: Mayhon was ever in a punk band. In footage of
Speaker 1: the Midtown boot Boys set at arian Fest nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: the camera pans slowly over a solidly middle aged looking
Speaker 1: Dennis bobbing his head slightly offbeat. I couldn't find the
Speaker 1: end of this thread, but it seems like Dennis Mahon
Speaker 1: didn't stay friends with the Skinheads forever. An article published
Speaker 1: by the Southern Poverty Law Center in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: makes a passing mention of the time that Dennis Mayhon
Speaker 1: was beaten and stabbed by a group of skinheads in Georgia,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't say when that happened. In nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: a young race assist in Germany wrote Dennis Mayhan a letter.
Speaker 1: Carston Sepanski was a twenty year old skinhead from Berlin.
Speaker 1: He was sharing an apartment with Andreas Pohl, a Nazi
Speaker 1: skinhead who'd spent most of the eighties as the drummer
Speaker 1: in one of Germany's oldest skinhead bands, Kraft der Freude,
Speaker 1: and by the early nineties Pohl was leading the German
Speaker 1: neo Nazi group Nationalist Front. It's not clear in any
Speaker 1: of the sources I could find exactly how Sepanski came
Speaker 1: to write to Mahon, but it's possible that Pole's connections
Speaker 1: with skinhead bands in Britain and the United States played
Speaker 1: a part. Soon after they began exchanging letters, Sepanski began
Speaker 1: publishing a clan style newsletter called Dos Feuerkreutz or The
Speaker 1: Fiery Cross. It had a bit of original material information
Speaker 1: about immigrants in Germany that would be of interest to
Speaker 1: a German neo Nazi, but it was almost entirely just
Speaker 1: translated articles taken from Dennis Mayhan's clan newsletter called The
Speaker 1: White Beret. This wasn't the first time American clan influence
Speaker 1: had reached Germany, but most of the earlier hotspots of
Speaker 1: clan activity in Germany connect back to American service members
Speaker 1: stationed at US military bases there. In the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: the spokesman for the clan in Germany was a U.
Speaker 1: S Army officer stationed in Bavaria. In the early eighties,
Speaker 1: the leader of the clan in Germany was an American
Speaker 1: Air Force sergeant named Murray Cockel. But in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one there was a new clan in town. In April
Speaker 1: of that year, two hundred Neo Nazisan skinheads arrived in
Speaker 1: the German town of Hereford. They were there to celebrate
Speaker 1: Hitler's birthday. A few months later, three teenagers were arrested
Speaker 1: Innuenrata for throwing rocks at a building that was home
Speaker 1: to Turkish and Albanian immigrants. Police confiscated pistols and Molotov cocktails,
Speaker 1: and one of them had stickers in his pocket bearing
Speaker 1: recruitment information for a clan chapter in Bielefeld. The Beilafeld
Speaker 1: chapter seems to have been under the direction of bern Schmidt,
Speaker 1: but in Berlin Carston Sepanski was calling himself the Grand
Speaker 1: Dragon of the German White Knights of the ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen ninety one, there were more
Speaker 1: than two hundred arson attacks targeting immigrants in Germany, focused
Speaker 1: mainly on housing facilities for asylum seekers. The attacks culminated
Speaker 1: in the Heierz Verda riots in September, after a group
Speaker 1: of young Neo Nazis was arrested for attacking a Vietnamese
Speaker 1: street vendor. The group retaliated by attacking a hostel that
Speaker 1: housed Mozambicon contract workers. Over the next week, the violence escalated.
Speaker 1: An apartment building that housed asylum seekers was bombed. The
Speaker 1: German government responded by evacuating all of the asylum seekers
Speaker 1: in Heuierz Verde. Other immigrants left on their own, no
Speaker 1: longer feeling safe from the town the racist had won.
Speaker 1: They declared hoyersvada ouslander fry free of foreigners. The violence
Speaker 1: was contagious. It wasn't just happening in heuers Verde, and
Speaker 1: the days that followed hundreds of Romanians fled Leipzig. A
Speaker 1: dozen Neo Nazis were arrested in Hereford after bombing several
Speaker 1: cars outside of a home for asylum seekers. A Ghanian
Speaker 1: man was burned to death in saw Louis when his
Speaker 1: apartment was firebombed. And that's what was happening in Germany.
Speaker 1: When Denis Mahon got off a plane in Frankfurt, he
Speaker 1: took a nine day, twenty five city tour of Germany
Speaker 1: at the end of September of nineteen ninety one, at
Speaker 1: the invitation of Carston Sepanski. After visiting the Reichstag building
Speaker 1: in Berlin, Dennis said, quote, it was very inspiring to
Speaker 1: walk up the same steps that Adolf Hitler walked up.
Speaker 1: When Mahon mced a cross burning an hour south of Berlin,
Speaker 1: the heiers Verda riots were on going. As the cross burned,
Speaker 1: he told the assembled crowd of a few dozen German
Speaker 1: Neo Nazis that the violence in Heerz Verde was a
Speaker 1: great victory for Germany. He later explained to a reporter
Speaker 1: that the cross burning quote called up the spirits of
Speaker 1: the Vaffiness and the Teutonic Knights. The next day, Carson
Speaker 1: Sepanski drove Dennis Mayhon to Sarbruken, where they attended a
Speaker 1: Screwdriver concert. After the show, he met with Ian Stewart Donaldson,
Speaker 1: the frontman of the Nazi punk band, and gave him
Speaker 1: a white beret, the symbol of Dennis's clan group. I
Speaker 1: did find contemporary reporting about this trip from both American
Speaker 1: and German news outlets. I read accounts of this trip
Speaker 1: in several books and tracked down the sources those authors
Speaker 1: cited and read those two. But the most thorough accounting
Speaker 1: of Dennis Mayhon's trip to Germany was written by Dennis himself.
Speaker 1: After an exhaustive effort to locate issues of his newsletter
Speaker 1: The White Beret, I only found one. I know was
Speaker 1: published for years, from maybe nineteen eighty nine through at
Speaker 1: least nineteen ninety five. But I only found one issue,
Speaker 1: the December nineteen ninety one January nineteen ninety two issue.
Speaker 1: And I didn't find it in a university special collection
Speaker 1: or a library database of old extremist literature. I didn't
Speaker 1: find it on the Internet archive or in some old
Speaker 1: ADL special report. The person who held on to a
Speaker 1: hard copy of this old clan newsletter for three decades
Speaker 1: was Dennis Mayhon's twin brother, Daniel Mayhon, and in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, this issue was among the archival materials that
Speaker 1: Daniel Mayhon provided to an Adam Waffen splinter group that
Speaker 1: was trying to digitize and preserve important artifacts of right
Speaker 1: wing terrorist history. Not to spoil the ending, but Daniel
Speaker 1: Mayhon was arrested and charged in connection with that two
Speaker 1: thousand and four bombing in Arizona, but unlike his brother,
Speaker 1: he was acquitted. Daniel Mayhon is legally speaking, completely innocent.
Speaker 1: He's never been convicted of a crime. So I'm very
Speaker 1: intrigued by this relatively recent contact he seems to have
Speaker 1: had with today's aspiring Nazi terrorists. I wonder how often
Speaker 1: they talk. That lone issue of the White Beret that
Speaker 1: I was able to find goes into great detail about
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon's travels. In September of nineteen ninety one, he
Speaker 1: describes his visit to the site of the Saxenhausen concentration camp,
Speaker 1: writing that he quote had a real laugh at the
Speaker 1: wild stories, and he says that compared to American prisons,
Speaker 1: the work the camp was closer to a Marriott or
Speaker 1: a Hilton. He claims to have urinated on a memorial
Speaker 1: to Holocaust victims that was placed at the site of
Speaker 1: the camp's crematorium. The newsletter also includes an advertisement for
Speaker 1: Bob Matthew's memorial t shirts honoring Robert J. Matthews, the
Speaker 1: leader of the Order who died in a standoff with
Speaker 1: the FBI in nineteen eighty four. The shirts cost just
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars, payable by money order to a man named
Speaker 1: Drew in Ontario. Readers were also told that they could
Speaker 1: send a money order to a PO box in Hayden Lake,
Speaker 1: Idaho for some quote good news, and they'd receive in
Speaker 1: return an updated list of celebrities who had contracted HIV.
Speaker 1: An announcement towards the end of the newsletter recommends subscribing
Speaker 1: to a new publication from Canada's Heritage Front. That's a
Speaker 1: bit of foreshadowing for Dennis. In nineteen ninety three, he
Speaker 1: would try to visit the publication's author, both gung T,
Speaker 1: but the Canadian government intercepted him at the airport and
Speaker 1: deported him. Not long after Jennis Mahon's tour of Germany,
Speaker 1: his host, Carson Sepanski attacked a schoolteacher from Nigeria at
Speaker 1: a nightclub in Brandenburg. He and nearly a dozen others
Speaker 1: surrounded the man, kicking and punching him until he lost consciousness.
Speaker 1: When a waitress tried to intervene, one of the men said,
Speaker 1: we'll kill him. He's not human anyway, and as the
Speaker 1: beating escalated, Sepanski reportedly tried to get a chant of
Speaker 1: Ku klux Klan Ku klux Klan going. As the punches landed.
Speaker 1: They dragged the man outside and tried to set him
Speaker 1: on fire, but his coat wouldn't catch. They threw him,
Speaker 1: unconscious into a nearby lake instead. An employee from the
Speaker 1: nightclub was able to pull him out of the water
Speaker 1: before he drowned, but the man was in a coma
Speaker 1: for days. It was while he was in prison for
Speaker 1: this attempted murder that Carston Sepansky became an informant for
Speaker 1: the German police. When he was called to testify in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen in the trial for the National Socialist Underground murders,
Speaker 1: he was asked about that cross burning in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: he agreed that the point had been to spread fear.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety two, Dennis Mayhon was living in Tulsa,
Speaker 1: and he tried his hand at politics again, despite the
Speaker 1: abject failure to even get any attention when he ran
Speaker 1: for aldermen in Northmore a few years earlier. Dennis was
Speaker 1: one of nearly sixty people who threw his hat into
Speaker 1: the ring for the special election after Tulsa Mayor Roger
Speaker 1: Randall resigned in nineteen ninety two. He didn't win, obviously.
Speaker 1: The county GOP chair said the Republican Party will do
Speaker 1: anything and everything to distance itself from the message this
Speaker 1: particular candidate has, adding that it was obvious that Mayhan
Speaker 1: was only running to get a platform to read his
Speaker 1: message of Aryan resistance. He's in the paper a few
Speaker 1: other times that year, mostly related to his efforts to
Speaker 1: recruit new members to a clan chapter in Madison, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: of all places. He set up a diala racist hotline
Speaker 1: up there to aid in those efforts, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: the Capital Times newspaper in Madison published lengthy excerpts from
Speaker 1: the recorded messages, slurs and all. He also received a
Speaker 1: cease and desist letter from an attorney representing the company
Speaker 1: that owns the rights to the Garfield comic strip after
Speaker 1: he published an issue of The White Beret with the
Speaker 1: cartoon cat on the cover. The newspaper doesn't say what
Speaker 1: Garfield was doing, but I'd be willing to stake at
Speaker 1: least ten bucks that it's a picture of Garfield wearing
Speaker 1: a clan robe or giving a Nazi salute, or something
Speaker 1: distasteful like that. Those articles in Wisconsin quote a local
Speaker 1: man who disputes genesis claim that the dial of racist
Speaker 1: hotline was getting a lot of call. You can't really
Speaker 1: take him in his word, considering he told the paper
Speaker 1: that he wasn't a member of any hate groups, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that he was running the Clan hotline out
Speaker 1: of his home. But he says he's only received about
Speaker 1: a dozen calls in total, which is a far cry
Speaker 1: from the hundreds per week that Maehon was boasting about.
Speaker 1: So maybe the Nila Rasis hot line wasn't a phenomenally
Speaker 1: effective recruitment tool. But we do know at least one
Speaker 1: person whose entire life changed after she called Dennis's hotline.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, Carol Howe got hurt. She would
Speaker 1: later claim that she'd been pushed off a building by
Speaker 1: a gang of black men. Other versions of the story
Speaker 1: have her jumping off a roof to escape, but still
Speaker 1: she's claiming it's because she was being chased by these
Speaker 1: mysterious and frightening black men, conjuring the ultimate boogeyman in
Speaker 1: the mind of the racist, a beautiful white woman coming
Speaker 1: to harm at the hands of black men. This is
Speaker 1: her origin story. She told this version of events to
Speaker 1: explain why she became a Nazi, and this is the
Speaker 1: version of Carol's story that exists almost everywhere. Even sources
Speaker 1: that note that you should view this with some skepticism
Speaker 1: don't offer any alternative explanation for Carol Howe's broken feet,
Speaker 1: and those were real. She was on crutches for most
Speaker 1: of that year. In an audible original miniseries published last year,
Speaker 1: investigative journalist John Ronson finally solved this mystery. Carol Howe's
Speaker 1: ex husband, Gregg, explains to Ronson in an interview that
Speaker 1: they'd been drinking in a public park around Easter of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. A local Catholic church was putting on
Speaker 1: their annual Passion play in the park, so there was
Speaker 1: a bit of set dressing set up. They saw a
Speaker 1: group of kids climbing the scenery and jumping off of it,
Speaker 1: and Carol thought it looked fun, so she tried it,
Speaker 1: but she landed badly, breaking bones in both of her feet.
Speaker 1: Greg doesn't specify exactly what it was that Carol jumped
Speaker 1: off of, just that it was something set up in
Speaker 1: the park for the Passion play. A Passion play, if
Speaker 1: you're not familiar, depicts the story of the crucifixion and
Speaker 1: resurrection of Jesus Christ. I've never been to a live
Speaker 1: Passion play, so I can't tell you with ironclad certainty
Speaker 1: what the most common pieces of set decoration might be
Speaker 1: if you were to put one on in a public park.
Speaker 1: But the only thing I can think of that would
Speaker 1: be big enough to jump off of and hurt yourself
Speaker 1: like that is the cross itself. So the question I'm
Speaker 1: asking myself is, did Carol Howe break her feet drunkenly
Speaker 1: jumping off of a cross? Is her racist origin story
Speaker 1: of white victimhood and martyrdom just a cover for goofing
Speaker 1: off on a giant cross? Because that would be very funny.
Speaker 1: If you grew up in Tulsa and you ever went
Speaker 1: to the Easter pageant at Chandler Park, do let me
Speaker 1: know what you think. Carol jumped off of After her injury,
Speaker 1: Carol Howe didn't leave the house for weeks. She had
Speaker 1: to have surgery to repair the damage to her feet,
Speaker 1: and Greg says her doctor's prescribed her any kind of
Speaker 1: pills she asked for, so she laid in bed all day,
Speaker 1: taking pain pills and calling in to the dial a
Speaker 1: racist hotline to listen to the messages. And after a
Speaker 1: few weeks of doing this, she decided she needed to
Speaker 1: meet the man whose voice she had been listening to
Speaker 1: every day. They spoke on the phone a few times
Speaker 1: before meeting in a restaurant in Tulsa. Carol left her
Speaker 1: husband soon after. Carol Howe was twenty years younger than
Speaker 1: Denis Mayhon, and if you ignore the giant swastika tattoo,
Speaker 1: she was very beautiful. She was the daughter of a
Speaker 1: very wealthy man and had been a debutante in Tulsa.
Speaker 1: Dennis Mayhon told John Ronson that he really did try
Speaker 1: not to fall in love with Carol. He saw a
Speaker 1: lot of potential in her. He wanted to mold her
Speaker 1: into the perfect mouthpiece for the movement. She was a
Speaker 1: beautiful and intelligent young woman, educated and well spoken. He
Speaker 1: wanted to get her on TV. After he showed her
Speaker 1: how to make bombs, they set some off in the
Speaker 1: woods together. Dennis said she was so thrilled by the
Speaker 1: explosions that they had sex immediately, but the relationship soured quickly.
Speaker 1: In August, just four months after they met, Carol went
Speaker 1: to the courthouse in Tulsa to take out a restraining
Speaker 1: order against him. She'd gone to the police after he
Speaker 1: raped her, she says, and then he started leaving her
Speaker 1: threatening messages, saying if she pulled away from the movement,
Speaker 1: he'd have to neutralize her. And he really did leave
Speaker 1: Carol how threatening messages. In August of nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: John Ronson was able to get access to some of those,
Speaker 1: and they're included in that audible miniseries. But two weeks
Speaker 1: after she filed for the restraining order, she didn't show
Speaker 1: up to court for the hearing, so the judge dismissed
Speaker 1: the petition, and that was okay with Carol. She was
Speaker 1: ready to get close to Dennis again, but not because
Speaker 1: she'd forgiven him for sexually assaulting her. Two days after
Speaker 1: she reported the assault, she was approached by agents from
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The next time
Speaker 1: she saw Dennis, Carol Howe was an ATF informant. By
Speaker 1: this time, Dennis was already a fixture around a little
Speaker 1: spot out in the country about two hours southeast of
Speaker 1: the city. He was still living in Tulsa, but for
Speaker 1: a few years now he'd been spending weekends down there
Speaker 1: in his airstream trailer. And in nineteen ninety four Dennis
Speaker 1: Mahon and Carol Howe started spending a lot more time
Speaker 1: together down in Elleheim City. And that I'm afraid is
Speaker 1: a story you'll have to come back for. Wee Little
Speaker 1: Guys as a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It's research, written and recorded by me, Molly Conger. Special
Speaker 1: thanks this episode goes to doctor Michelle Kahn for pointing
Speaker 1: me in the direction of Carston Spanski. Most of the
Speaker 1: material about his relationship with Dennis Mahon was in German
Speaker 1: and I would not have been able to find it
Speaker 1: without his name as a starting point, So thank you, Michelle.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Lettterman and Robert Evans. The
Speaker 1: show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The
Speaker 1: theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can email
Speaker 1: me at Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I will definitely read it, but I probably will not
Speaker 1: answer it. It's nothing personal. You can exchange conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: about the show. We have their listeners on the Weird
Speaker 1: Little Guy Supred Hit. Just don't post anything that's going
Speaker 1: to make you one of my Weird Little Guys